text-overflow: ellipsis
only works with the following combination: fixed width, overflow hidden and white-space: nowrap;
the elipssis does not work with mulitple lines.
You should use something like this: http://www.mobify.com/blog/multiline-ellipsis-in-pure-css/
Single line example: Fiddle
.ellipsis {
text-overflow: ellipsis;
width: 150px;
overflow: hidden;
white-space: nowrap;
}