First published in 1927, Willa Cather based ‘Death Comes for the Archbishop’ on William Howlett’s account of the life of Father Macheboeuf, vicar to Archbishop Lamy of New Mexico. Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the book follows the fortunes of Father Latour and his assistant and friend, Father Vaillant, as they organize the disjointed religious structure of the southwestern missions.
The two face a formidable task, made more difficult by powerful priests long in control of the area who are loath to abandon the corruption into which they have fallen. Working together diligently and with unshakable faith, Father Latour and Father Vaillant eventually reclaimed the region and brought its far-flung communities under the guidance of a single diocese.
It is the book that Cather believed to be her finest work. Like "The Professor’s House," is a novel that explores the life of a man and draws on the American Southwest for its setting. Here the similarity ends, however, as the tone of the two books is quite different.
"Only a Woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer."
— Willa Cather (Death Comes for the Archbishop)
