Virginia (Penguin Classics)

By Ellen Glasgow

Book Overview

Toward the close of a May afternoon in the year 1884, Miss Priscilla Batte, having learned by heart the lesson in physical geography she would teach her senior class on the morrow, stood feeding her canary on the little square porch of the Dinwiddie Academy for Young Ladies. The day had been hot, and the fitful wind, which had risen in the direction of the river, was just beginning to blow in soft gusts under the old mulberry trees in the street, and to scatter the loosened petals of syringa blossoms in a flowery snow over the grass.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1518607020
• ISBN13: 9781518607028
• Release Date: October 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Enjoyed reading this book.

Before reading Ellen Glasgow's fiction, I recommend that you read her autobiography 'Woman Within'. It will add much to the enjoyment of reading 'Virginia'. In Glasgow's autobiography, Glasgow was the 'other woman'. The main character, Virginia Treadwell, is the wronged wife in this story. I see other parallels as well. The playwright traveled to New York City to get his writing noticed. Cyrus Treadwell was portrayed in a way that resembled Ellen's own father. There is plenty of suffering for Virginia during her married life. In fact, the book goes on and on and on about that. Ellen Glasgow went on and on and on about her suffering from losses of loved ones, etc. In fact I was rather irritated about that characteristic of both the autobiography and this novel. But, after all, you cannot deny that women of that time suffered greatly again and again and again. I enjoyed the book for its historical content. This novel allowed me to travel back to an earlier time in the Virginian South and see how people lived then. I am particularly interested in the post-civil war Virginia right now. I got a glimpse of the green shoots of women's attitudes toward equality during the 1880's - 1930's. The characters in the book seemed very real to me. I found it an enjoyable read and plan to go check out more of Glasgow's fiction from our local library. You probably won't find her books in most libraries even though she was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1945. But here in Virginia her books do have historic value and human interest so they are easier to borrow.