Эллен Глазго: Оңтүстік әдебиетінің реалистік суретшісі

American novelist

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (April 22, 1873 – November 21, 1945) was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel In This Our Life. She published 20 novels, as well as short stories, to critical acclaim. A lifelong Virginian, Glasgow portrayed the changing world of the contemporary South in a realistic manner, differing from the idealistic escapism that characterized Southern literature after Reconstruction.

Glasgow died in her sleep at home on November 21, 1945, and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia maintains Glasgow's papers. Copies of Glasgow's correspondence may be found in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings papers at the George A. Smathers Libraries Special Collections at the University of Florida. The Library of Virginia honored Glasgow in 2000 as she became a member of the inaugural class of Virginia Women in History. By basing her novels on her own life, Glasgow accurately portrayed the changing nature of Southern society. She was the founder of the realism movement in Southern literature that was made up of writers such as William Faulkner, who considered Reconstruction as "the greatest humiliation in Southern history."

Glasgow had several love interests during her life. In The Woman Within (1954), an autobiography written for posthumous publication, Glasgow tells of a long, secret affair with a married man she had met in New York City in 1900, whom she called Gerald B. Ellen believed that he was the "one great love of her life", noting one particular visit with him in Switzerland:A summer morning in the Alps. We were walking together over an emerald path. I remember the moss, the ferny greenness. I remember the Alpine blue of the sky. I remember, on my lips, the flushed air tasting like honey. The way was through a thick wood, in a park, and the path wound on and upward, higher and higher. We walked slowly, scarcely breathing in the brilliant light. On and upward, higher, and still higher. Then, suddenly, the trees parted, the woods thinned and disappeared. Earth and sky met and mingled. We stood, hand in hand, alone in the solitude, alone with the radiant whiteness of the Jungfrau. From the mountain we turned our eyes to each other. We were silent, because it seemed to us that all had been said. But the thought flashed through my mind, and was gone, "Never in all my life can I be happier than I am, now, here at this moment!" Since Gerald B. 's wife would not agree to a divorce, Ellen was unable to marry. In the end, nothing occurred but the short lived meetings in New York and Switzerland; Glasgow wrote in her autobiography that Gerald B. died in 1905. Ellen also maintained a close lifelong friendship with James Branch Cabell, another notable Richmond writer. She was engaged twice but did not marry. In 1916, Glasgow met Henry W. Anderson, a prominent attorney and Republican Party leader, who collaborated with Glasgow and provided copies of his speeches for her novel The Builders. He eventually became her fiance in 1917. However, the engagement occurred during the First World War, and Anderson, placed in charge of the Red Cross Commission in order to keep Romania on the side of the Allies, left for the country. There he met Queen Marie of Romania, and Anderson became infatuated with her. These developments, paired with a lack of communication between the two, strained the relationship between Glasgow and Anderson, and the planned marriage fell through. Based on her experiences, Glasgow felt her best work was done when love was over. By the end of her life, Glasgow lived with her secretary, Anne V. Bennett, 10 years her junior, at her home at 1 West Main Street in Richmond.