Barren Ground

The dramatic story of one woman’s struggle to find her destiny—and herself—in Reconstruction-era Virginia by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author.

In the years following the Civil War, joy is hard to come by for twenty-year-old Dorinda Oakley. The daughter of a struggling farmer in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Dorinda is an intelligent, independent, and passionate young woman who dreams of life outside of her poor community. For the past year, she has worked at Nathan Pedlar’s Store to help her family—but then she falls in love with Jason Greylock, the handsome son of the local doctor. Now the real journey will begin for Dorinda, taking her far away from home and testing the resilience of her heart . . .

A realistic portrayal of the changing, post–Civil War South, Barren Ground achieved critical praise when it was first published in 1925. During her career, author Ellen Glasgow published twenty books, and in 1942 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel In This Our Life.