Review of Gown of Glory by Agnes Sligh Turnbull

This one’s a keeper. It may turn out to be my favorite book of all time.

It’s got it all.

The story in this excellent novel is set in Pennsylvania around 1910. David and his wife Mary are just moving to a new community, Ladykirk. He is the new minister at the church, and Mary has glorious aspirations for his success and influence, as well as for her three children, naturally. Both will be by turns surprised and disappointed, embarrassed and delighted, by their new home.

What is so great about this old novel?

The characters are real, with serious challenges, followed by heart-wrenching decisions and consequences—some good, some disastrous, one almost deadly.

Their personalities and conversations bring laughter, wisdom, grief, and heartbreak, and may even make you cringe.

There are guns, heart-pounding narrow escapes, and crises; often resolutions and restoration, sometimes not.

And, it’s wholesome, without ever being unrealistic, irrelevant, boring, cliched or predictable.

And don’t just take my word for it!

I recently lent my copy to a friend who typically reads contemporary fiction, but was having a hard time finding a really great story and author. She was skeptical when I told her about this old, ancient book. But starting on day one, she texted me once or twice a week that she loved it, was going to bed too late because she couldn’t put it down, and where could she get more of the author’s hardcovers!

Goodreads readers rank Gown of Glory as one of her most popular books.

Get a feel for the writing from the first page…

A Bit About the Author

The author’s family was among early Scotch-Irish settlers in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Turnbull attended what is now Indiana State Teachers College. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and as valedictorian for the class of 1910.

Over a six-decade span, Mrs. Turnbull described lovingly and with rich detail rural life in western Pennsylvania, drawing on her Scottish-American upbringing in New Alexandria. Her writing reflected an optimism and faith in mankind that she retained for a lifetime. ”I feel that there are more good people in the world than bad and that it is just as realistic to write of the former as the latter, and much more satisfying,” she once wrote.

New York Times, February 2, 1982

Find her books

Her ebooks are available to read free online at Internet Archive , and to borrow from Open Library . They are also available in softcover and hardcover at the usual online bookstores, such as Amazon, ThriftBooks, AbeBooks, and Alibris. Or, you might find one at a brick-and-mortar store like I did!