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Halcyone
Outside one of the park gates there was a little house. In the prosperous days of the La Sarthe it had been the land steward’s—but when there was no longer any land to steward it had gone with the rest, and for several years had been uninhabited.
- GenresRomance
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1912
2 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Elinor Glyn
234 books34 followersElinor Sutherland was born in St Helier, Jersey, the younger daughter of Douglas Sutherland (1838–1865), a civil engineer of Scottish descent, and his wife Elinor Saunders (1841–1937).
Her father died when Elinor was two months old and her mother returned to the parental home in Guelph, Ontario, Canada with her two daughters, Lucy Christiana and Elinor.
Back in Canada, Elinor was schooled by her grandmother, Lucy Anne Saunders, in the ways of upper-class society. This early training not only gave her an entrée into aristocratic circles on her return to Europe, but it led to her being considered an authority on style and breeding when she worked in Hollywood in the 1920s.
Her mother remarried a Mr. Kennedy in 1871 and when Elinor was eight years old the family returned to Jersey. When there her schooling continued at home with a succession of governesses.
Elinor married Clayton Louis Glyn (1857–1915), a wealthy but spendthrift landowner, on 27 April 1892. The couple had two daughters, Margot and Juliet, but the marriage apparently foundered on mutual incompatibility although the couple remained together.
As a consequence Elinor had affairs with a succession of British aristocrats and some of her books are supposedly based on her various affairs, such as 'Three Weeks' (1907), allegedly inspired by her affair with Lord Alistair Innes Ker. That affair caused quite a furore and scandalized Edwardian society and one of the scenes in the book had one unnamed poet writing,
Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err with her
On some other fur?
She had began her writing in 1900, starting with a book based on letters to her mother, 'The Visits of Elizabeth'. And thereafter she more or less wrote one book each year to keep the wolf from the door, as her husband was debt-ridden from 1908, and also to keep up her standard of living. After several years of illness her husband died in 1915.
Early in her writing career she was recognised as one of the pioneers of what could be called erotic fiction, although not by modern-day standards, and she coined the use of the world 'It' to mean at the time sex-appeal and she helped to make Clara Bow a star by the use of the sobriquet for her of 'The It Girl'.
On the strength of her reputation and success she moved to Hollywood in 1920 and in 1921 was featured as one of the famous personalities in a Ralph Barton cartoon drawn especially for 'Vanity Fair' magazine.
A number of her books were made into films, most notably 'Beyond the Rocks' (1906), which starred Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson, and she was a scriptwriter for the silent movie industry, working for both MGM and Paramount Pictures in the mid-1920s. In addition she also had a brief career as one of the earliest female directors.
In 1927, by which time she had published 32 novels, she once again appeared in some verse of the day. Songsmith Lorenz Hart immortalised her in his song 'My Heart Stood Still' when he wrote,
I read my Plato
Love, I thought a sin
But since your kiss
I'm reading missus Glyn!
She was so universally popular and well-known in the 1920s that she even made a cameo appearance as herself in the 1928 film 'Show People'.
As well as her novels, she wrote wrote magazine articles for the Hearst Press giving advice on 'how to keep your man' and also giving health and beauty tips. In 1922 she published 'The Elinor Glyn System of Writing', which gives an insight into writing for Hollywood studios and magazine editors.
In later life she moved to the United Kingdom, settling in London. She wrote over 40 books, the last of which was 'The Third Eye' (1940) and she died in Chelsea on 23 September 1943, being survived by her two daughters.
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
Her father died when Elinor was two months old and her mother returned to the parental home in Guelph, Ontario, Canada with her two daughters, Lucy Christiana and Elinor.
Back in Canada, Elinor was schooled by her grandmother, Lucy Anne Saunders, in the ways of upper-class society. This early training not only gave her an entrée into aristocratic circles on her return to Europe, but it led to her being considered an authority on style and breeding when she worked in Hollywood in the 1920s.
Her mother remarried a Mr. Kennedy in 1871 and when Elinor was eight years old the family returned to Jersey. When there her schooling continued at home with a succession of governesses.
Elinor married Clayton Louis Glyn (1857–1915), a wealthy but spendthrift landowner, on 27 April 1892. The couple had two daughters, Margot and Juliet, but the marriage apparently foundered on mutual incompatibility although the couple remained together.
As a consequence Elinor had affairs with a succession of British aristocrats and some of her books are supposedly based on her various affairs, such as 'Three Weeks' (1907), allegedly inspired by her affair with Lord Alistair Innes Ker. That affair caused quite a furore and scandalized Edwardian society and one of the scenes in the book had one unnamed poet writing,
Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err with her
On some other fur?
She had began her writing in 1900, starting with a book based on letters to her mother, 'The Visits of Elizabeth'. And thereafter she more or less wrote one book each year to keep the wolf from the door, as her husband was debt-ridden from 1908, and also to keep up her standard of living. After several years of illness her husband died in 1915.
Early in her writing career she was recognised as one of the pioneers of what could be called erotic fiction, although not by modern-day standards, and she coined the use of the world 'It' to mean at the time sex-appeal and she helped to make Clara Bow a star by the use of the sobriquet for her of 'The It Girl'.
On the strength of her reputation and success she moved to Hollywood in 1920 and in 1921 was featured as one of the famous personalities in a Ralph Barton cartoon drawn especially for 'Vanity Fair' magazine.
A number of her books were made into films, most notably 'Beyond the Rocks' (1906), which starred Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson, and she was a scriptwriter for the silent movie industry, working for both MGM and Paramount Pictures in the mid-1920s. In addition she also had a brief career as one of the earliest female directors.
