The Song of the Lark (Oxford World's Classics)

by WillaCather (Author), JanetSharistanian (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $14.72

  The daughter of a Swedish minister, growing up in Colorado, Thea Kronborg's adolescent ability on the piano is encouraged by her eccentric German music teacher, Professor Wuncsch and by the kindly but unhappily married Dr Howard Archie. Set apart from the townspeople by her talents, Thea's friends are far from conventional. At 17 she leaves them and her mother's influence to go to Chicago where she studies with the pianist Andor Harsanyi. Overhearing her singing in a church he is the mentor who discovers the potential of her singing voice and sends her to study with the chill and selfish Madison Bowers, whom she dislikes. Her story moves to Arizona when she and a wealthy young brewer, Fred Ottenburg fall in love. A tension between her relationship with him and the driving artistic impulse that has always ruled her develops and becomes the novel's compelling central theme. Cather's lyrical, atmospheric and moving novel is a thinly veiled autobiography of a female artist in America at the turn of the century. A mature work filled with memorable characters all of whom influence Thea in different ways, The Song of the Lark deserves to be read alongside O Pioneers! and My Antonia and fully justifies Cather's status as one of America's greatest twentieth-century writers.

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.20

  Thea Kronborg is born into poverty in a small desert town in the American Midwest. One of seven children, she is somehow set apart, a fact recognised by the discerning few, including Ray Kennedy, who longs to marry her but whose fate it is to set her free. With her rugged will and pioneer spirit, Thea carves her way from Moonstone, Colorado, to windy Chicago, from Dresden to New York and a triumphant debut at the Metropolitan Opera. She becomes a great opera singer but learns that as a true artist, she must make the most bitter sacrifices of all ...