My Mortal Enemy

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of O Pioneers! presents a moving study of an ambitious woman and her troubled marriage in this 1926 novella.

When young Myra Driscoll is forced to choose between a large inheritance from her great-uncle and marrying the man she loves, she follows her heart. She and Oswald Henshawe leave their small Illinois town to pursue a future together in New York City.

Years later, fifteen-year-old Nellie Birdseye meets Myra Henshawe and her husband. She thinks of Myra as a legend at first. But the more Nellie gets to know the bold, seemingly sophisticated Myra, the more she sees the reality beneath the fantasy—and her romantic notions begin to slip away . . .

Known for novels like O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather wrote predominately about pioneers and the American West. In 1923, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours.