The works of American novelist Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945) constitute a social history in fiction of Virginia from the Civil War to World War II. Her novels are distinguished in style and conception.

Ellen Glasgow was born on April 22, 1873, in Richmond, Va. Her father was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian who "never committed a pleasure." His wife was a woman of "laughing spirit" whom he neither understood nor appreciated. Ellen's childhood was marred by her parents' misalliance (a subject her fiction frequently reflected), but her youth was secure and privileged, and she acquired a good education under private tutors.

Political economy was Glasgow's special interest. Before she was 20 Henry George's book Progress and Poverty converted her to Fabian socialism, though she remained hostile to the idea of revolution. Cruelty, greed, and intolerance were the real adversaries of mankind, she believed. Her novels led Southern fiction away from the accepted lies that...