The eNotated My Antonia

Though most eBooks are simple conversions of paper books, "The eNotated My Antonia" is a completely new approach that takes advantage of the potential eBook technology offers to extend and enrich Cather’s writing in a way that’s convenient to use while still unobtrusive to the reader.


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.