The authors have traced Willa Cather's interest in three major themes: the frontier spirit, both old and modern, the threat to it posed by materialism and selfish acquisitiveness, and the nature of an artist.

A work by turns hilarious and grim, "Evelina" tells the story of a young woman's education in the ways of the world; it vividly renders life in eighteenth-century England and remains a much-read classic.