Willa Cather 
O Pioneers! (Annotated) 

• This edition includes the following editor’s introduction: Willa Cather, an analysis of the literature of a free and empowered woman

First published in 1913, ‘O Pioneers!” is a regional novel by American author Willa Cather. The novel was written while Cather was living in New York, but it was partially based on her childhood in Nebraska and it reflected the author’s belief in the primacy of spiritual and moral values over the purely material.

‘O Pioneers!” is known for its vivid re-creation of the hardships of prairie life and of the struggle of immigrant pioneer women. The novel is also a celebration of American mythology, an analysis of the human spirit, and an exploration of the human relationship to self and nature.

The title is a reference to a poem by Walt Whitman entitled
Pioneers! O Pioneers! from “Leaves of Grass” (1855).



“O Pioneers!” details the life of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish-American immigrants in the farm country near the fictional town of Hanover, Nebraska, at the turn of the 20th century. The main character, the oldest child and only girl Alexandra Bergson, inherits the family farmland when her father dies, and she devotes her life to making the farm a viable enterprise at a time when many other immigrant families are giving up and leaving the prairie. Alexandra deals with her struggles in the same manner that she deals with all other events that occur: with strength that speaks to her pioneering spirit and resolve.

The novel is also concerned with two romantic relationships, one between Alexandra and family friend Carl Linstrum and the other between Alexandra’s brother Emil and the married Marie Shabata.