Death Comes for the Archbishop

Two nineteenth-century French priests pioneer through the American Southwest in this stunning classic from a Pulitzer Prize–winning author.

Following the Mexican-American War, two French Jesuits leave Sandusky, Ohio, on a mission. Bishop Jean Marie Latour and his friend Father Joseph Vaillant are venturing to New Mexico territory to establish a Roman Catholic diocese. But this is no easy task.

When the Jesuits arrive in the unforgiving landscape, they find a place that is American by law and Mexican and Indigenous in custom and belief. In the forty years that follow, the two face numerous dangers, rebellious priests, and loneliness. But through it all, they are sustained by faith, friendship, and the beauty of their surroundings. A moving chronicle of a spiritual journey in an awe-inspiring wilderness, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a masterpiece from one of America’s greatest authors.

“A truly remarkable book. . . . Soaked through and through with atmosphere. . . . From the riches of her imagination and sympathy Miss Cather has distilled a very rare piece of literature. It stands out, from the very resistance it opposes to classification.” —The New York Times

“The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us.” —Rebecca West, New York Times–bestselling author of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
“[Cather’s] descriptions of the Indian mesa towns on the rock are as beautiful, as unjudging, as lucid, as her descriptions of the Bishop’s cathedral. . . . Cather’s composed acceptance of mystery is a major, and rare, artistic achievement.” —A. S. Byatt, Booker Prize–winning author of Posession