Ellen Glasgow
Ellen Glasgow was an American novelist, poet, and essayist born in Richmond, Virginia, on April 22, 1873.
Born Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow, she lived and died in that same city, passing away on November 21, 1945. She was also active as a suffragette, a public role that ran alongside her literary work. Over the course of her career she published twenty novels, writing in English throughout, and worked across multiple forms — poetry and the essay among them.
In 1942, Glasgow received the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for In This Our Life, a recognition that came through her work in the form she returned to most persistently. That novel stands as her most formally honored achievement, and the Pulitzer marked a career in which fiction, verse, and the essay each claimed a share of her attention. Glasgow's output across twenty published novels represents the longest and most sustained thread of her writing life.
Quotes by Ellen Glasgow
Ellen Glasgow's insights on:
One cannot lay a foundation by scattering stones, nor is a reputation for good work to be got by strewing volumes about the world...
Surely the novel should be a form of art – but art was not enough. It must contain not only the perfection of art, but the imperfection of nature.
It would appear, from the best examples, that the proper way of beginning a preface to one’s work is with a humble apology for having written at all.
As far back as I remember, long before I could write, I had played at making stories. But not until I was seven or more, did I begin to pray every night, “O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!”