Benjamin Taylor’s brief biography of Willa Cather serves as a useful companion piece to Cather’s novels and letters. Taylor offers insights into Cather’s development as a writer, the themes that brought her into her full power, and her carefully guarded relationships with Isabelle McClung and Edith Lewis. Conscientious about labeling his hypotheses as unprovable, he considers Cather’s private emotional life with respectful percipience, honoring a woman who is protective of he

Reading these letters —  just a few at a time on most evenings —was like hearing from a distant friend who is by turns cranky (especially...