Life and Gabriella: The Story of a Woman's Courage

by Ellen Glasgow

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.

Genres: American

438 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

American writer Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow won a Pulitzer Prize for In This Our Life (1941), her realistic historical novel of Virginia.

Born into an upper-class Virginian family, Glasgow at an early age rebelled against traditional expectations of women and authored 20 bestselling novels. Southern settings of the majority of her novels reflect her awareness of the enormous social and economic changes, occurring in the South in the decades before her birth and throughout her own life.

Beginning in 1897, she wrote her novels and many short stories, mainly about life in Virginia.
Glasgow read widely to compensate for her own rudimentary education. She maintained a close lifelong friendship with James Branch Cabell, another notable writer of Richmond. She spent many summers at the historic Jerdone Castle plantation estate of her family in Bumpass, Virginia; this venue reappears in her writings. Her works include: The Descendant (1897), Phases of an Inferior Planet (1898), The Voice of the People (1900), The Battle- Ground (1902), The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields (1904), The Romance of a Plain Man (1909), Virginia (1913), The Builders (1919), The Past (1920), Barren Ground (1925), The Romantic Comedians (1926), They Stooped to Folly (1929), The Sheltered Life (1932), Vein of Iron (1935), In This Our Life (1941).

Reviews

[Bettie]

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14571

Opening: After a day of rain the sun came out suddenly at five o'clock and threw a golden bar into the deep Victorian gloom of the front parlour. On the window-sill, midway between the white curtains, a pot of blue hyacinths stood in a cracked china plate, and as the sunlight shone into the room, the scent of the blossoms floated to the corner where Gabriella was patiently pulling basting threads out of the hem of a skirt. For a minute her capable hands stopped at their work, and raising her smooth dark head she looked compassionately at her sister Jane, who was sitting, like a frozen image of martyrdom, in the middle of the long horsehair sofa. Three times within the last twelve months Jane had fled from her husband's roof to the protection of her widowed mother, a weak person of excellent ancestry, who could hardly have protected a sparrow had one taken refuge beneath her skirt.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

At a lecture by Tom Wolfe here in Richmond, VA (his home town), he declined to comment on his opinion of the city and instead reccommended the writing of Ellen Glasgow (another local author) as, in his opinion, the last word on Richmond life and society. I admit that I had never heard of her before, and even at the local libraries, her novels (she wrote several) are difficult to find. I picked up "Life and Gabriella" because it was the one on the shelf at the branch library that I frequent. It was a surprisingly enjoyable read.

Gabriella is a young woman from a "good" family that has fallen on hard times. As such, she is forced to get a job which puts her between social groups in turn of the century Richmond. Through the story of her life, she marries, has children, her marraige dissolves, she learns to be an independent woman, and, finally, she falls in love with a man from the "wrong" social class who is financially secure and a thoroughly decent man. Pretty classic story, but well told with the characters well-defined. This is last centuries "chic lit", but it was still an enjoyable read. Very entertaining for anyone with a familiarity with Richmond, VA. I am interested in reading her other novels.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tome is about a decadent society consisting of “a philandering male populace and distressed feminine gentility.” It deals with the disintegration of the Virginia aristocracy. The decaying house of Mrs. Carr indicates social disintegration and dislocation. The vanishing feudal society has been described as “Dinwiddie” or as “Queen Borough” in Glasgow’s novels. Kanny Carr, Jane Carr Gracey and the Peterborough sisters and Arthur Peyton belong to the decadent social order. Gabriela Carr, the heroine, breaks away from the obsolete environment and goes to New York, the representation of the new order. When she returns home cherishing a romantic reverie about Richmond’s charm she is disenchanted. She marries Ben O’Hara, a rough but virile man of the new generation. Like all of Glasgow’s novels, this tome too has a rich social significance. The plot express in epigrammatic, articulate, well-designed and classical style, the conflict of generations. Her dialogue writing and plot-creation contains a style of evident rhythms, a garment of flowing words, which describe rather than evoke.

[Patricia Dausman defrees · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

I mostly read books written about this time period and this one did not disappoint me. Once or twice named were confused or misspelled, but I believe those were mistakes made by who ever transcribed it, not the author. I recommend this as a good summer read.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Life and Gabriella" is one of four Glasgow novels that are the focus of one of the chapters in my dissertation, and I must confess that, of the four, it held my interest much better than the rest. Though Glasgow was a household name at the turn into the twentieth century and a native Virginian who was determined to write realistic stories about her region at a time when most Southern writers were busy envisioning an antebellum past that never really existed, some of Glasgow's works have not withstood the test of time as well as others. I did not find this to be the case with this 1916 novel, however. While I was frustrated with Glasgow's 1913 novel "Virginia" until about midway through her text--when she finally provides her reader with a window into her title character's thoughts and emotions, rather than focusing so heavily on the career challenges facing her self-involved, and eventually absentee, spouse--Glasgow does an admirable job of keeping her narrative in "Life and Gabriella" focused closely on her heroine's experiences and eventually creates a realistic and touching portrait of the challenges that faced women like Gabriella, who were forced, by necessity, to work outside their homes to support themselves and their families. The second of three novels Glasgow wrote that focus on the changing roles of Virginia women in the postbellum South (culminating with her 1925 novel, "Barren Ground," which she considered to be her finest work), "Life and Gabriella" illustrates Glasgow's understanding of the narrow choices that too often faced women of her era and of the kind of energy and inventiveness that continue to be required of women who attempt to juggle the responsibilities of work and family.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the book, not that I'm partial to the subject of my entire dissertation or anything. However, I must say I am disappointed with this printing of Life and Gabriella. Have publishing companies just gotten lazy? I was very excited to see this text back in print after half a century. Old copies of the text are very difficult to find and tend to be expensive. I just wish they could have edited it before printing it. The text is full of simple printing errors, repeating pages, misspellings, and, my personal favorite, the renaming of certain characters. For nearly a whole chapter, Miss Polly becomes "Miss Folly," and Gabriella is often referred to as "Gabriel." A couple of sentences were left unfinished completely. My advice, try to find it at the library before you spend your money on a copy that needs some serious editorial help. Biblio Bazaar needs to step up their review process.

As for my book review, this novel follows the compelling story of one Gabriella Carr. Like many of Glasgow's novels, the story begins with the protagonist seeking a type of financial and physical independence that she is not supposed to have. After shaming her family by getting a job, she runs off to marry the exciting young man from New York who promises adventure at every turn, only to be jilted by him shortly after their marriage. The real plot begins with Gabriella's reshaping of her identity outside of any familial or romantic attachments. This particular version of the not-so-fallen woman narrative has a romantic twist at the end that is uncharacteristic of many such novels by Glasgow.