I simply love this book. I, like many, first discovered it in the library as a youngster. There are few books I have enjoyed over and over -- this is one. There is adventure mixed with a little history, some romance mixed with intrigue -- without all the graphic depictions of physical encounters, if you get my drift. In short, this is a great book for your 11 year old daughter to read -- better buy a copy though...if she's like the rest of Bristow's fans, she'll be reading it annually from now on....

I first read this book in 7th grade, and I've read it again about ever year or two since. I really feel like I know what it would have been like to live in Charleston during the Revolution after reading this book. And the Romance!! Ah, I love to read about Celia and the men in her life. I also liked the way she had more than one REAL romance, something that isn't done in a lot of novels. I thought it was very well written. This is a must read for anyone!

I really enjoyed this book a lot. It is the story of an orphaned girl who is a seamstress in Charleston during the Revolution. She is a strong woman who always wants something to be happening, but she is also lonely and wishes that she would be loved and belong to a family. She becomes involved in the Revolution. This is just a great historical book, I couldn't put it down. The writing style is very clear. Read it, you won't regret it

i read the triology for the first time when i was a teenager, since then i have read each book many times. it takes the reader back to the 1700 and ends in the early 1900, a story of two very different families who's paths keep crossing for better, for worse and finally for the better again. The story takes place in the old south, is full of southern bells, rich and poor, romance and tragedy. It shows how the people of both families handle what life has prepared for all of them, good and bad. In every page you can feel the warmth of the sun, see the plantation rise,fall and rise again. And you might find yourself fall for this excelent triology and for all the characters in it.

I have re-read Gwen Bristow's books for close to 30 years, and never tire of them. "Plantation Trilogy" combines three separate, yet linked stories. "Deep Summer", "The Handsome Road", and "This Side of Glory". Absolutely wonderful reading, beginning in the 1700's and carrying through to the early 1900's, a tale of families, their relatives, lives, adventure, romance, history, and the best reading you will ever find. When you pick up a Gwen Bristow book, you never want to put it down...no matter how many times you've read it. Exciting, imaginative characters that bring the old south to life! Never pass up a chance to read this lady's books,she brings you into the time, the place, and the characters. This is 812 pages of pure joy, from start to finish.

This book is a little old-fashioned (after all, it was written more than twenty years ago!) but the prescribed morals and ethics haven't changed in all that time. This book covers everything from fashion and dating to planning a wedding and the actual marriage, including appropriate Bible verses. It's great for teenage girls to study in Bible class because it covers topics that girls are concerned with. It provides a jumping off point for discussions to begin, at which time the teacher can provide more modern, up-to-date suggestions. I just wish there was a book like this for boys too!

Celia Garth is a story about a young women growing up in Revolutionary War times. As you read through her many experiences, tragidies, and happy times you will almost be able to feel what she's feeling, and think what she's thinking. This is because the book was written so well. It is one of my all time favorites any I can almost garrentee that if you read this book you will love it as much as I do.

I read this book over 30 years ago and have never forgotten the heroine, the locale, or the story. Why JOHNNY TREMAIN has remained on shelves when CELIA GARTH has been allowed to go out of print absolutely astounds me. Together they form a picture of our Revolutionary times which is lively, entertaining, and educational-all in one package, a book. My copy of this book was "borrowed" long ago and never returned and I have been trying to locate it since. I'm taking this opportunity to find it and read it!

This book gives a realistic idea of what it was like to be young during Revolutionary War times. While it does romaticize the war, it also gives some idea of what early Americans went through during that time. Celia and her friends are great characters. Every time I read this book, I feel like I'm visiting old friends. Bristow is a fantastic story-teller.

I loved this book since I was teen and still reread every couple of years. My copy is in tatters and am in search of a new copy. This was my Grandmother's book passed to my Mom and passed on to me. It is absolutely timeless and a great read. You will remember these characters long after you've read it.

This is a traveling west book, as a "Little House" fan, this was similar in hardships but much more intense. It is a story of survival and the human spirit. You would like to have friends like these characters.

Another of Gwen Bristow's wonderful stories. I read this in my teens but couldn't find another copy. My daughter now read Gwen Bristow's books, and we talk about what we loved in them. Don't miss this book if you like history, love romance.

