Ellen Glasgow

The Descendant

originally published:
New York
1897

awards:

  • Pulitzer Prize for Fiction(1942)
  • First Book(1897)

reference info

bio notes:
born: 4/22/1873
died: 11/21/1945
born as: Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
nationality: USA

Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist whose realistic depiction of life in her native Virginia helped direct Southern literature away from sentimentality and nostalgia. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature

Collecting tips:

Ellen Glasgow enjoyed popularity through the 1920s and then like others of that generation, including her Richmond neighbor and close friend James Branch Cabell, fell out of favor. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel In This Our Life (1941), published late in her life was something of a valedictory award for good behavior. It is not stunningly uncommon, but is difficult in fine condition - the gold on the jacket rubs easily. There has been some interest in Glasgow, as both a woman writer, and a Southern writer, and one would do well to keep an eye out for her pre-1920 books in jacket, as well as her collection of ghost stories, The Shadowy Third and Other Stories (1923). Her popularity reached its apex in the 1920s, and the novels of that period, with printings that were commensurate with that popularity, can usually be found for modest sums.