Editing Willa Cather (section)

=== Final years ===

During the summer of 1940, Cather and Lewis went to Grand Manan for the last time, and Cather finished her final novel, ''[[Sapphira and the Slave Girl]]'', a book much darker in tone and subject matter than her previous works.{{r|Woodress|page=483}}<ref>{{cite news |last1=Walton |first1=David |title=Putting Cather into Perspective |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=March 4, 1990 |page=3-J}}</ref> While Sapphira is understood by readers as lacking a moral sense and failing to evoke empathy,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Salas |first1=Angela M. |title=Willa Cather's Sapphira and the Slave Girl: Extending the Boundaries of the Body |journal=College Literature |year=1997 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=97–108 |jstor=25112300 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25112300 |issn=0093-3139}}</ref> the novel was a great critical and commercial success, with an advance printing of 25,000 copies.<ref name="canonical30s" /> It was then adopted by the [[Book of the Month Club]],<ref>{{cite news |title=Sensational Autobiography Chosen |work=The Times Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia) |date=December 8, 1940 |page=76}}</ref> which bought more than 200,000 copies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jaap |first1=James A. |title=Breaking Fresh Ground: New Releases from the Willa Cather Edition |journal=Resources for American Literary Study |year=2009 |volume=34 |pages=215–222 |doi=10.7756/rals.034.009.215-222 |jstor=26367245 |s2cid=163536829 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367245 |issn=0048-7384}}</ref> Her final story, "[[The Best Years (story)|The Best Years]]",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Youth and the Bright Medusa: The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition |date=2009 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |url=https://cather.unl.edu/writings/books/0021}}</ref> intended as a gift for her brother,<ref name="autobio">{{cite book |last1=Burgess |first1=Cheryll |title=Willa Cather : family, community, and history (the BYU symposium) |date=1990 |publisher=Brigham Young University, Humanities Publications Center |isbn=0842522999 |page=52 |chapter=Cather's Homecomings}}</ref> was retrospective. It contained images or "keepsakes" from each of her twelve published novels and the short stories in ''Obscure Destinies''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Skaggs |first1=Merrill Maguire |title=Icons and Willa Cather |journal=Cather Studies |year=2007 |volume=7 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt1djmfsp.23 |url=https://cather.unl.edu/scholarship/catherstudies/7/cs007.skaggs}}</ref>

Although an inflamed tendon in her hand hampered her writing, Cather managed to finish a substantial part of a novel set in [[Avignon]], France. She had titled it ''[[Hard Punishments]]'' and placed it in the 14th century during the reign of [[Antipope Benedict XIV]].{{r|Lee1990|page=371}} She was elected a fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1943.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cather |first1=Willa |title=Women's History Month |url=https://www.amacad.org/archives/gallery/womens-history-month |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |access-date=February 3, 2021 |language=en}}</ref> The same year, she executed a will that prohibited the publication of her letters and dramatization of her works.<ref name="obscurerecord" /> In 1944, she received the gold medal for fiction from the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters|National Institute of Arts and Letters]], a prestigious award given for an author's total accomplishments.<ref>{{cite news |title=MISS CATHER WINS INSTITUTE AWARD |work=The New York Times |date=January 28, 1944 |page=13}}</ref>

Cather was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 1945 and underwent a mastectomy on January 14, 1946.{{r|Homestead|pages=294–295}} By early 1947, her cancer  had [[Metastasis|metastasized]] to her liver, becoming [[stage IV cancer]].{{r|Homestead|page=296}}On April 24, 1947, Cather died of a [[cerebral hemorrhage]] at the age of 73 in her home at 570 Park Avenue in [[Manhattan]].<ref name=obit>{{cite news |title=Author of ''Lost Lady'' Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1922 for Writing ''One of Ours''|url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1207.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=April 25, 1947 |access-date= January 18, 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Mulligan |first1=Hugh A. |title=Visiting Willa Cather: Sabbatical of the Heart |work=The Shreveport Journal |agency=Associated Press |date=February 13, 1980 |page=52}}</ref> After Cather's death, Edith Lewis destroyed the manuscript of ''Hard Punishments'' according to Cather's instructions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Homestead |first1=Melissa J. |title=Cather, Willa |journal=The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction |date=December 24, 2010 |volume=II |doi=10.1002/9781444337822.wbetcfv2c005|isbn=978-1-444-33782-2 }}</ref> She is buried at the southwest corner of [[Jaffrey, New Hampshire]]'s Old Burying Ground,<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 7776). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Swanson |first1=Stevenson |title=Scholars ponder why writer of Plains chose burial in East |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2003-07-13-0307130239-story.html |access-date=February 2, 2021 |work=Chicago Tribune |date=July 13, 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Homestead |first1=Melissa J. |last2=Kaufman |first2=Anne L. |title=Nebraska, New England, New York: Mapping the Foreground of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis's Creative Partnership |journal=Western American Literature |year=2008 |volume=43 |issue=1 |page=46 |doi=10.1353/wal.2008.0050|s2cid=160102859 |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs/77 }}</ref> a place she first visited when joining Isabelle McClung and her husband, violinist [[Jan Hambourg]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gleason |first1=John B. |title=The "Case" of Willa Cather |journal=Western American Literature |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=275–299 |doi=10.1353/wal.1986.0072 |year=1986|s2cid=165975307 }}</ref> at the Shattuck Inn.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/travel/yankee-locals-monadnock/willa-cather-grave|title=Jaffrey: Willa Cather's Last Page|access-date=April 9, 2014|date=September 9, 2008|archive-date=April 13, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140413144827/http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/travel/yankee-locals-monadnock/willa-cather-grave|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bean |first1=Margaret C. |title=Willa Cather in Jaffrey |journal=Studies in Jaffrey History |year=2005 |volume=1 |page=5}}</ref> Lewis was buried alongside Cather some 25 years later.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/08/12/archives/edith-lewis-friend-of-willa-cather.html |title=Edith Lewis, Friend of Willa Cather |date=August 12, 1972 |newspaper=The New York Times |accessdate=February 7, 2018}}</ref>