Издания и произведения

The Finest family in Sweet Water, The Forresters are known for their gatherings, and Mrs. Forrester, to be an enchanting hostess. Neil Herbert, finds himself at the Forester estate playing with friends, and he falls in love with Mrs. Forrester, and what she represents. As he grows up, he finds it increasingly harder to keep his boyhood image of her, and she does nothing to help.

Роман Уиллы Кэсер «Погибшая леди» – история женщины, которая одновременно воплощает в себе устои своей эпохи и отвергает их. Её преображения становятся зеркалом упадка и огрубления американского фронтира. Муж Мариан Форрестер, пожилой железнодорожник-первопроходец, на неё не нарадуется. В восторге от неё и жители городка, в котором живут супруги. А ещё – Нил Герберт, юный рассказчик романа. Он влюбился в Мариан ещё в детстве и позднее стал её доверенным лицом. Нилу довелось увидеть все противоречивые грани этой женщины. Мариан то проявляет твёрдость духа, то теряет веру, она ведёт себя то ошеломительно, то жалко. Она неотразима, но при этом…

A Lost Lady is the portrait of a frontier woman who reflects the conventions of her age even as she defies them. To the people of Sweet Water, a fading railroad town on the Western plains, Mrs. Forrester is the resident aristocrat, at once gracious and comfortably remote. To her aging husband she is a treasure whose value increases as his powers fail. To Niel Herbert, who falls in love with her as a boy and becomes her confidant as a man, Mrs. Forrester is by turns steadfast and faithless, dazzling and pathetic: a woman whose charm is intertwined with a terrifying vulnerability.

Marian Forrester is the symbolic flower of the Old American West. She draws her strength from that solid foundation, bringing delight and beauty to her elderly husband, to the small town of Sweet Water where they live, to the prairie land itself, and to the young narrator of her story, Neil Herbert. All are bewitched by her brilliance and grace, and all are ultimately betrayed. For Marian longs for "life on any terms," and in fulfilling herself, she loses all she loved and all who loved her. This, Willa Cather's most perfect novel, is not only a portrait of a troubling beauty, but also a haunting evocation of a noble age slipping…

Роман «Погибшая леди» посвящён поколению строителей первой на Западе железной дороги.