Ellen Glasgow: A Biography

Although she was the prolific author of poetry, short stories, criticism and 20 novels (including the 1942 Pulitzer Prize winner, In This Our Life), Virginia-born Glasgow (1872-1945) feared rightly that in time she would be considered merely a regional writer or a minor novelist of manners. In this solidly documented, sympathetic portrayal of a famously secretive woman, Goodman (Edith Wharton's Inner Circle) seeks to revive Glasgow's reputation as a writer and important influence on fellow Southerners Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty and William Faulkner. Having set herself the task of writing a social history of her state, Glasgow began with the publication of her first novel at the age of 24. She broke with the Southern tradition of romanticizing the past, and instead wrote realistic descriptions of the rise of the middle class and industrialization of the early 20th century. But while she was considered progressive in her time, Glasgow seems dated now, both in her treatment of women and blacks and in her use of written dialect (""Dat's de tribble wid dis yer worl'; w'en hit changes yo' fortune hit don' look ter changin' yo' skin as well""). Although insecure and isolated by her growing deafness, Glasgow tirelessly pursued literary fame, cultivating friendships with influential critics and publishers. Why then ""did her literary coin rise with each novel and then fall almost as far as a Confederate dollar?"" asks Goodman, paraphrasing Glasgow's friend James Branch Cabell,""because each of her books showed the influence of current trends...[and] subsequent shifts in literary fashions tended to hide their `real merits as works of art.'"" 29 illustrations. (May)