Ellen Glasgow: The Sheltered Life (1932)

In Pioneers & Caretakers: A study of 9 American Women Novelists (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, [1965]), Louis Auchincloss sees Ellen Glasgow as 'the necessary bridge between the world of Thomas Nelson Page and the world of William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams.' The Sheltered Life is generally considered to be one of – if not the – best of Glasgow's novels.

This is the final novel of Glasgow's Queenborough Trilogy, following The Romantic Comedians (1929) and They Stooped to Folly (1929), and Queenborough is a model for the city of Richmond in Virginia where Glasgow spent most of her life.

The novel begins in the early years of the 20th century and (after a gap of eight years) ends shortly after the beginning of World War I, when the South was still very slowly adjusting to the changes after the Civil War (1861–65) and Reconstruction (1865–77). Washington Street only houses two remaining stalwart Old South families, the Birdsongs (of whom Eva and her husband George are of central importance) and the Archbalds (of whom Jenny Blair (aged nine and 17–18) and her grandfather the General (aged 84 at the end) are of central importance).

Eva represents the Southern belle (or the older Southern lady) who strives to maintain her dignity while her husband strives to conceal his philandering activities, although both fail miserably.

The pervasive stench from the chemical works is a constant reminder of the hegemony of the industrial New South to this redoubt of the aristocratic agrarian Old South, whose principal defensive strategy is maintaining appearances. For Eva, 'Keeping up an appearance is more than a habit [...]. It is a second nature.' However, it's obvious that things around them are falling apart, and the image of the mother of Jenny's friend Bena as 'a Confederate flag in the rain' is very appropriate. Eva can't keep up the pretence, and breaks down: 'I'm worn out with being somebody else – with being somebody's ideal'. And then when she leaves hospital and finds George in the arms of the 18-year-old Jenny Blair she shoots him dead, but appearances have to be kept up: he shot himself, didn't he?

Ellen Glasgow's The Sheltered Life is a powerful attack on the cult of domesticity, the ideal of womanhood, the exclusion of women from public life, the mental suicide that Old Southern patriarchal society imposed on women. In some respects, I'm not so sure that's it's a wholly historical story: surely certain ingrained attitudes remain today?

The house where Glasgow lived in Richmond is still there, although it is now a business concern. Shots I took of the exterior in 2009 are here.

In addition, there's an thesis online by Emma Domínguez i Rué entitled 'Ellen Through the Looking-Glass: Female Invalidism as Metaphor in the Fiction of Ellen Glasgow', which is split into three sections, and the links are here: Section One, Section Two, and Section Three.

Mary Johnston in Ridgeway, South Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #18

Mary Johnston (1870-1936) was born in Buchanan, Virginia, and wrote a number of books - mainly historical novels, and the most famous of which is To Have and To Hold (1900), which was made into a film. The full text of the novel is here.

I was surprised to see this tatty copy of Sir Mortimer (1904) on sale as I'd never come across any of her books anywhere apart from online. This was on sale in a hardware store in Ridgeway, but again, the full text is available here.

Johnston's books were very popular in other countries as well as the States, and she used her influence to further the cause of women's suffrage. She died in Warm Springs, and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia.

Richmond, Virginia: Ellen Glasgow: Literary Landmarks of the Southern United States, #21

Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945) was born in Richmond, Virginia. Her novels were documents of a changing South, and served as antedotes to the romantic 'moonlight and magnolias' fiction of such Lost Cause writers as Thomas Nelson Page.

Most authorities claim that the Southern Renaissance was in the interwar years, considering Glasgow to be a precursor. A great deal of her writing was against the grain of much of the other Southern work of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, what Glasgow called a 'mournful literature of commemoration'. With some justification, she saw herself as the first realist to come out of the South, and with a little imagination we can see Ellen Glasgow, along with a few other (particularly female) writers as actually being part of a Southern Renaissance that came earlier than is conventionally thought.



Although she was not born here, Glasgow lived at 1 West Main Street for more than 50 years.

Richmond, Virginia: Edgar Allan Poe: Literary Landmarks of the Southern United States, #20

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum, 1914 West Main Street, Richmond, Virginia. Poe lived in perhaps nine houses in Richmond, but all have long since been demolished. The Old Stone House was standing in Poe's time, though, and Poe lived in Richmond for 13 of his 40 years.

'The oldest house still standing in Richmond. Probably built 1737 by Joseph Ege. A gift in 1912 from Mr. and Mrs. Granville C. Valentine to the Assocation for the preservation of Virginia antiquities. Restored by Mr. and Mrs. Archer G. Jones. In 1924 placed in custody of the Edgar Allan Poe Shrine (now the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation, inc.'

This bust of Poe stands in the Poe Shrine in the Enchanted Garden, and is a copy of one donated by the Bronx Historical Society: the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, of course, is the photo at the head of this blog.

A plaque in the Enchanted Garden: 'In grateful memory. Richard Turner Arrington 1901–1960 President and faithful benefactor of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum "Gone proudly friended".'

The Enchanted Garden seen from the Poe Shrine.

A view of the Enchanted Garden, facing the Poe Shrine. The garden was landscaped in 1921, and modeled after the description of the garden in Poe's poem 'To One in Paradise'. Bricks from the offices of the Southern Literary Messenger were used for the Poe Shrine and some of the garden. As 1909 marks the centenary of Poe's birth, the chairs are there for a series of events celebrating the occasion.

The Exhibits Building was acquired in 1929. Once the tea room, this two-story building now houses changing exhibits.

Engulfed by vegetation so impossible to photo adequately, the Elizabeth Arnold Poe building, named after his mother, contains first editions of Poe's work donated by Dr John Robertson, a psychiatrist who wrote Poe: A Psychopathic Study. Unfortunately, photographing of the interior – even without flash – is not allowed.

The statue of Edgar Allan Poe in the grounds of the Capitol, Richmond.