23 Facts About Elinor Glyn

Elinor Glyn was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction, which was considered scandalous for its time, although her works are relatively tame by modern standards.

Elinor Glyn popularized the concept of the "it girl", and had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and, possibly, on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and, especially, Clara Bow.

Elinor Glyn was the younger daughter of Douglas Sutherland, a civil engineer of Scottish descent, and his wife Elinor Saunders, of an Anglo-French family that had settled in Canada.

Elinor Glyn's father was said to be related to the Lords Duffus.

Elinor Glyn's father died when she was two months old; her mother returned to the parental home in Guelph, in what was then Upper Canada, British North America with her two daughters.

Elinor Glyn's grandfather on her mother's side, Thomas Saunders was a direct descendant of the Saunders family who had possessed Pitchcott Manor in Buckinghamshire for several centuries.

Elinor Glyn's mother remarried in 1871 to David Kennedy, and the family returned to Jersey when Elinor Glyn was about eight years old.

Elinor Glyn began writing in 1900, starting with Visits of Elizabeth, serialised in The World, a book based on letters to her mother, although Lady Angela Forbes claimed, in her memoirs, that Elinor Glyn used her as the prototype of Elizabeth.

Elinor Glyn's marriage was troubled, and Glyn began having affairs with various British aristocrats.

Around 1907, Elinor Glyn toured the United States, resulting in her book Elizabeth visits America.

Elinor Glyn had a long affair between circa 1907 and 1916 with Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India.

Curzon asked Elinor Glyn to decorate Montacute House and with Elinor Glyn away from London, Curzon courted heiress Grace Duggan.

Elinor Glyn learned of Curzon and Duggan's engagement from the morning papers and burnt 500 love letters in the bedroom fireplace, never speaking to Curzon again.

Elinor Glyn pioneered risque, and sometimes erotic, romantic fiction aimed at a female readership, a radical idea for its time.

At the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, 28 June 1919, Elinor Glyn was one of only two women present.

Elinor Glyn wrote for Cosmopolitan and other Hearst press titles, advising women on how to keep their men and imparting health and beauty tips.

Elinor Glyn was one of the most famous women screenwriters in the 1920s.

Elinor Glyn has 28 story or screenwriting credits, three producing credits, and two credits for directing.

Elinor Glyn was responsible for many screenplays in the 1920s, including Six Hours and the film version of her novel Three Weeks.

Elinor Glyn is credited with the re-styling of Gloria Swanson from giggly starlet to elegant star.

Elinor Glyn returned home to England in 1929 in part because of tax demands.

Elinor Glyn's family had established a company in 1924, Elinor Glyn Ltd, to which she signed her copyrights, receiving an income from the firm and an annuity in later life.

Elinor Glyn Ltd produced a second film in 1930, The Price of Things, which was unsuccessful and was never released in the US.