Barren Ground is a 1925 novel by Ellen Glasgow giving an account of 30 years in the life of a woman in rural Virginia: Dorinda Oakley is an intelligent, independent and vibrant young lady who is trying find herself and her purpose in life by moving to New York after a love disillusion.

Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (April 22, 1873 – November 21, 1945) was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942. A lifelong Virginian who published 20 books including seven novels which sold well (five reaching best-seller lists) as well as gained critical acclaim, Glasgow portrayed the changing world of the contemporary South, differing from the idealistic escapism that characterized Southern literature after Reconstruction.