Ellen Glasgow

Biographical Information

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was born in Virginia in 1873. She was the eighth child of Francis Glasgow, manager of Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Her mother, Anne Gholson, was of one of the oldest and most elite families of Tidewater, Virginia. She was frequently ill as a child, and rarely attended school. Ellen began to experience difficulty hearing, which developed into an impairment that troubled her throughout her life. Ellen studied Darwin and other iconoclastic thinkers. She prided herself on her independence of thought. She was also interested in philosophy, political theory, and in European and British literature.

Glasgow published her first novel, The Descendant, at the age of 24. During her lifetime she published 20 novels, a collection of poems, a collection of stories, and a book of literary criticism. A popular writer, she was on the best-seller lists five times. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1942 for her last published novel, In This Our Life.

Glasgow died in her sleep at home in Richmond Virginia on November 21, 1945, and is sleeping at Hollywood Cemetery . Her autobiography was published posthumously in 1954.

The following items written by Ellen Glasgow have been made available online by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries:

 

The Voice of the People by Ellen Glasgow, 1900

The Battle-Ground by Ellen Glasgow, 1902

The Deliverance: A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields by Ellen Glasgow, 1904

Virginia by Ellen Glasgow ,1913

The following items written by Ellen Glasgow have been made available online by University of Virginia Library :

The Freeman by Ellen Glasgow, 1897

A Point in Morals by Ellen Glasgow, 1899

The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow, December 1916

Among the collections made available online by the Virginia Commonwealth University is an article, Friends and Rivals: James Branch Cabell and Ellen Glasgow . This online exhibit, created by Special Collections and Archives, focuses on the relationship between two of Richmond's most well known and respected writers.