Against a backdrop of delicate imagery, Willa Cather explores the tough inner terrain of a man in mid-life crisis. Bartley Alexander is a master bridge engineer at the height of his power, comfortable with success and all it brings. Yet he yearns for the lost vibrancy of his youth and so leads a double life, veering between his beautiful, accomplished wife and his mistress, an actress he knew as a student in Paris.

This volume is an anthology of short stories and poetry written by American author Willa Cather (1873-1947). She achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. This book includes the short-story collections "Youth and the Bright Medusa," "Obscure Destinies," and "The Old Beauty and Others," the novellas "Alexander's Bridge" and "My Mortal Enemy," occasional pieces, critical essays, and Cather's only book of poetry.