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.

There is something epic-and almost mythic-about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows-gently, although he must contend with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. One of these events Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is Willa Cather's best known novel. This epic, is a dream like, mythic story of a life lived simply in the southwestern desert. Father Jean Marie Latour is transferred to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. He finds a vast territory of hills, arroyos, and lonelness. Cather delivers a story of a simple life lived well and full in this her tour de force.

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.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

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. It was included in Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924-1944.