An Introduction to The Troll Garden by Willa Cather

The Troll Garden is a collection of short stories by Willa Cather, published in 1905. A number of these stories involve the struggles of artists-and those yearning to be artists–to adapt to indifferent, uncomprehending, and hostile forces with their families and the community at large. Four of the stories in the collection–“The Sculptor’s Funeral,” “A Death in the Desert,” “A Wagner Matinee,” and “Paul’s Case”—were revised and included in Cather’s next collection of short fiction, titled Youth and the Bright Medusa, published in 1920.