The Descendant by Ellen Glasgow

Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1897. Harper and Brothers. 1st Edition.

The Descendant follows Michael Akershem, a bitter, illegitimate child from rural Virginia who flees his oppressive upbringing for New York City to become a radical journalist. Driven by a fierce resentment of traditional society and inherited morality, he rises to prominence in bohemian circles as a fiery, iconoclastic editor. There, he enters an unconventional relationship with Rachel Gavin, a talented and independent artist who sacrifices her own ambitions for him, only for Michael to grow restless and abandon her as his dogmatism hardens. Ultimately, his destructive pride and inability to escape his own nature lead him to shoot a colleague in a fit of rage, landing him in prison and leaving him broken before he returns to Rachel to die.

Ellen Glasgow's first book, written in secret and published anonymously when she was just 24.