By John Schlipp
Special to NKyTribune
As the United States marks its 250th “Semiquincentennial” birthday, we are called not only to celebrate its founding ideals but to rediscover the stories that have quietly defined its people. One such story — published a century ago — is Elizabeth Madox Roberts’ “The Time of Man” (1926), a landmark of U.S. American and Southern literature that continues to resonate today.
Born in Perryville, in 1881, Roberts spent her formative years in Covington, where the rhythms of Northern Kentucky life—its borderland identity, its movement between rural and urban worlds—left a lasting imprint on her imagination. Those impressions would shape the emotional landscapes of all her fictional works. Covington even served as the inspiration for the fantastic city of “Mome” in the prologue to her next work “My Heart and My Flesh” (1927).
At its heart, “The Time of Man” offers neither spectacle nor grand historical drama. Instead, Roberts gives us something more enduring—the inner life of an ordinary agrarian woman, Ellen Chesser, whose journey reflects a distinctly American tension between regional migration and rootedness, hardship and dignity, survival and meaning.
An introduction to the 2000 edition by Wade Hall, published by the University Press of Kentucky, states that, “One could call this story of the hardscrabble life of poor farm workers a veritable Kentucky folk pageant or opera, with dancing, storytelling, and singing, with passages that sound like arias, duets, and choruses. Moreover, its ceremonial, bardic style makes it an ageless, placeless story that could just as easily be located in ancient Greece or medieval England.”
A Centennial Worth Marking, 1926–2026
When “The Time of Man” appeared in 1926, it quickly captured national attention, becoming a Book-of-the-Month Club selection—an honor not even accorded to Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” that same year. Roberts’ novel was widely reviewed, admired both in the United States and abroad, and became a bestseller, according to literary scholar Matthew Nickel (“Mississippi Quarterly,” Vol. 69, No. 4, Fall 2016).
Roberts is most often associated with the Southern Renaissance, a fitting designation given her Kentucky roots and the Kentucky landscapes that form the backdrop of her fiction. However, Nickel argues that Roberts’ achievement extends well beyond regional writing. While her novels vividly capture the character and culture of Kentucky—helping to shape the state’s literary identity—her works also explore universal dimensions of the human experience that continue to resonate with readers. Her book earned the admiration of influential Southern literary figures, including Robert Penn Warren of Kentucky.
Robert Penn Warren called “The Time of Man” a classic. He wrote a commentary in a 1963 “Saturday Review” that “by 1930, it was impossible to discuss American fiction without referring to Elizabeth Madox Roberts.” He also called her “that rare thing, a true artist” (Robert Penn Warren, “Elizabeth Madox Roberts: Life Is from Within,” “Saturday Review,” 46, no. 9, 2 March 1963, pp. 20-21, 38).
An “Atlantic Bookshelf” review by Edward Wagenknecht in October 1926 praised “The Time of Man” as an ambitious, experimental first novel by Roberts. It probed deeply into the inner and outer lives of poor Kentucky rural farm workers. Wagenknecht saw Roberts as part of a modern literary movement breaking from traditional plot and structure in a serious attempt to reach “the Heart of American Life.”
Roberts signals her intent early on in chapter one—not with plot, but with perception: “She looked out upon the fields as if they might speak to her.” Ellen Chesser is not driven by dramatic events but by her awareness of land, labor, people, and change. Her dream of a little house on a “high bank above a river—let it be the Ohio … and me a-washen windows in a great hurry because company is a-comen” likely reflects Roberts’ own time along the Ohio River in Covington. Wagenknecht affirms that the Kentucky landscape is not just a setting; it’s inseparable from identity and experience.
Ellen Chesser’s America: A Life in Motion
If Roberts earned acclaim from critics and fellow writers, it was because of her remarkable portrayal of Ellen Chesser, whose life unfolds through movement, both physical and emotional, mirroring the instability of tenant farming life. As a child, she travels constantly. This sense of impermanence shapes her identity, yet her inner world expands beyond the boundaries of her surroundings. While working in the farm fields, Ellen speculates about the mysteries of nature, wondering whether “the sun was made outen fish oil,” and imagines distant peoples whose lives differ from her own: “The people on the other side of the world might, maybe, sleep some other way we can’t think” (Chapter Two). Her curiosity and imagination extend far beyond the physical limits of farm life even as she continues her ordinary work gathering stones from the hillside. In these moments, Roberts reveals a young woman whose intellectual and imaginative horizons reach well beyond the fields where she labors.
Ellen’s days are governed by an unending cycle of work, “labor multiplied, teeming towards the harvest,” reflecting the cyclic life rhythms and economic uncertainty of tenant farming. Work becomes a constant presence in her life, as inevitable as the turning seasons. Ellen develops a stronger sense of self as “she grew into greater strength,” discovering an identity that persists despite constant change (Chapter Four).
Unrequited love for another man, ending in a second-choice marriage to Jasper Kent, brings responsibility but not stability. Kent “would come that night and tell her the story of his life and then, if she was of a mind to have him, they would get married.”
Though homes, circumstances, and fortunes shift around her, Ellen gradually discovers a lasting sense of self and purpose. Ellen’s life in motion reflects Kentucky’s long history of migration, labor, and adaptation, themes that also shaped communities along the Ohio River.
Ellen ultimately finds fulfillment not through security but through awareness: “She was sitting half the night seeing the logs burn low and renew. The year broke and fell out of its design, becoming real, becoming a stored-up part of herself …” (Chapter Seven).
During the nation’s 250th anniversary, her story offers an enduring truth: work as dignity, endurance as identity, meaning found beyond material success. In the final pages of the book, Ellen grasps that her survival brings hope that life will be better for her children, as her son Dick tells her that “the wisdom of the world is the dearest thing in life … In books, it’s said you’d find the wisdom of all the ages.”
Why “The Time of Man” Still Matters
A century later, Roberts’ novel feels remarkably contemporary. Themes of instability, identity, and resilience remain central to American life and continue to resonate in communities shaped by change, migration, and renewal.
Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1926, “The Time of Man” deserves renewed attention a century later. Framed by the history of Covington, and America’s 250th anniversary, Roberts reminds us that the true American narrative is built less on grand milestones and more on ordinary lives defined by resilience, awareness, and quiet dignity.
The Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society website www.emrsociety.com demonstrates that, although Roberts’ national reputation has waned since her remarkable success in the 1920s and 1930s, a dedicated community of readers and scholars continues to explore her life, Kentucky roots, literary innovations, and enduring contribution to the American story.
For a first edition of the “Time of Man”—now in the public domain, visit archive.org.
John Schlipp is a Career Navigator Librarian at Kenton County Public Library, specializing in business resources and intellectual property awareness. Contact John at john.schlipp@kentonlibrary.org .
Paul A. Tenkotte, PhD is Editor of the “Our Rich History” weekly series and Professor of History at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). To browse past columns, click here. Tenkotte also serves as Director of the ORVILLE Project (Ohio River Valley Innovation Library and Learning Engagement). For more information see orvillelearning.org/. He can be contacted at tenkottep@nku.edu.