The book introduces the reader to the work of the famous American writer Willa Cather (1873–1947). The novel “My Antonia” (1918) tells about the life of immigrant settlers exploring the lands of the American West, and the novel “The Lost Lady” (1923), published for the first time in Russian, is dedicated to the generation of builders of the first railroad in the West. Both works are, in fact, masterfully crafted portrait novels: two female images, two destinies.