Nebraska

Some claim that My Antonia, the third and final book of Willa Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy, is her finest work. Bohemian immigrant Antonia Shimerda is depicted through the eyes of orphan boy Jim Burden, who comes to live with his grandparents in Nebraska after his own parents have died. My Antonia is meant to be the story of Jim Burden’s life—his remembrance of things past—of the life that he shared with Antonia, her family, and with his grandparents.

O Pioneers!, the first book in Willa Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy, unfolds along the crags and ridges of  rough terrain that is harsh to all those who dwell here. Set in the still uncultivated Nebraska Prairie, the story is told through the lens of young Swedish-American woman Alexandra Bergson who has an uncanny head for business and an even stronger knack for spotting fertile land.