Not Under Forty

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Not Under Forty" by Willa Cather. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

For Willa Cather, "the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts." The whole legacy of Western civilization stood on the far side of World War I, and in the spiritually impoverished present she looked back to that. To that she directed readers of these essays, declaring that anyone under forty years old would not be interested in them. But she was wrong: since its first publication in 1936, Not Under Forty has appealed to readers of all ages who share Cather's concern for excellence, for what endures, in literature and in life.

For Willa Cather, "the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts." The whole legacy of Western civilization stood on the far side of World War I, and in the spiritually impoverished present she looked back to that. To that she directed readers of these essays, declaring that anyone under forty years old would not be interested in them. But she was wrong.

We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive classic literature collection. This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts, We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. Also in books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy. We use state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. My trip into the mountains was wholly successful. All the suggestions the old lady had given me proved excellent, and I felt very grateful to her. I stayed away longer than I had intended. I returned to Aix-les-Bains late one night, got up early the next morning, and went to the bank, feeling that Aix is always a good place to come back to. When I returned to the hotel for lunch, there was the old lady, sitting in a chair just outside the door, looking worn and faded. Why, since she had her car and her driver there, she had not run away from the heat, I do not know. But she had stayed through it, and gone out sketching every morning. She greeted me very cordially, asked whether I had an engagement for the evening, and suggested that we should meet in the salon after dinner.

For Willa Cather, "the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts." The whole legacy of Western civilization stood on the far side of World War I, and in the spiritually impoverished present she looked back to that. ...

For Willa Cather, "the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts." The whole legacy of Western civilization stood on the far side of World War I, and in the spiritually impoverished present she looked back to that. To that she directed readers of these essays, declaring that anyone under forty years old would not be interested in them. But she was wrong: since its first publication in 1936, Not Under Forty has appealed to readers of all ages who share Cather's concern for excellence, for what endures, in literature and in life.

In June 2010, the editors of The New Yorker announced to widespread media coverage their selection of "20 Under 40"—the young fiction writers who are, or will be, central to their generation. The magazine published twenty stories by this stellar group of writers over the course of the summer. They are now collected for the first time in one volume. The range of voices is extraordinary. There is the lyrical realism of Nell Freudenberger, Philipp Meyer, C. E. Morgan, and Salvatore Scibona; the satirical comedy of Joshua Ferris and Gary Shteyngart; and the genre-bending tales of Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Téa Obreht. David Bezmozgis and Dinaw Mengestu offer clear eyed portraits of immigration and identity; Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, ZZ Packer, and Wells Tower offer voice-driven, idiosyncratic narratives. Then there are the haunting sociopolitical stories of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li, and the metaphysical fantasies of Chris Adrian, Rivka Galchen, and Karen Russell. Each of these writers reminds us why we read. And each is aiming for greatness: fighting to get and to hold our attention in a culture that is flooded with words, sounds, and pictures; fighting to surprise, to entertain, to teach, and to move not only us but generations of readers to come. A landmark collection, 20 Under 40 stands as a testament to the vitality of fiction today.

We are happy to announce this classic book. Many of the books in our collection have not been published for decades and are therefore not broadly available to the readers. Our goal is to access the very large literary repository of general public books. The main contents of our entire classical books are the original works. To ensure high quality products, all the titles are chosen carefully by our staff. We hope you enjoy this classic.We are happy to announce this classic book. Many of the books in our collection have not been published for decades and are therefore not broadly available to the readers. Our goal is to access the very large literary repository of general public books. The main contents of our entire classical books are the original works. To ensure high quality products, all the titles are chosen carefully by our staff. We hope you enjoy this classic.

My trip into the mountains was wholly successful. All the suggestions the old lady had given me proved excellent, and I felt very grateful to her. I stayed away longer than I had intended. I returned to Aix-les-Bains late one night, got up early the next morning, and went to the bank, feeling that Aix is always a good place to come back to. When I returned to the hotel for lunch, there was the old lady, sitting in a chair just outside the door, looking worn and faded. Why, since she had her car and her driver there, she had not run away from the heat, I do not know. But she had stayed through it, and gone out sketching every morning. She greeted me very cordially, asked whether I had an engagement for the evening, and suggested that we should meet in the salon after dinner.

Myra and her husband Oswald return to their fictional hometown of Parthia, Illinois, to visit their relatives. Nellie and Aunt Lydia then leave to spend the Christmas holiday in New York City with them. They live on Madison Square. They dine with Ewan Gray, a friend who has an infatuation with another actress, Esther Sinclair. Oswald receives silver-buttons for his shirt from an old Western acquaintance, and asks Lydia to pretend she gave them to him to thwart his wife's jealousy. Later Myra and Nellie go to the opera; in a loge they spot an erstwhile friend of Myra's, which makes her sad. Later they take a hansom around a park and chance upon a rich acquaintance of Myra's, which leads her to be scornful over her own poverty. They spend Christmas dinner with friends of the Henshawes - both artists and people of privilege. Later they spend New Year's Eve with artists again. A few days later Nellie witnesses the Henshawes argue; the husband takes her out to lunch. Soon after, she and her aunt are to return to Illinois. On the train, they are joined by Myra, who has argued with her husband again and is going to visit a friend in Pittsburg for a change of scenery.Ten years later, Nellie moved into a shabby flat in a little town on the west coast, and bumps into the Henshawes. Myra is now bedridden and Oswald works full-time; their upstairs neighbours are atrociously noisy, regardless Myra's illness. Nellie takes to visiting her at tea-time; she also takes her out by the sea. Myra expresses her regrets over her husband. (If she had not married him, her great-uncle would have bequeathed her his fortune. Instead, she eloped and he gave it away to the church.) Oswald takes to having lunch with a young woman Once, Nellie asks her why she is so harsh on her husband, and Myra dismisses her. Shortly after, her condition gets worse. She dismisses everyone and runs away; she is found dead by the seaside the following day. Her husband expresses no remorse about his wife; he loved her despite her difficult conduct. After her death he moves to Alaska and later Nellie hears about his death.It has been suggested that the novel 'represents the bitter apotheosis of the issues of exile Cather worked on all of her life'Book 2- Not Under FortyFor Willa Cather, the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts. The whole legacy of Western civilization stood on the far side of World War I, and in the spiritually impoverished present she looked back to that. To that she directed readers of these essays, declaring that anyone under forty years old would not be interested in them. But she was wrong: since its first publication in 1936, Not Under Forty has appealed to readers of all ages who share Cather's concern for excellence, for what endures, in literature and in life.Reviews"What seems, at first, deceptively, a random gathering of essays, anecdotal and critical interspersed, finally reveals itself as a unified musing on the accusatory contrast between a great, dignified past and a huckstering, ugly present."-Notes and Queries"Full of personal reflections, and of 'promptings not apparent to the casual reader,' and so all the more welcome. We have too little of such writing, off the record."-Yale Review"In all of these essays, so familiar, so personal on the surface, Miss Cather's continuing stress upon what impresses her in really good literature is evident. It is the immense pains of learning to write, the long struggle to escape from the tyranny of mere words, from the shows and affectations of approximate renderings of reality into the calm assurance of truth, which seem to her the stairway to greatness." -H. S. Canby, Saturday Review of Literature