Nonfiction

During her career as a novelist, which began with the publication of Alexander's Bridge in 1912, Willa Cather published a significant number of nonfiction pieces, ranging from a ghost-written autobiography to journalistic essays on theater and music to brief open letters responding to questions about her fiction. Many of these pieces were collected in her 1936 volume, Not Under Forty and the posthumously published Willa Cather On Writing (1949). However, a significant number of Cather's nonfiction pieces are unavailable in modern collections.

The Cather Archive is building a collection of electronic transcriptions and page images from the first periodical publications of Cather's uncollected nonfiction. Currently we have a collection of early essays from Cather's student days published in the Nebraska State Journal and The Hesperian, a University of Nebraska student publication; essays that appeared in The Home Monthly, often published under a pseudonym, during Cather's year as editor of the periodical; a series of five articles Cather published in McClure's Magazine between 1913 and 1915 on American theater, dance, and music; S.S. McClure's My Autobiography, which Cather wrote for McClure and which was published in McClure's Magazine in 1913-1914; two versions of Cather's 1915 essay "Wireless Boys Who Went Down with Their Ships"; Cather's two-part series in The Red Cross Magazine; Cather's most famous articulation of her aesthetic principles, "The Novel Démeublé"; and her 1922 review and memoir of time spent with Annie Adams Fields, "The House on Charles Street."

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Items sorted by publication date

1. My Autobiography by S.S. McClure McClure's Magazine , October 1913-May 1914
2. "Literary [Concerning Thos. Carlyle]" The Hesperian , 22 (March 1, 1891): 3-4
3. "Shakespeare and Hamlet [Part 1]" The Nebraska State Journal , (November 1, 1891): 16
4. "Shakespeare and Hamlet [Part 2]" The Nebraska State Journal , (November 8, 1891): 14
5. "Pastels in Prose" The Hesperian , 23 (March 10, 1894): 4-5
6. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (August 1896): 12
7. "Stevenson's Monument" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (September 1896): 3
8. "Two Women the World is Watching" [signed Mary K. Hawley] The Home Monthly , 6 (September 1896): 4-5
9. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (September 1896): 12
10. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (October 1896): 14
11. "The Origin of Thanksgiving" [signed Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (November 1896): 8
12. "Death of George Du Maurier" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (November 1896): 11
13. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (November 1896): 12
14. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (December 1896): 12
15. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (January 1897): 12
16. "Books Old and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (January 1897): 23
17. "Italo Campanini" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (January 1897): 11
18. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (February 1897): 12
19. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (February 1897): 19
20. "The Carnegie Museum" The Home Monthly , 6 (March 1897): 1-4
21. "The Passing of the "Duchess"" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (March 1897): 7
22. "[Editorial Page]" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (March 1897): 12
23. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (March 1897): 16
24. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (April 1897): 16
25. "Nursing as a Profession for Women" [signed Elizabeth L. Seymour] The Home Monthly , 6 (May 1897): 3-5
26. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (May 1897): 18
27. "Victoria's Ancestors: The House of Hanover" The Home Monthly , 6 (June 1897): 1-4
28. "Emma Calve" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (June 1897): 13-14
29. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (June 1897): 14
30. "The Great Woman Editor of Paris" [unsigned] The Home Monthly , 6 (July 1897): 8
31. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 6 (July 1897): 14
32. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (September 1897): 14
33. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (October 1897): 14
34. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (November 1897): 14
35. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (December 1897): 12
36. "The Wandering Jew" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (December 1897): 19
37. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (January 1898): 12
38. "Old Books and New" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 7 (February 1898): 12
39. "Richard Realf, Poet and Soldier" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 8 (May 1899): 10-11
40. "Some Pittsburgh Composers" [signed by Helen Delay] The Home Monthly , 9 (December 1899): 6-7
41. "Plays of Real Life" McClure's Magazine , 40 (March 1913): 63-72
42. "Training for the Ballet: Making American Dancers" McClure's Magazine , 41 (October 1913): 85-95
43. "Three American Singers: Louise Homer, Geraldine Farrar, Olive Fremstad" McClure's Magazine , 42 (December 1913): 33-48
44. "New Types of Acting: The Character Actor Displaces the Star" McClure's Magazine , 42 (February 1914): 41-51
45. "The Sweated Drama" McClure's Magazine , 44 (January 1915): 17-28
46. "Wireless Boys Who Went Down with Their Ships" Sunday Magazine , 1 (August 1, 1915): 1
47. "Wireless Boys Who Went Down with Their Ships" Every Week , 1 (August 2, 1915): 1
48. "Mesa Verde Wonderland Is Easy to Reach" Denver Times , (January 31, 1916): 7
49. "Roll Call on the Prairies" The Red Cross Magazine , 14 (July 1919): 27-31
50. "The Education You Have to Fight For" The Red Cross Magazine , 14 (October 1919): 54-55, 68-70
51. "The Novel Démeublé" The New Republic , 30 (April 12, 1922): 5-6
52. "The House on Charles Street" The Literary Review , 3 (November 4, 1922): 173-174
53. "Review of Memories of a Hostess, a Chronicle of Eminent Friendships, Drawn chiefly from the Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields, by M. A. DeWolfe Howe" The Atlantic Monthly , 130 (December 1922): 14, 16