The only wonderful things : the creative partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis / Melissa J. Homestead.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Homestead, Melissa J., 1963- author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

Cather, Willa, 1873-1947--Relations with women.

Cather, Willa.

Lewis, Edith, 1881-1972.

Lewis, Edith.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York State : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

This work tells the story of the central relationship of novelist Willa Cather's life, her nearly 40-year partnership with Edith Lewis. Cather has been described as a distinguished artist who turned her back on the crass commercialism of the early 20th century and as a deeply private woman who strove to hide her sexuality, and Lewis has often been identified as her secretary. However, Lewis was a successful professional woman who edited popular magazines and wrote advertising copy at a major advertising agency and who, behind the scenes, edited Cather's fiction. Recognizing Lewis's role in Cather's creative process changes how we understand Cather as an artist, while recovering their domestic partnership (which they did not seek to hide) provides a fresh perspective on lesbian life in the early 20th century.

Contents:

Nebraska, New England, New York : mapping the foreground of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis's creative partnership

Office Bohemia : At home in Greenwich Village, at work in the magazines

"Our wonderful adventures in the Southwest" : Willa Cather and Edith Lewis's southwestern collaborations

"The thing not named" : Edith Lewis's advertising career and Willa Cather's fiction and celebrity in the 1920s

"Edith and I hope to get away to Grand Manan" : work, play, and community at Whale Cove

"We are the only wonderful things" : The late lives and deaths of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis

Epilogue : the Edith Lewis ghost.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

0-19-065289-6

0-19-065288-8

0-19-065290-X