The Enotated My Antonia

* Annotated Though most eBooks are simple conversions of paper books, “The eNotated My Antonia” is a completely new approach that takes advantage of ebook technology by providing eNotations (electronic annotations), essays, and background information conveniently accessible through links and a comprehensive table of contents.” Based on the 1918 edition of “My Antonia” and including eight original illustrations and twelve additional images, this eNotated edition extends Cather’s writing by providing a new layer of information behind the text the reader can access before, during, and after each chapter. For instance, in Chapter 15, when Cather uses the term “goods-box,” Bedell’s eNotation tells us Cather means “A box of wood used for shipping food, clothing, equipment, and the like, common before the advent of pasteboard cartons.” Additional material includes a Cather timeline, an events timeline, a Nebraska pioneer history, and essays on three themes expressed in the novel: TIME – The Incommunicable Past; NARRATOR – The Road to the Past; and ELEGIAC – The Wind’s Bitter Song. “My Antonia,” one of the great novels of America pioneer life, reveals, according to Bedell, “the constant worry about basic survival; the circumstances of desolation and isolation, particularly for the foreign-born; the relentless heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter; and the plight of rural and small-town women.” Cather gave witness to “this particular time and place in such a way that she, too, became a pioneer–this time with her realistic, honest, and forthright portrayal of a period of the American experience that elevated her to a prominent place in our literary tradition.” If you are going to read Cather for the first time – or reread her after some years – you will best enjoy and most throughly understand her with this unique eNotated edition.