Ellen Glasgow: 46 books

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.

Glasgow set this 1909 novel in Richmond, Virginia, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It features the tempestuous romance between a driven industrialist with humble roots and a woman from a background of wealth and privilege.  An early twentieth-century review in the New York Times praised the author's "sure instinct for the dramatic situation and the telling phrase."

While the idealistic David Blackburn tries to improve the world with a new invention, his beautiful and formidable wife Angelica subtly and ruthlessly manipulates those around her. This 1919 novel of politics and patriotism, written about the aftermath of the First World War, reflects Glasgow’s belief that individual discipline is the key to peace.

In this 1900 novel, Glasgow examines the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Southern life, focusing especially on race, class, and gender—themes that would continue in her literature.  Nicholas Burr, the son of a poor white farmer, rises to the governorship of Virginia.  Yet his political success, tempered by disappointment in love, leads to a tragic outcome.

Glasgow's second novel (1898) is set in the Bohemian artistic world of New York City.  Mariana Musin is an aspiring singer, filled with sensuality; she falls in love with and marries Anthony Algarcife, a hard-working man of reason.  From the passionate clash of their temperaments, tragedy ensues.

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Dorinda Oakley, daughter of a land‐poor farmer in Virginia, at 20 goes to work in Nathan Pedlar's store. She falls in love with Jason Greylock, weak‐willed son of the village doctor, and forgets her purpose of helping her father to rebuild the farm, but soon before their planned wedding Jason...

Books for All Kinds of Readers. ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand accessible format editions on the market today. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead™ are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around...

The Battle-Ground is an engrossing novel of Virginia plantation life and the Virginia gentleman, illustrated by two aristocratic families and their opposite stances on slavery and Virginia’s loyalty to the Union.

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 ashes of the Civil War, young Christopher Blake plots revenge against the man who cheated his family, Bill Fletcher. Blake hatches a plan to corrupt the soul of Fletcher’s beloved grandson. The decline of aristocracy is played out as the family’s blind and paralyzed matriarch is led to believe that the Confederacy lives and thrives.

This novel of Virginians in New York City was hailed by the New York Times as "the first important novel of 1906" and compared favorably to Wharton's House of Mirth.  The novel focuses on the struggles of an aspiring young poet, Laura Wilde, but at its true core is Roger Adams, a poignant study in Christ-like self-abnegation.