The Kingdom of Art

More than 100 pieces in this surprising and impressive collection are drawn from a body of Willa Cather’s writing that was not known to exist until its recent discovery by the editor. Previous scholars have assumed that Willa Cather was inactive as a journalist during the year following her graduation from the university in June, 1895; the truth is, she not only continued to contribute drama criticism to Lincoln newspapers, but also, in Miss Slote’s words, had time to “consider thoughtfully and work out some of the guiding principles of fiction, the certain range in the Kingdom of Art which was becoming . . . her own.”

Miss Slote has focused on those of the 1893-1896 writings in which Willa Cather formulates and tests her critical attitudes, and on those—even more crucially relevant to her own situation—in which she asks the great questions: What makes an artist? How does one join the two selves of artist and person? Exactly how can one create the creation? Part I presents two essays by the editor: “Writer in Nebraska,” incorporating new biographical material, and “The Kingdom of Art,” a critical reassessment in the light of new findings. Part II consists of some 220 selections accompanied by extensive editorial commentary, grouped as follows: “The Individual Talent”—observations on artists who lives evoked Willa Cather’s sympathy, wonder, or respect, and who success or failure seemed to embody the principles of human endeavor; “The Way of the World”—on art in Philistia, the relations of things (e.g., poetry and football), and history in the arts; “Drama”—pieces on the playwright and his craft and the critic’s responsibilities, as well as lay reviews; “Literature”—major essays on Stevenson, Dumas, Poe, Wilde, Verlaine, Ruskin, and Pierre Loti, and shorter pieces on such writers as Hardy, James, Swinburne, Kipling, Burns, Zola, Tolstoi, and Whitman; and “Improvisations Toward a Credo, 1894-1896”—culminating in two statements in which as last, as the editor notes, “Willa Cather could recognize clearly the emerging form of the artist-self she had been seeking, and with it the individual talent in which all credos must begin.”