Well, hello, 2017! You’re three days old, already. Racing right along, aren’t you?
Surfacing from a very quiet and blessedly peaceful Christmas season, marred only by a viral thing which has been going the rounds locally. We thought we’d dodged it, but no such luck! – it’s hopped gleefully from family member to family member, morphing merrily into an eclectic assortment of unpleasant symptoms.
We’re all still delicately sniffling, but the worst appears to be over (touch wood!) so holding onto the thought that our immune systems will be all the stronger for it. I rather suspect 2017 will be much about finding silver linings, so this is an appropriate start, don’t you think?
Christmas brought books galore, a nice assortment of local history and horticultural tomes, with a dash of vintage fiction.
I won’t be talking about it quite yet, but I just want to mention to fellow Heyerites that I did indeed receive The Unknown Ajax, and, as you all promised me, it is utterly excellent. I read it immediately upon receipt – such a treat!
An Infamous Army is en route, too, though it appears to be hung up in the postal system. I hope to have my hands on it soon, and my expectations are high.
I did manage to start my Century of Books off quite appropriately with 1900, with a bit of what can only be deemed as literary “fluff”. About as challenging as candy floss to consume, and, expectedly, just as sustaining. But it did have a certain appeal, and it was a very quick read, and it gives me an excuse to perhaps further explore the works of this rather notorious writer.
Elinor Glyn it is.
You know:
Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err
With her
On some other fur?
The reference is of course to the exotic and (for their time) shockingly erotic bestsellers penned by Mrs. Glyn, beloved by the female working classes as the epitome of “escape literature”, and deeply scorned by the literary critics for all the usual reasons.
The Visits of Elizabeth was Elinor Glyn’s first literary effort, and it is a mild little concoction compared to what came after. The book had an immediate success. My personal copy was printed in 1901, the ninth impression, which is indicative of an enthusiastic reception by the book-buying masses.
The Visits of Elizabeth by Elinor Glyn ~ 1900. This edition: Duckworth & Co., 1901. Hardcover. 309 pages.
My rating: 6/10
At some point at the close of the 19th Century – Victoria is still very much on her throne – 17-year-old Elizabeth sets off on a series of visits, accompanied by her maid Agnes, and the good advice (via unseen letters) of her mother.
It was perhaps a fortunate thing for Elizabeth that her ancestors went back to the Conquest, and that she numbered at least two Countesses and a Duchess among her relatives. Her father had died some years ago, and, her mother being an invalid, she had lived a good deal abroad. But, at about seventeen, Elizabeth began to pay visits among her kinfolk…
As we can see by the delicately engraved “portrait” so thoughtfully provided as a frontispiece, Elizabeth is a lovely young thing.
She cultivates a strong line in unconscious naïvety, which supplies most of the humour throughout this otherwise rather cynical, one-sided epistolary novel. (We read all of Elizabeth’s letters to her stay-at-home Mama, but nary a one from her Mama to her.)
She’s always going on about the various quirks of personality, manners, dress and appearance of the people she bumps up against, and for a while we’re not quite sure if her outspoken assessments are meant to be as cutting as they at first appear, but it soon becomes evident that Elizabeth is not harbouring any particular malice, but rather merely a child-like propensity to burble on about the first thing that crosses her mind.
This rather astonishes the worldly, mostly wealthy people she finds herself among. The more experienced and hardened of the women generally find themselves rather jealous of her fresh beauty and unmarred reputation, while the men uniformly fall at least a little bit in love with her, to absolutely no avail, because Elizabeth isn’t playing the flirtation game.
Well, not very seriously, anyway. With the possible exception of one particularly “objectionable” man, whom she has turned off with a slap early on, but who keeps popping up when least expected.
No surprises in how this frothy story ends, and, though blatantly classist and occasionally racist (the French and the Germans come in for some serious slamming, not to mention the upstart nouveau riche Jews who dare to assault the ever-more-fragile glass ceiling of the British class system) in general our heroine settles herself down enough to become quite likeable by the turning of the final page.
Her Mama would undoubtedly be pleased.
There are little hints here and there of Elinor Glyn’s keen eye for the provocative moment which she evidently developed in her future novels, lots of to-ing and fro-ing in midnight corridors, and veiled glances, and double entendres, misunderstood to great comic effect by our innocent heroine.
Elinor Glyn herself led a rather fascinating life, and it is claimed that many of her amorous plotlines came from her own broad experience, including the tiger-skin novel itself, Three Weeks, which featured an anonymous woman-of-nobility enjoying a temporary erotic dalliance with a much younger man.
Elinor moved to Hollywood in 1920 to work as a screenplay writer. Her own novel It was made into a highly successful silent movie in 1927, propelling actress Clara Bow to super-stardom as “The It Girl”.
Glyn’s novels are probably of most interest to today’s readers in the “cultural literacy” sense alone, and I rather doubt that I myself would have chosen to track down and read The Travels of Elizabeth if it weren’t for the need for an interesting 1900 book for my Century. But its promise of light entertainment and my curiosity about a writer I had only known by reference combined to bring it into my hands, and I must say I would be very willing to read another of the later books, if only to see what all the fuss was about.
A small digression here about the antique (or vintage) book as an artifact in its own right. I do love to read books in as close to the original edition as I can find them. There is something deeply satisfying in handling a book in the form in which its author would have seen it go into the world. Dog-eared pages and marginal notes and affectionate inscriptions all add to the appeal, to the feeling of connection with fellow readers of long before our time. Never mind foxing or a bit of mustiness – if the pages are intact and readable I’m all for it no matter how tattered.
