The Sculptor's Funeral

Introduction

“The Sculptor's Funeral” (1905) is an important early Cather text, first published in McClure's Magazine in January, 1905 and later reprinted in both The Troll Garden (1905) and Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920). It is a very different text and interpretive thread of engagement with Conrad emerges. It is set in the stifling provincial town of Sand City, Kansas. “The Sculptor's Funeral” concerns the relationship between two characters: Harvey Merrick, an internationally famous sculptor, who is now dead. His corpse is returned to his Kansas home at his request, and in implicit confirmation, of the agonized indebtedness of ...