The Old Beauty and Others Author:Willa Cather These three stories are the last that Willa Cather wrote. For its intensity and originality the title story stands among the greatest of her shorter works. Here is the whole story of a woman's life- nothing that matters left out- told with the wonderful power of suggestion, the unerring use of revealing and dramatic incident, that are the most... more » magical elements of Willa Cather's craft. In "The Best Years", her last story, written in the summer of 1945, she returns to the country of her heart, the Nebraska farm country. It is the story of a young school teacher, told with tenderness and love for the land and the people. "Before Breakfast" is a brief, brilliant, devastating study of success and failure, about a man who once a year escapes from his success to stay on a remote Canadian island.« less