Writing Female

Writing Female Willa Cather.The Troll Garden: ADefinitiveEdition. Edited by James Woodress.Lincoln: University of :,./ebraska Press, 1983.173pp. Joan Crane. Willa Cather: A Bibliography. Foreword byFrederick B. Adams. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.412 pp. Linda Huf.A Portrait of the Artist asa Young Woman: The Writer as Heroine in AmericanLiterature. New York: Ungar, 1983. 192pp. Helen WinterStauffer and Susan J. Rosowski,eds. Womenand Western American Literature. Troy,N.Y.: Whitston, 1982.331pp. Catherine McLay Thepast two decades have been significant in the development of Women's Studiesin North America. Scholars have been re-examining our past, retelling historyto recognize the valuable and unique contributions of our foremothers toour present society. Others have been looking at patterns in literature and theroles that women play as both protagonists and supporting characters in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Still others are turning back to the bestfemale writers, and reassessing their work in the light of contemporary findings. Of the four books reviewed here, three are dedicated to Virginia Faulknerand Bernice Slote for their pioneering work on the West and women's literature. As the editors of Women and WesternAmerican Literature remark: ''!their] work reminds us of the excellence we strive towards." The Troll Garden: A Definitive Edition is a reprinting of Willa Cather's originalcollection of short stories by the noted Cather scholar,James Woodress. His intent is to provide an authoritative text as Cather herself approved it in 1905and to note all the revisions in these stories in later editions. Three of the stories appear only here: "Flavia and Her Artists," "The Garden Lodge" and "The Marriage of Phaedra." Four other stories were printed first in magazines, revised for The Troll Garden and revised once again for Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920): "A Death in the Desert," "The Sculptor's Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 17, Number 4, Winter 1986,477-481 478 Catherine Mclay Funeral," "AWagner Matinee" and "Paul's Case." The last three were revised a final time for the uniform Collected Works by Houghton Mifflin (1937-41). Woodress' stimulating and perceptive Introduction outlines Cather's background and development as an artist to 1905, indicates the critical reception of the collection, and comments indetail on the themes and patterns of the stories. He includes several appendices: notes to each story explaining contemporary references, a detailed textual commentary on the publishing history of each, a list of emendations recording all changes in substantives and accidentals, and a table of revisions comparing variants. This definitive edition is very welcome. It includes the well-known "Paul's Case," almost the only story that Cather permitted to be anthologized. "A Wagner Matinee'' is a telling comment on Western society, its hardships and cultural deprivation. ''A Death in the Desert" is an interesting story patterned on the life of the composer Ethelbert Nevin as observed by two admirers, a fictional brother and a dying operatic soprano. My own favorite is "Flavia and Her Artists," the story of an "art collector," narrated by a young female observer in true Jamesian style. Cather's stories of artists and would-be artists are still appealing and relevant today. The most interesting revision in terms of Cather's developing technique is ''A Death in the Desert." From 1903 to 1920it underwent extensive changes in style and was cut from 12,000 to 8,000 words. The history of "A Wagner Matinee" is, however, fascinating in connection with Cather's private life.It was highly criticized by both Westerners and Cather's own relatives for its portrayal of Aunt Georgina, a cultured girl turned Nebraska farm wife and based on Cather's Aunt Franc. In 1920 Cather deleted some 400 words and seven passages referring to her false teeth, leathery skin and ··queer country clothes." Cather yielded to public pressure here as she would refuse to do elsewhere in her writing. Another significant reference work for Cather scholars is Joan Crane's Willa Cather: A Bibliography, the first descriptive listing of all the Cather manuscripts and editions. Crane draws on previous partial listings: Frederick B. Adams' list of works to 1920,John P. Hinz's list of titles in newspapers and magazines, Phyllis Martin Hutchinson...