I've loved this book since I was 10 years old!! I still re-read it about every 5 years, and it never stales. The various complex characters are beautifully developed, the history of California in the 1840s well-told from a purely human perspective, and it's just a rattling good read -- a great adventure story from the viewpoint of a sheltered young girl developing into a mature and independent woman.

this book was great! anything of Gwen Bristows is just absolutely heart felt! read Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow. it is a great book taking place during the civil war. i just loved this book. anyone that has a love for the old romantic south will fall in love w/ this triloligy. crystal

This is the first Gwen Bristow novel I've ever read. Her historical fiction is wonderful. This is the first of her plantation trilogy, set in what becomes Louisiana, prior to the American Revolution. It follows the Larne and Sheramy families, telling how they carved their empires out of the forests. It's a great love story, a great historical novel, and my favorite of the trilogy.

Deep Summer is only the first of 3 books to complete the Plantation Trilogy. The book starts out with a family of 4 heading down from New England in the mid 1700's to start a new life in the Deep South. You will follow this family and many other families all the way to the early 1900's. It is amazing to read and imagine how these people felt during all the ups and downs the Plantation life has to offer them, good and bad!! I reccommend this book to everyone who is at all interested in history or just a good ole love story.

I almost threw this book across the room when I first started reading it. A lot of phrases and colloquialisms are very dated and rather offensive for this day and age. By the time you get through the entire book though, you realize Bristow had an intense purpose for the book, probably motivated by the war she was living in. Set during WWI and WWII, Bristow examines the motivations of war and the purpose of seeminly useless death. Through pain comes triumph and love and victory. For people whose lives have not been touched by war, this book can be a good lesson to remind us that lives were given not in vain.

I first read this book in German in the 1970s. It deals with a woman's pain suffered by the loss of her fiance to WW1 war efforts. She goes on with her life, gets married and starts her family. Years later an odd German man with disabilities enters the family's life. Suspicions mount in the woman's mind... is this the fiancee she lost years ago? She is just not sure. Meanwhile, this stranger becomes a mentor to her children and herself. While war philosophy abounds in this book, I see it primarily as a wonderful love story, one of the greatest I ever read! Gwen Bristow's style is gripping, a great read!

I first read this book in high school and looked many years for a copy as an adult. I re-read it and although it was a little dated I enjoyed both the story and the depiction of generational and gender views of war.

Two likeable protagonists, with a great-grandmother in common, brought up in two very different ways enables the reader to see life under two very different sets of circumstances. Ann Sheramy, a very decent, well-meaning Southern belle, and Corrie May Upjohn, an intelligent young woman from the wrong side of the tracks, are thrown into war in Louisiana. Ann does not mean harm to anyone, however her entire way of life forces Corrie May to never be able to rise from her position in life. The author explains how the war changes this. Slavery forces those who think they are "free" to never be able to rise above the poverty level due to the fact that no one wants to pay for labor when the job can be done for free by a slave. Just like in Roman times, this means there is a large class of people with no work and no hope of anything better. They are expendable people. This means that instead of fighting for their own rights, these "expendables" fought for the rights of the plantation owners, and fought to keep themselves in a type of "bondage". They had no "rights" to fight for. Read how the author explains this viewpoint. You will not be disappointed! Also read how Corrie May's bitterness over these circumstances leads her to make the choices she makes.

The continuation of Bristow's Plantation Trilogy is almost as good as the first. It's so interesting to follow the Upjohns and Sheramys and see how the family changes as the generations flow by. I always love anything set in the Civil War, and I liked how Corrie May was able to see some different truths that most people don't.

This is one of the best historical fiction novels I have ever read. The story of Corrie Mae UpJohn a poor white girl in the South fighting for a better life for herself. Unaware, she is a cousin to the richest family in the region, Corrie Mae fights to stay alive with everything she has. This book made me see the true hardships of the poor during the time of the civil war. This is a book I will never forget.

This is one of the few Bristow books that I did not have growing up. I'd read the first two in the trilogy many times before I finally found this in a library. Wow! I love it. There is so much in this book about marriage and class structure, and, of course, World War I. I'd love to go through and put several quotes that really touched me from it, but I think you should just read the book! And while you are at it, try to read all the Bristow books -- she's wonderful!

This book is the best of the trilogy (including Deep Summer and The Handsome Road). It follows the marriage of Kester Larne and Eleanor Upjohn, two very different people who have to strike a compromise in a difficult time. It's very realistic in its treatment of marriage, and the problems that can arise when people who are attracted to each other's differences have to adjust to the very things they first loved. Neither of the two main characters is a saint, and both are very real and believable. And I learned things about the First World War that I never knew. I recommend this book highly.