"Many years ago, on the occasion of Willa Cather's seventieth birthday, E.K. Brown, then Professor of English at the University of Chicago, wrote an appreciation of her work which appeared in the Yale Review. This so appealed to her that a friendly correspondence with Brown ensued, and after her death it was agreed that he would embark on a full-length critical biography. Brown died very unexpectedly at the early age of forty-five before he had quite...