Death Comes for the Archbishop

First published in 1927, Willa Cather based ‘Death Comes for the Archbishop’ on William Howlett’s account of the life of Father Macheboeuf, vicar to Archbishop Lamy of New Mexico. Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the book follows the fortunes of Father Latour and his assistant and friend, Father Vaillant, as they organize the disjointed religious structure of the southwestern missions.
The two face a formidable task, made more difficult by powerful priests long in control of the area who are loath to abandon the corruption into which they have fallen. Working together diligently and with unshakable faith, Father Latour and Father Vaillant eventually reclaimed the region and brought its far-flung communities under the guidance of a single diocese.
It is the book that Cather believed to be her finest work. Like "The Professor’s House," is a novel that explores the life of a man and draws on the American Southwest for its setting. Here the similarity ends, however, as the tone of the two books is quite different.
"Only a Woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer."
— Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop)

Wilella Sibert Cather was born in Back Creek Valley (Gore), Virginia, in December 7, 1873.
She grew up in Virginia and Nebraska. She then attended the University of Nebraska, initially planning to become a physician, but after writing an article for the Nebraska State Journal, she became a regular contributor to this journal. Because of this, she changed her major and graduated with a bachelor's degree in English.
After graduation in 1894, she worked in Pittsburgh as writer for various publications and as a school teacher for approximately 13 years, thereafter moving to New York City for the remainder of her life.
Her novels on frontier life brought her to national recognition. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, 'One of Ours' (1922), set during World War I. She travelled widely and often spent summers in New Brunswick, Canada. In later life, she experienced much negative criticism for her conservative politics and became reclusive, burning some of her letters and personal papers, including her last manuscript.
She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943. In 1944, Cather received the gold medal for fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, an award given once a decade for an author's total accomplishments.
She died of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 73 in New York City.