"Death Comes for the Archbishop was published in 1927. It is widely considered Cather’s masterpiece, centers on a pair of French missionaries working among Hispanic, Navajo, and Pueblo people of the New Mexico desert. It is the story of Father Latour and Father Valilan. They are just over seventeen years old as they enter seminary together in France and then live together in the Mission, one as bishop, the other as his vicar, with a great love for whatever God asks of them, not shutting themselves away in the diocese to pray from morning till night, but visiting people, new places, old missions and parishes in inaccessible and remote areas... from Durango to Taos, living for and with the people they met. The friendship between the two priests is beautiful, melancholy and yet respectful of each other's will and emotional feeling. The novel was reprinted in the Modern Library series in 1931. It was included in Life Magazine's list of 100 outstanding books from 1924-1944. It was also included in Time Magazine's list of the top 100 English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 and in Modern Library's list of the top 100 English-language novels of the 20th century and was selected by Western Writers of America to be ranked 7th on the list of the best "Western novels" of the 20th century.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is a 1927 novel by American author Willa Cather. It concerns the attempts of a Catholic bishop and a priest to establish a diocese in New Mexico Territory. The novel was reprinted in the Modern Library series in 1931.

Two French missionaries make their way to the harsh, unexplored, mountainous region of New Mexico in the hope of revivifying there the religion that had been brought by Spanish priests and then left to decay in the hands of an insubordinate and materialistic clergy.

Set in the 1850s, this short novel is about the struggles and triumphs of a bishop, Jean Marie Latour, and his loyal friend and vicar, Father Joseph Vaillant. They have been sent to reawaken and spread the Roman Catholic faith in an area where it has grown weak: New Mexico, recently annexed by the United States. Desolate and remote, the territory is home to many diverse groups: Mexicans, including those on ranches established for hundreds of years; Indians, who have been there much longer and who are divided by language and customs into thirty nations; and newcomers—hunters, fur trappers, and those seeking gold. This book is as much their story as it is the story of the priests and the vast changes the land itself underwent in those years. Death Comes for the Archbishop was a departure for Willa Cather, who had already published eight novels before publishing this one in 1927. The novel doesn’t try to follow a single unified story the way many historical novels do; instead, its nine chapters are episodic, filled with stories, legends, histories, and descriptions of the Southwest, which Cather had been visiting for many years before she started writing it. Many of its main characters, including the bishop and his vicar, are thinly disguised versions of real-life historical figures, while other famous New Mexicans of the day, including the frontiersman Kit Carson and the “powerful old priest,” Antonio José Martínez, appear under their actual names. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • From the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes the gripping story of the murder of a young aristocrat that puts an entire society—not just a pair of murderers—on trial. A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees, Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents. Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister. Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion.

Willa Cather published the novel "Death Comes for Archbishop" in 1927. It's not really a standalone tale but a stylized retelling of the life of two late 19th century figures, Jean Baptiste Lemy and Joseph Projectus Machebbeuf, who were Roman Catholic clergy in New Mexico in the 1920s. The narrative is told in omniscient third person and includes snooping in on stories about the pair and their recollecties. The novel begins with an Irish Bishop in the New World named bishop Ferrand suggesting Jean - Marie LatOUR as Bishop of the newly created New Mexico diocese. Bishop Latour and his viar Joseph Vaillant travel from Ohio to new Mexico and also recount their entire year - long journey and their journey in the New territory. The approaches to faith and life of Vaillante and Latour are compared. Vaillant is fearless and actively advocates faith, while Latour is more reticent and intellectual. The characters confront different hurdles, like navigating the established clergy in New Mexico, several of whom are depictes as egregious in their greed along with other vices. Cather sympathetically depicts the Pueblos, Hopi and Navajo indigenous peoples, and discusses the Long Walk of the Navajo. The novel concludes with the passing of Archbishop Latour after Vaillant is chosen the very first Bishop of Colorado in Santa Fe. Literaryly significant, "Death Comes for Archbishop" has been included in numerous best selling lists and has long been praised because of its depiction of religious faith as well as social bonds in a developing democratic political order.