0in 0in 22.5pt"> o Pioneers! , by Willa Cather , is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics : All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influencesbiographical, historical, and literaryto enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. "The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman," writes Willa Cather in o Pioneers! The country is America; the woman is Alexandra Bergson, a fiercely independent young Swedish immigrant girl who inherits her father’s farm in Nebraska. A model of emotional strength, courage, and resolve, Alexandra fights long and hard to transform her father’s patch of raw, wind-blasted prairie into a highly profitable business.

A gripping saga of love, murder, greed, failure, and triumph, o Pioneers! vividly portrays the hardships of prairie life. Above all, it champions the belief that hard work is the surest road to personal fulfillment. Described upon publication in The New York Times as American in the best sense of the word,” o Pioneers! celebrates the men and women who struggled to build a nation that is both compelling and contradictory.

0in 0in 0pt"> Chris Kraus is the author of Aliens & Anorexia , I Love Dick , and the forthcoming novel, Torpor . She is co-editor of Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotexte Reader , and edits Semiotexte Native Agents, a series of mostly female underground fiction.