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Elinor Glyn

Jersey, England, 1864 - 1943, London

Biographyhttp://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n81032912
Glyn [née Sutherland], Elinor (1864–1943), novelist and screenwriter, was born in Jersey on 17 October 1864, the younger daughter of Douglas Sutherland (1838–1865), civil engineer, and his wife, Elinor, née Saunders (1840/41–1937). Douglas Sutherland died three months after Elinor was born. The family soon returned to Guelph, Ontario, in Canada, where her mother had been born; she remarried in 1871. With her second husband, David Kennedy, the family settled again in Jersey, a few years later. Elinor's childhood was relatively lonely. Her strong will and the incompetence of the governesses hired by her parsimonious stepfather meant that she was mostly self-taught. As a young girl she immersed herself in mythology and the history of France, exhibited some skill in drawing, wrote stories, and kept a diary. Although the family had little money, they socialized with the ‘Government House’ set on the island. Elinor feared her strikingly red hair made her ugly, but in her teens and twenties she attracted a number of admirers, especially during a series of visits to relatives and friends in France and England. By the mid-1880s she was spending most of her time away from Jersey.

Elinor's background had not prepared her for any life beyond marriage, and she was determined to find a place in upper-class society, but with no dowry and few connections her opportunities were limited. Moreover, she rejected several suitors who did not fulfil her romantic ideals. Finally, on 27 April 1892, she married (Henry) Clayton Glyn (1857–1915). Although Elinor entered this marriage with high hopes of achieving the romance and status she craved, it soon began to disappoint. Clayton Glyn was more interested in food, drink, and gambling than in his wife's romantic effusions over scenic views and ruins. He did not share her nascent leanings towards belief in reincarnation and mysticism, nor her delight in high fashion. Neither, however, did he attempt to curb her spending on clothes and home decoration. Elinor's first daughter, Margot, was born in 1893; her second child, Juliet [see Williams, Juliet Evangeline Rhys], was born in 1898. During her second pregnancy, Elinor wrote a series of fashion and beauty articles for Scottish Life. After the birth of Juliet, Elinor developed post-partum depression compounded by a series of physical illnesses including rheumatic fever. But, she wrote, ‘one day I had a fit of rebellion against the idea of dying young’, and began putting her pre-marriage diaries and letters to her mother into ‘a readable form’ (Romantic Adventure, 92–3). The resulting book, The Visits of Elizabeth (1900), was serialized in The World and published by Gerald Duckworth. It was an immediate success, and Elinor enjoyed her royalties and the attention she received as the author of a best-selling roman à clef. Four more novels followed quickly; all of them expressed her beliefs in romantic love and the natural superiority of the aristocracy.

Elinor's marriage to Clayton Glyn, however, continued to deteriorate. Although they remained married until his death in 1915, Elinor soon began to seek romance in a series of friendships with other men. A particularly intense relationship with Lord Alistair Innes Ker provided the impetus for her most famous book, Three Weeks (1907). Three Weeks is centred on the Lady, an exotic Balkan queen who seduces Paul, a younger British aristocrat, to ensure that she bears Paul's child, not her degenerate husband's, as next ruler of her country. The Lady also teaches Paul about love and his duty as an aristocrat. Glyn always argued for the novel's purity of purpose and defended it against charges of immorality, but readers focused on the detailed descriptions of the Lady's romantic techniques—such as her sensual writhing on tiger skins and her numerous creative caresses—rather than on the development of Paul's sense of noblesse oblige. Despite uniformly negative reviews, millions of copies were sold. Later editions of Three Weeks include the photoplay edition (1924) with pictures from the 1923 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film version and a 1974 edition with an introduction by Cecil Beaton. Three Weeks has remained a piece of cultural shorthand parodied and alluded to in high and popular culture. It also influenced the subsequent development of the woman's romance. Glyn's example led to a modification of traditional plots, encouraging the emphasis on women's sexuality and a point of view tightly centred on the female protagonist.

Despite the financial success of Three Weeks, and a new but very discreet relationship with George, Lord Curzon, Glyn found it necessary to continue to write at least a novel a year to cover her husband's debts and her own spending. She was invited to the Russian imperial court to write a novel; the result, His Hour (1910), was one of her most successful. She also visited and wrote about Spain and Hungary, and her lifelong affection for France led her to work there during the First World War as a newspaper correspondent. Her relationship with Curzon and a friendship with Alfred, Lord Milner, provided her with access that enabled her to write detailed reports of military and political events.

Glyn visited the United States several times, and worked for several years in the Hollywood film industry. In 1927 she developed It, a film for Clara Bow. She had first described ‘it’ in The Man and the Moment (1923); but it was the film that made the term famous as a synonym for sex appeal. Despite many successes, Glyn's extravagances and financial ineptitude made her economic situation constantly difficult, and she was compelled to continue writing to support herself for the rest of her life. At least thirty-eight different volumes appeared, including a book on how to avoid wrinkles, and with her last novel, The Third Eye (1940), she attempted to write a thriller. She never remarried; Curzon ended their relationship in 1916, and her long friendship with Lord Milner never became more than that.

Early in her life Glyn had rejected conventional religious beliefs. Later, she was at various times involved in ‘new thought’ and spiritualism, but turned against all those ideas, retaining only her long-standing belief in reincarnation. Elinor Glyn died in London at 39 Royal Avenue, Chelsea, on 23 September 1943 after a short illness.

JoAnn E. Castagna
Sources

J. Hardwick, Addicted to romance: the life and adventures of Elinor Glyn (1994) · M. Etherington-Smith and J. Pilcher, The IT girls: Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, the couturière ‘Lucile’, and Elinor Glyn, romantic novelist (1986) · Romantic adventure: the autobiography of Elinor Glyn (1937) · A. Glyn, Elinor Glyn (1955) · M. Fowler, ‘High priestess of “It”’, The Beaver, 74/5 (1994), 18–25 · J. Tully, ‘My interview with Elinor Glyn’, Vanity Fair [New York], 25/6 (1926), 80 · The Times (24 Sept 1943) · New York Times (24 Sept 1943) · M. R. Rinehart, ‘“Three weeks” by Elinor Glyn’, Georgia Review, 7/4 (1953), 370–72 · J. Bettinotti and M.-F. Truel, ‘Lust and dust: desert fabula in romances and the media’, Para Doxa, 3/1–2 (1997), 184–94 · N. Brooks, ‘Fitzgerald's “The great Gatsby” and Glyn's “Three weeks”’, The Explicator, 54/4 (1996), 233–6 · J. Sexton, ‘Brave new world, the feelies, and Elinor Glyn’, English Language Notes, 35/1 (1997), 35–8 · CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1944)
Archives

U. Reading, corresp., papers, literary MSS :: BL, corresp. with Society of Authors, Add. MS 56710 · V&A, theatre collections, letters to Lord Chamberlain's licensee

Likenesses

P. Tanqueray, photograph, c.1932, NPG · A. Mason, oils, 1942, NPG · Szekely, photograph, NPG
Wealth at death

£6588 11s. 1d.: probate, 17 Feb 1944, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
© Oxford University Press 2004–16
All rights reserved: see legal notice Oxford University Press

JoAnn E. Castagna, ‘Glyn , Elinor (1864–1943)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2055/view/article/33428, accessed 18 Oct 2017]

Elinor Glyn (1864–1943): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33428

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Last Updated8/7/24

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