Ellen Glasgow
Female identity is a theme that arises again and again in the works of Virginia-born novelist Ellen Glasgow. In Life and Gabriella, protagonist Gabriella Carr is a decidedly modern woman who makes it a point to stray from conventional femininity at every turn. But when she falls prey to passion, her long-held independence is imperiled.
Rather than consistently falling back on romance as an overarching framework for her novels, as did many of her peers, Virginia-born writer Ellen Glasgow often preferred the rough-and-tumble world of politics as a lens through which to explore the human condition. In One Man in His Time, an up-and-coming politician confounds many of the longstanding mores of Southern society.
Novelist Ellen Glasgow returns to her native state of Virginia in this epic drama set in the post-Civil War period. Two families—the Blakes and the Fletchers—experience rapid shifts in fortune. The genteel Blakes lose everything they own, while the up-and-coming Fletchers claw their way to the top.
Dive into a richly detailed historical romance that provides a fascinating glimpse into nineteenth-century life in the American South, with a sweeping perspective that considers the challenges facing the working classes, the landed gentry, and everyone in between. An engrossing read for anyone who likes to learn from their romance fiction reads!
This widely praised novel marks the beginning of the period in which Virginia-born writer Ellen Glasgow began to fully flourish, producing the finest works of her literary career. Set in southern Virginia, The Miller of Old Church follows two emblems of the rising middle class as they pursue their ambitions and fall in love.
In The Ancient Law, protagonist Daniel Ordway finds himself at a crossroads. After serving a prison sentence for fraud, Ordway is disowned by his family and has few prospects for a new career. Lost and alone, he turns his back on everything he knows and strikes out to make a new life for himself.
In the 1800s, the American South was a highly stratified society in which different classes rarely intermingled. By the early twentieth century, the rise of a new class of nouveau riche titans of industry began to change that. It is against this backdrop of transition that Ellen Glasgow sets her novel The Romance of a Plain Man. The story follows poor but honorable Ben Starr as he works his way up the socioeconomic ladder in pursuit of the
...Though many of her novels are set in her native state of Virginia, writer Ellen Glasgow also had an abiding fascination with the bohemian and intellectual circles of New York City, which form the backdrop of her second book, Phases of an Inferior Planet. Aspiring opera singer Mariana Musin moves to New York to make it big, but an unexpected romance changes the course of her life.
9) The builders
In The Builders, novelist Ellen Glasgow considers the tumultuous changes ushered in by World War I through the lens of the shifting political landscape in her home state of Virginia. Business tycoon David Blackburn is the emblem for these changes, exemplifying the rising upper class of new money and the shifting roles of men and their relationships with women.
The turn of the twentieth century marked a period of tumultuous change in the U.S. South. Long oppressed by a socioeconomic caste system, rural Southerners began to make political plays that afforded them greater power and influence. In her gripping novel The Voice of the People, Virginia-born writer Ellen Glasgow documents this transition in realistic detail.
11) Virginia
Virginia-born novelist Ellen Glasgow played a leading role in helping Southern literature move away from the idealized, romantic portraits that were common in the nineteenth century, and toward a more gritty, realistic, nuanced view of the region.The Virginia of this book's title is a woman, Virginia Pendleton, who strives throughout her life to live up to the ideal of Southern femininity, but it's a guise that ultimately does her more harm than
...Born, raised and educated in Richmond, Virginia, novelist Ellen Glasgow began to receive literary acclaim for her realistic portraits of life in the region. However, with the novel The Wheel of Life, Glasgow shifts the scene to bustling New York City, where poet Laura Wilde attempts to navigate the treacherous waters of romance.