Sapphira and the Slave Girl

Sapphira and the Slave Girl Willa Cather - Set on the Nebraska prairie where Willa Cather (18731947) grew up, this powerful early novel tells the story of the young Alexandra Bergson, whose dying father leaves her in charge of the family and of the lands they have struggled to farm. In Alexandra's long flight to survive and succeed, O Pioneers!relates an important chapter in the history of the American frontier.Evoking the harsh grandeur of the prairie, this landmark of American fiction unfurls a saga of love, greed, murder, failed dreams, and hard-won triumph. In the fateful interaction of her characters, Willa Cather compares with keen insight the experiences of Swedish, French, and Bohemian immigrants in the United States. And in her absorbing narrative, she displays the virtuoso storytelling skills that have made her one of the most admired masters of the American novel. Sapphira and the Slave Girl is Willa Cather's last novel, published in 1940.The story of Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert, a bitter but privileged white woman, who becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, a beautiful young slave. The book balances an atmospheric portrait of antebellum Virginia against an unblinking view of the lives of Sapphira's slaves.In this story I have called several of the characters by Frederick County surnames, but in no case have I used the name of a person whom I ever knew or saw. My father and mother, when they came home from Winchester or Capon Springs, often talked about acquaintances whom they had met. The names of those unknown persons sometimes had a lively fascination for me, merely as names: Mr. Haymaker, Mr. Bywaters, Mr. Householder, Mr. Tidball, Miss Snap. For some reason I found the name of Mr. Pertleball especially delightful, though I never saw the man who bore it, and to this day I don't know how to spell it.


  1. Death Comes for the Archbishop

    Willa Cather

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  2. 50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die vol: 2 : Discover Timeless Literary Classics That Will Captivate Your Imagination

    Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Honoré de Balzac, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Miguel de Cervantes, E. Cummings, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Daniel Defoe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Pocket Classic

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  3. O Pioneers!

    Willa Cather

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  4. Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

    August Nemo, Mary Shelley, D. H. Lawrence, Ellis Parker Butler, Anthony Trollope, Zona Gale, Emma Orczy, Don Marquis, Charles W. Chesnutt, Kathleen Norris, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Honoré de Balzac, M. R. James, Banjo Paterson, Bret Harte, Henry Lawson, W. W. Jacobs, Charlotte M. Yonge, Mary E. Freeman, L. Frank Baum, O.Henry, William Dean Howells, T. S. Arthur, Sherwood Anderson, Robert Barr, Lafcadio Hearn, Giovanni Verga, Hamlin Garland, Émile Zola, Stewart Edward White, Sarah Orne Jewett, Willa Cather, George Ade, Robert W. Chambers, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Ruth McEnery Stuart, lord Dunsany, George Gissing, Théophile Gautier, Paul Heyse, Selma Lagerlöf, Thomas Burke, Edith Nesbit, Arthur Morrison, Saki (H.H. Munro), Stacy Aumonier, John Galsworthy, Ernest Bramah

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  5. 50 Masterpieces you have to read before you die vol: 1

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  6. The Christmas Library : 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors

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  7. 50 Classic Christmas Stories Maxipack: 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems & Carols (Golden Deer Classics)

    Annie Roe Carr, Alice Duer Miller, Berthold Auerbach, Santa Claus, Bret Harte, Charles Dickens, L. Frank Baum, Evaleen Stein, Florence L. Barclay, Henry van Dyke, Jacob August Riis, Brothers Grimm, Laura Lee Hope, Louisa May Alcott, Martha Finley, Meredith Nicholson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Newton Booth Tarkington, O.Henry, Robert Louis Stevenson, Theodore Parker, Thomas Hill, Washington Irving, Amy Ella Blanchard, William Shakespeare, Zona Gale, Hezekiah Butterworth, James Whitcomb Riley, John Bowring, John Greenleaf Whittier, Leo Tolstoy, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Lewis Carroll, Lope de Vega, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Louisa Molesworth, Francis Pharcellus Church, Montague Rhodes James, Mother Goose, W. H. Corning, Nahum Tate, Olive Thorne Miller, Richmal Crompton, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Saki, Sara Teasdale, Stephen Leacock, Thomas Chatterton, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Nelson Page, Viktor Rydberg, William Makepeace Thackeray, H.W. Collingwood, Hans Christian Andersen, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hesba Stretton, John Masefield, John Milton, John Strange Winter, José De Pereda, Julia Schayer, Juliana Horatia Ewing, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Katharine Lee Bates, Kenneth Grahame, Lucy Maud Montgomery, M.E.S, Margaret E. Sangster, Margery Williams, Peter Christen Asbjornsen, Ralph Henry Barbour, Robert Ervin Howard, Robert Frost, Robert Ingersoll, Rose Terry Cooke, Rudyard Kipling, S. Weir Mitchell, Willa Cather, William Dean Howells, William Henry Davies, William J. Locke, A.A. Milne, Adelaide Anne Procter, Algernon Blackwood, Alice Hale Burnett, Andy Adams, Arthur Conan Doyle, Cecil Frances Alexander, Charles Edward Carryl, Don Marquis, Dylan Thomas, Edward Payson Roe, Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, Elia W. Peattie, Elizabeth Anderson, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ellis Parker Butler, Ernest Vincent Wright, Eugene Field, G.K. Chesterton, George A. Baker, George Augustus Sala, George Robert Sims, H.P. Lovecraft, John Kendrick Bangs, Mark Twain

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  8. Death Comes for the Archbishop - Audiobook

    Willa Cather, Classic Audiobooks

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  9. Death Comes for the Archbishop

    Willa Cather

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  10. A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays

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  11. Death Comes for the Archbishop : Willa Cather's American Southwest Masterpiece

    Willa Cather, Zenith Horizon Publishing

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  12. Death Comes for the Archbishop : Willa Cather's Timeless Novel of Faith, Culture, and the American Southwest

    Willa Cather, Zenith Golden Quill

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