'The unity of Miss Cather's design, the clarity and distinction of this book, should put it beside her first great success, My Antonia' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

'She is undoubtedly one of the greatest American writers' OBSERVER

'Willa Cather makes a world which is burningly alive, sometimes lovely, often tragic' HELEN DUNMORE

It is 1901, and Lucy Gayheart with her 'singular brightness of young beauty' is studying music in the magical smoky city of Chicago. She is courted by handsome Harry Gordon, the most eligible bachelor in Haverford, the Midwestern town she comes from. But Lucy falls in love with middle-aged Clement Sebastien, a famous singer whose talents and tenderness change her life forever. Out of their doomed love affair and Lucy's fatal estrangement from her origins, Willa Cather creates a novel that is as achingly lovely as a Schubert sonata.

First published in 1935, this novel of 'achieved simplicity' displays the depth of Willa Cather's sympathy, both for the world of high art and for the reticent decencies of small town life.