Willa Cather 
One of Ours (Annotated) 

• This edition includes the following editor’s analysis: ‘One of Ours, ‘ a perspective on rural American society in the context of World War I

First published in 1922, “One of Ours” is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novella by Willa Cather, an American author best known for depictions of life in the Great Plains.



This book follows the personal evolution of a young man named Claude Wheeler, dividing his story into two parts: his life on a family farm in Nebraska, and his experiences as a soldier in France during World War I.

Wheeler, the sensitive but aspiring protagonist, has ready access to his family’s fortune but refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his uncaring father and pious mother and rejected by a wife whose only love is missionary work, Claude is an idealist without ideals to cling to. Only when his country enters the Great War does he find the meaning of his life.



Digging into themes of youthful restlessness, the search for meaning, and the sense of purposefulness found in wartime, “One of Ours” is among both Cather’s most well acclaimed and widely criticized works.