One tends to identify Willa Cather with the West or Midwest, but she was actually born in Virginia of old farming stock. However, as a child she moved with her family to a farm in Nebraska, where the remnants of the old Frontier life left a deep mark on her imagination. Work as a teacher and journalist followed, and she was almost 40 when she became a full time writer with her first novel, Alexander's Bridge. Stocky, plain, emotionally direct, a furious worker who remained human and approachable, she was recognised between the wars as one of America's finest writers and was translated into many languages. Now, fifty years after her death, she has survived the usual interim period of neglect before coming back to her full estate. Cather protected her private life very closely and this biography does not breach her confidence; but there is so much literary analysis - including lengthy dissection of the plots of her books - that it becomes as much an academic study as a biography.