Evening star., 1945-11-21
Ellen Glasgow, Noted
Novelist and Pulitzer
Winner, Dies at.71
By the Associated Press.

RICHMOND, Va, Nov. 21.-Ellen
Glasgow, II, nationally known
author, died this morning after
long illness in the Richmond home
where she had lived most of her life.
A heart attack was the immediate
cause of her death.
Miss Glasgow was winner of the
Pulitzer Prize in 1912 for her latest
book, I'm This Our Lite" but she
first won fame in the early 190O's
with her book, "The Voice of the
People"
An original thinker who gave up
formal schooling at an early age for
self-education under tutors and by
wide reading, Ellen Glasgow de-
veloped into one of the first realistic
Southern writer's.
Abandoning the swords and
flowers" moth of the classical school
of Southern novelists, she pictured
life with open eyes. Her long sue
cession Of books spanning the period
from 1897 to 1912 compose what she
herself and many library critics re-
garded as social history of the
South, particularly Virginia, from
the Civil War to the present day.
Praised by Writers.
The series Of novels which flowed
smoothly from the pen of the woman
who spent most Of her life in a quiet
Georgian home il Richmond-save
for three years in New York
brought her international fame.
James Branch Cabell, her fellow
townsman, once described here as
"the. foremost woman novelist in
America" The late Stuart p. Sher-
man of the Saturday Review Of Lit
erature called her lone living Ameri-
can writer to compare with any one
of the first 20 on the English list"
Her noval, Barren Ground" pub
lished in 1925, was ranked by Prof.
William F. Lemont of Rutgers Uni
versity as among the go greatest
novels of all time.
Despite her early abandonment OF
formal education, many scholastic
honors came to Miss Glasgow be-
cause Of the outstanding literary
quality Of her work. She held the
degree Of Doctor Of Letters from the
University Of North Carolina and
was made an honorary member of
Phi Beta Kappa by the chapter at
the College of william and Mary.
Won Many Awards.
In 1910 she was awarded the
quinquennial Howells Medal for
'eminence in creative literature as
shown in the novel; by the Amer
ican Academy of Arts and Letters;
the Saturday Review of Literature's
special award for distinguished serv-
ice to American literature came to
her the same year. She was given
the Southern Authors prize in 1941,
Literary critics constantly empha-
sized the realistic quality of Miss
Glasgow's work. For instance, when
"T'he Voice of the People" was pub
lished in 1900, Mr.. Sherman COM
mented that realism crossed the
Potomac, going north"
The author herself, however, dis
agreed with this appraisal. She once
remarked that like life" she was
neither a realist nor a romanti-
cist but preserved a relative equi-
librium."
Work Was Not Influenced.
Her work, Miss Glasgow once
wrote, was not influenced by that
of any other author.
II started to write" she explained,
when was SO young that my
ideas about writing developed as
I went along. It was not until I
had written several Of my books
that I read the Russians who are,
I consider, the greatest novelists of
all time. Before that I had read
such writers as Scott and Swift and
Sterne."
Miss Glasgow, the daughter of
Francis Thomas and Anne Jane
(Gholson) Glasgow, was born in
Richmond on April %, 1874. and
come from a family prominent in
Virginia since Colonial days.
Her first novel, unpublished, was
written when she was only IS. Her
first published work, started when
she was 18, was THE Descendants, I"
which came from the presses in
1897 when she was 20. In all, she
wrote more than 20 novels.