A Lost Lady

Willa Cather's A Lost Lady was first published in 1923. It tells the story of Marian Forrester and her husband, Captain Daniel Forrester who live in the Western town of Sweet Water, along the Transcontinental Railroad.

Plot summary

The novel is written in the third person, but is mostly written from the perspective of Niel Herbert, a young man who grows up in Sweet Water and witnesses the decline of Mrs. Forrester, for whom he feels very deeply, and also of the West itself from the idealized age of noble pioneers to the age of capitalist exploitation.

Characters in "A Lost Lady"

Mrs. Marian Forrester: The wife of Captain Forrester, she is a small town aristocrat. Niel falls in love with what she represents, and is dismayed to discover that she has a lover, Frank Ellinger. After her husband's death she allows Ivy Peters to run her estate. She eventually leaves the town and marries an Englishman, dying before Niel ever sees her again.

Captain Daniel Forrester: A strong man who made his fortune building track for the railroads in the old pioneering days. He is proud of his beautiful wife. The novel opens at a time when he has already been physically destroyed by a fall from a horse. After suffering two strokes he eventually dies, signifying the end of the pioneering era.

A Lost Lady (film)

A Lost Lady is a 1934 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring by Barbara Stanwyck, Frank Morgan, and Ricardo Cortez. Based on the novel A Lost Lady by Willa Cather, with a screenplay by Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola, the film is about a woman whose fiancé is murdered by his mistress' husband two days before their wedding. Her uncle sends her away to the mountains, where she meets a man who looks after her and eventually proposes. She accepts even though she does not love him.

Warner Brothers had filmed this story before in 1924 as a silent with Irene Rich.

Plot

Marian (Barbara Stanwyck) and Ned (Phillip Reed) are scheduled to be married in two days, when Ned is accused by a man of having an affair with his wife and killed before Marian's eyes. Marian is taken to a resort she is very fond of in the Canadian Rockies in hopes it will snap her out of her emotional withdrawal. One day while walking alone, she falls off a ledge and injures her leg. She is discovered and rescued by Dan Forrester (Frank Morgan) and his dog Sandy. Dan visits Marian every day, even though she is still bitter about her fiancé's death. Before he goes home, he asks her to marry him. She refuses at first, telling him she does not love him, but he is undeterred. At the last moment, she changes her mind and accepts his proposal. (After the wedding, however, they sleep in separate bedrooms.)