Editing Willa Cather (section)

=== 1920s ===
By 1920, Cather was dissatisfied with her publisher, [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|Houghton Mifflin]], which had devoted an advertising budget of only $300 to ''My Ántonia'';<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker Extraordinaire|last=Claridge|first=Laura|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|year=2016|isbn=978-0-374-11425-1|edition= First|pages=63–65|oclc=908176194}}</ref> refused to pay for all the illustrations she had commissioned from [[Władysław T. Benda]] for the book; <ref name="possession" /> and produced a poorly and cheaply made volume.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=Richard C. |title="Dear Alfred"/"Dear Miss Cather": Willa Cather and Alfred Knopf, 1920—1947 |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=387–407 |jstor=23594849 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594849 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> So, that year, she turned to the young publishing house of [[Alfred A. Knopf]], which had a reputation for supporting its authors through advertising campaigns.<ref name=":0" /> She also liked the look of its books and had been impressed with its edition of ''[[Green Mansions]]'' by [[William Henry Hudson]].<ref name=":0" /> She so appreciated their style that all her Knopf books of the 1920s (save for one printing of her short story collection ''[[Youth and the Bright Medusa]]'') matched its design on their second and subsequent printings.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ronning |first1=Kari A. |title=Speaking Volumes: Embodying Cather's Works |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=519–537 |jstor=23594855 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594855 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref>

Cather was, by then, firmly established as a major [[American literature|American writer]], receiving the [[Pulitzer Prize]] in 1923 for her World War I-based novel, ''[[One of Ours]]''.<ref name=":0" /> She followed it with the popular ''[[Death Comes for the Archbishop]]'' in 1927, selling 86,500 copies in just two years.<ref name="canonical30s">{{cite journal |last1=Jaillant |first1=Lise |title=Canonical in the 1930s: Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop" in the Modern Library Series |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=2013 |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=476–499 |jstor=23594853 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23594853 |issn=0039-3827}}</ref> It has been included on the [[Modern Library 100 Best Novels]] of the 20th century.<ref name=":0" /> 

Two of her three other novels of the decade—''[[A Lost Lady]]'' and ''[[The Professor's House]]''—elevated her literary status dramatically. She was invited to give several hundred public lectures, earned significant royalties, and sold the movie rights to ''A Lost Lady''. Yet her other novel of the decade, ''[[My Mortal Enemy]]'', published in 1926, received no widespread acclaim—and neither she nor her life partner, [[Edith Lewis]], made significant mention of it later in their lives.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vanderlaan |first1=Kim |title=Sacred Spaces, Profane "Manufactories": Willa Cather's Split Artist in The Professor's House and My Mortal Enemy |journal=Western American Literature |year=2011 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=4–24 |doi=10.1353/wal.2011.0035|s2cid=144199893 }}</ref>

Despite her success, she was also subject to harsh criticism, particularly surrounding ''One of Ours''. Her close friend, [[Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant]], saw the novel as a betrayal of the realities of war, not understanding how to "bridge the gap between [Cather's] idealized war vision ... and my own stark impressions of war as ''lived''."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Garvelink |first1=Lisa Bouma |title=Willa Cather's Voyage Perilous: A Case for One of Ours |journal=Women's Studies |date=October 2004 |volume=33 |issue=7 |pages=907–931 |doi=10.1080/00497870490503851|s2cid=145563235 }}</ref> Similarly, [[Ernest Hemingway]] took issue with her portrayal of war, writing in a 1923 letter, "Wasn't [the novel's] last scene in the lines wonderful? Do you know where it came from? The battle scene in ''[[The Birth of a Nation|Birth of a Nation]]''. I identified episode after episode, Catherized. Poor woman, she had to get her war experience somewhere."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Onion |first1=Rebecca |title=On the Sexist Reception of Willa Cather's World War I Novel |url=https://lithub.com/on-the-sexist-reception-of-willa-cathers-world-war-i-novel/ |website=Literary Hub |date=October 21, 2019}}</ref>

In 1929, she was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsandletters.org/membership|title=Membership (search under deceased not all)|website=American Academy of Arts and Letters}}</ref>