to life--through Cather's words, and through the words and images of others--the uniquely American frontier experience. In inscribing a copy of O Pioneers! for a childhood friend, Cather wrote, "In this one I hit the home pasture..." "Contexts and Backgrounds" includes a rich selection of autobiographical and biographical remembrances (including three interviews with Cather), literary contexts (by Cather and her contemporaries, Henry James and Sarah Orne Jewett), and writings on the American West (including selected letters that paint a picture of one family's life on the Nebraska prairie). "Criticism" provides seven contemporary reviews and eight modern critical interpretations by David Stouck, John J. Murphy, C. Susan Wiesenthal, Marilee Lindemann, Melissa Ryan, Guy Reynolds, and Sharon O'Brien.