Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (April 22, 1873 - November 21, 1945) was an
American novelist. Born in Richmond, Virginia, she published her first novel,
The Descendant, in 1897, when she was 24 years old. With this novel, Glasgow
began a literary career encompassing four and a half decades that comprised 20 novels,
a collection of poems, short stories, and a book of literary criticism. Her final
novel, In This Our Life, received the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942. Her
autobiography, A Woman Within, appeared posthumously in 1954.
Born into an aristocratic Virginia family, the young Glasgow rebelled against the
conventional modes of feminine conduct and thought approved by her caste. Due to
poor health, she was educated at home at One West Main Street in Richmond where
she engaged in energetic readings of philosophy, social and political theory, and
European and British literature.
She spent her summers recuperating at her family's Bumpass, Virginia estate,
the historic Jerdone Castle plantation, a venue that reappears in her writings.
Her mother's brother, Joseph Reid Anderson, graduated fourth in his class of 49,
from West Point in 1836. On April 4, 1848, he purchased the Tredegar Ironworks.
When news of the secession reached Richmond, Anderson promptly joined the army of
Northern Virginia, achieving general's rank, but was soon asked by General Robert E. Lee
to return to Tredegar Ironworks to manage the ironworks on which Lee's victory was
so dependent. Ellen's father was later the manager of Tredegar Iron Works.
She died in the family home, which still exists one block from the Jefferson Hotel.
She was friends for decades with fellow Richmond writer James Branch Cabell.
Considered one of America's leading regional writers, Glasgow was a realist who
also employed satire and irony in her depictions of southern society during the
period of economic and social transformation after the Civil War. Rebelling against
the romanticized portraits of the Old South prevalent in the writings of many of
her contemporaries, Glasgow portrayed both realistically and critically what she
saw as a decaying civilization clinging to outmoded manners, opinions, and methods
in the face of rapid industrialization and a rising middle-class. The place of
women in such an environment is a central concern in her fiction, and her short
stories in particular explore the difficult relationships between men and women
that result from their different sensibilities, social attitudes, and mores.
Glasgow's renown is primarily as a novelist, but her twelve short stories also
reveal her acuity as an observer of manners who masterfully represents the c
omplexities of the human struggle through her female characters.
CONTENTS - Virginia
BOOK FIRST — THE, DREAM
CHAPTER
I. The System 3
II. Her Inheritance .
III. First Love . 51
IV. The Treadwells .73
V. Oliver, the Romantic. 98
VI. A Treadwell in Revolt 116
VII. The Artist in Philistia 130
VIII. White Magic 145
IX. The Great Man Moves 163
X. Oliver Surrenders 176
BOOK SECOND — THE REALITY
I. Virginia Prepares for the Future . . 195
II. Virginia's Letters 211
III. The Return 237
IV. Her Children 258
V. Failure 280
VI. The Shadow 296
VII. The Will to Live 315
VIII. The Pang of Motherhood. . . . 330
IX. The Problem of the South . . 361
CONTENTS
BOOK THIRD — THE ADJUSTMENT
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Changing Order 385
II. The Price of Comfort . . . .410
III. Middle-age 426
IV. Life's Cruelties 456
V. Bitterness 476
VI. The Future ...... 497