This is a handsome little production in the purely physical sense, its green cloth covers enhanced by silver embellishments. The end papers at first glance look to be merely of an interesting checkerboard pattern, but on closer examination proving to be made up of 4-book stacks with spines all reading “Mudie” in different fonts. (For the famous Mudie’s Lending Library, one assumes.There is also an embossed Mudie & Co. Limited stamp on the back cover.)
A really lovely engraving of the titular character is inserted opposite the title page, protected by a glassine sheet.
And, most intriguing of all, we find a page listing a tempting array of other Duckworth and Co.’s Novels, not a single one of which I have heard of, including In the Cage by Henry James. Is it the Henry James? Let me see…. Why, yes, it is. A novella from 1898, apparently.) But, oh! – how I wish I could get my hands on a few of these for their titles alone. Children, Racehorses & Ghosts, anyone? Or how about Omar the Tentmaker? The Crimson Weed? The Monk Wins?
Potentially delicious book discoveries wait round every corner!
Cheerio, all.
And a slightly belated but most sincere Happy New Year!
Elinor Glyn? Well done! I’ve been meaning to read her for years, after reading about her Guelph childhood. The problem I’ve encountered is finding a copy of… well, any Glyn title. It’s my experience with The Swordsman all over again. Where are all these old bestsellers?
Oh, yes, the Canadian connection. I should probably have mentioned that though born in England (actually on one of the Channel Islands, Jersey, I believe) Elinor Glynn spent an early seven years or so in Guelph, along with her widowed mother and her older sister, the future (and equally celebrated and scorned) Lady Duff Gordon, fashion designer to the wealthy, and notorious Titanic shipwreck survivor. My brief introduction to Elinor has barely scratched the surface of what was a very full and complex life indeed.
As to where to find Elinor Glyn, I’ve never yet run across one of her books in my used book store visits, though I must say that might have been because she’s never really been on my radar as an author-to-look-for. ABE is where I located Elizabeth, and it seems to be the best place to start, if you can wade your way through the oodles of print-on-demand atrocities, and the many “Barbara Cartland Library of Love” editions. There are some nice early hardcovers scattered about in the mix, prices from decent to ridiculous.
I myself am tempted to go ahead and order a Virago edition of Three Weeks. I hadn’t realized that Elinor Glyn was quite up to the sometimes-stringent Virago standard, but apparently the heroine of this novel gets the nod because she initiates and controls the love affair within, thereby winning approval and being held up to our nowadays admiration as an example of noteworthy early feminism in action. Spin, spin, spin…
Thanks for this entertaining review.
One of those Duckworth novelists is less obscure than he may seem. ‘John Sinjohn’ is actually John Galsworthy, who used that pseudonym for all his books before 1904.
Aha! I didn’t know that. Interesting. I rather thought the ‘Sinjohn’ was a bit cheeky – it does rather shout ‘pen name’, doesn’t it?
Sounds like the book is a beautiful object in its own right. As for the contents – well, there’s no harm in reading light and fluffy, it can be very enjoyable!
So many of these old books are so beautifully produced – no wonder people buy them “by the foot” for decorating purposes, though that whole thing sometimes bothers me a bit. I’m always scanning titles in artfully arranged shop decoration displays. Occasionally one sees something absolutely special – I have several times convinced a shop owner to part with an old “decor” book – mostly they don’t really care what is inside those pretty covers and are happy to take my word for it that it’s something that I need to make me happy. I find waving money helps them decide on my side. 😉 There’s an awful lot of tosh out there between lovely antique covers, too!
Right up my street, she’s just the kind of author I’ve been meaning to try, and worth it for the details and attitudes even if not up to much on a literary level. I have tried Ouida (dire), Ruby M Ayres (mmmm…) and Ethel M Dell (lively) so Glyn would fit in nicely.
Are you actually going to read the century in order? I started this ages ago but stopped updating my spreadsheet after a while, I should get back to it…
If you could handle Ethel M. Dell, then Elinor Glyn will be easy going for you. Trying to recall if there were any clothing descriptions in Elizabeth, and by golly, yes, there were! Simply seething with commentary about hair, clothes, and complexions.
And no, I’m not going to read the Century in order – that would be a bit too much like work. (And I am still missing some crucial years.) But I thought it would be a nice touch to at least start of with some of the earliest years before I start bouncing all over the decades!
That book looks like a beautiful object certainly. It sounds delightfully charming too (and we all need that from time to time).
It’s quite charming, though occasionally a bit eyebrow-raising, too, as we try to figure out if our heroine is quite as innocent as she appears to be. But she does grow as the book progresses, and I mostly liked her. Not what I would call a “must read”, but amusing in its own minor way.
The Monk Wins is the one I want. WINS WHAT I would like to know.
I was not formerly familiar with the poem you quoted or with Elinor Glyn’s apparently scandalous life, but I love the poem and now desperately want to read a biography of Elinor Glyn. Heretofore I am only familiar with her from the scene in The Music Man where Marian the Librarian asks the Mayor’s wife “Wouldn’t you rather your daughter read a classic than — than Elinor Glyn?” and the Mayor’s wife says, “What Elinor Glyn reads is her mother’s problem! Just you keep your DIRTY BOOKS away from MY DAUGHTER.”
I know, right? WHAT DOES THE MONK WIN? Can’t you imagine all sorts of scandalous possibilities. The book itself is probably really lame. But hey! – maybe not! Maybe it’s another hidden gem…
I too am keen to read an Elinor Glyn bio. Actually, I believe she wrote her autobiography. Fascinating woman. She seems to have led quite a complicated life, some of it by pure (bad?) luck and some by her own choice.
I’m very likely going to break down and order at least one of the “scandalous” novels. Elizabeth was an easy read, rather clever and full of humour, so I’m willing to bet that her other books will be happily readable if not exactly of the highest literary standard. 😉
Love the Music Man reference – I’d forgotten about that.
Sounds like a very pleasant way to start your Century!