Virginia.

GLASGOW, Ellen [Charlotte Perkins Gilman].

$1,200.00

Item Number: 145595

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913.

First edition of this socially groundbreaking novel; from the library of writer and social reformer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Octavo, original red cloth, frontispiece portrait of the titular character, Virginia. Signed by Gilman on the front flyleaf. Gilman was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate, and eugenicist who served as a role model for future generations of utopian feminists. Best known for her semi-autobiographical short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis, Gilman has written works on gender and male domination that continue to maintain their relevance in today’s society. In good condition with dampstaining to the front panel, light toning to the front flyleaf. An exceptional association copy.

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel 'In This Our Life.' 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. During more than four decades of literary work, Glasgow published 20 novels, a collection of poems, a book of short stories, and a book of literary criticism. 'Virginia,' her eleventh novel, marked a clear departure from Glasgow's previous work, attacking the very layer of society that constituted her readership. About a wife and mother whose identity is formed through her service to her family, the novel failed to deliver the poetic justice fans had come to expect, instead ending in betrayal and loneliness with an only somewhat optimistic finish.