In 1927, by which time she had published 32 novels, she once again appeared in some verse of the day. Songsmith Lorenz Hart immortalised her in his song 'My Heart Stood Still' when he wrote,
I read my Plato
Love, I thought a sin
But since your kiss
I'm reading missus Glyn!
She was so universally popular and well-known in the 1920s that she even made a cameo appearance as herself in the 1928 film 'Show People'.
As well as her novels, she wrote wrote magazine articles for the Hearst Press giving advice on 'how to keep your man' and also giving health and beauty tips. In 1922 she published 'The Elinor Glyn System of Writing', which gives an insight into writing for Hollywood studios and magazine editors.
In later life she moved to the United Kingdom, settling in London. She wrote over 40 books, the last of which was 'The Third Eye' (1940) and she died in Chelsea on 23 September 1943, being survived by her two daughters.
Gerry Wolstenholme
November 2010
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 9, 2021
The opening is quoted as the GR description. I like it when an author gives me some sense of "my" surroundings. Halcyone likes to play in the garden next to that little house. She is not happy to see that it is now occupied and she doesn't mind telling Mr. Carlyon so. She also remarks on the number of books he has and that he couldn't possibly read them in his lifetime. So begins a friendship where the retired professor gives lessons in Greek mythology to Halcyone, a very apt student. I have read little mythology and I worried that much would go over my head. I was surprised that the Greek characters were described in their context of the story so if I did miss things, I think it wasn't much.
When I first chose to add this book to my list for reading books by women published in the 20th Century, this was described as a romance. I would choose to call it a love story and I do distinguish between the two. There is more story than in a romance and the characters are better developed. I admit the characters may not be *fully* developed, but I found them more than caricatures. I was quite comfortable with the writing style which leans more toward 19th Century than 20th Century. While there are no very long convoluted sentences, the sentence structure is often somewhat formal.
There was enough plot to keep me interested. There is also conflict. It is the sort of story in which I was certain there would be a happy ending and yet there were instances that had me concerned there might not be. I have no others by this author on my shelves, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't find myself in the mood to try another. I'm happy this one is 4-stars.
When I first chose to add this book to my list for reading books by women published in the 20th Century, this was described as a romance. I would choose to call it a love story and I do distinguish between the two. There is more story than in a romance and the characters are better developed. I admit the characters may not be *fully* developed, but I found them more than caricatures. I was quite comfortable with the writing style which leans more toward 19th Century than 20th Century. While there are no very long convoluted sentences, the sentence structure is often somewhat formal.
There was enough plot to keep me interested. There is also conflict. It is the sort of story in which I was certain there would be a happy ending and yet there were instances that had me concerned there might not be. I have no others by this author on my shelves, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't find myself in the mood to try another. I'm happy this one is 4-stars.
January 28, 2020
Was prompted to read some Elinor Glyn by a visit to Montacute House (Somerset UK) where she lived for a short time. This Victorian/Edwardian romance is fascinating in many ways not least because of the way it sheds light on its highly unconventional author who in the face of many personal romantic setbacks proved herself to be such a strong, successful and independent woman.
The character of Halcyone has much of Elinor Glyn about her not least one suspects some of her characteristics which fly in the face of the moral conventions of the time:
"Marriage as a ceremony in church meant nothing to her. Some such thing, of course, must take place because of the stupid conventions of the world"
The plot itself is fairly conventional for the time the usual boy meets girl, circumstances in the person of a scheming other woman intervene to part them causing much heartache, until ...etc etc. But there is enough tension to keep even a modern reader interested. And it is the characters themselves which really bring the novel to life, drawn one suspects from Elinor's circle and all the stronger and more lifelike for it, giving the novel real bite. As a reader I really invested in them wishing them well or ill by turns. John Derringham the hero is undoubtedly drawn from Lord Curzon the politician with whom Elinor Glyn had already started a long passionate affair. And it is frighteningly uncanny how plot elements in the book published several years before her breakup with Curzon are weirdly predictive of events to come in Elinor's own life especially the shockingly heartbreaking way in which Halcyone (then later Elinor) learns of John's (then later Curzon's) impending marriage. Life most definitely imitating fiction.
Whether or not the much mentioned Long Gallery of the novel is that of Montecute House is open to question as Curzon appears to have rented Montecute some time after the publication of Halcyone though Elinor may have visited there or other great Elizabethan houses of the time which also had a Long Gallery (albeit less impressive than the one at Montecute which is the longest one surviving today).
The style of writing too is a cut above other romantic melodramas of the time with frequent highly educated references to Greek mythology, great literary works and the intricacies of politics. Halcyone is a highly educated young lady. Nor is it without it's humour in the preposterous character of the parrot-like Mrs Cecelia Cricklander who to impress her guests employs a full time companion to research and write crib notes for the conversation topics Cecelia plans to hold forth upon each evening. The paid companion, the long suffering Arabella Clinker is one of my favourite characters in the book with her honest slightly waspish letters about her employer to her ageing mother. I just wish Elinor Glyn had written Arabella a postscript at the end of the novel with her own 'happy' ending.
Dated it may be, but deftly written and utterly delightful - no wonder it's author regarded it as one of her best novels.
The character of Halcyone has much of Elinor Glyn about her not least one suspects some of her characteristics which fly in the face of the moral conventions of the time:
"Marriage as a ceremony in church meant nothing to her. Some such thing, of course, must take place because of the stupid conventions of the world"
The plot itself is fairly conventional for the time the usual boy meets girl, circumstances in the person of a scheming other woman intervene to part them causing much heartache, until ...etc etc. But there is enough tension to keep even a modern reader interested. And it is the characters themselves which really bring the novel to life, drawn one suspects from Elinor's circle and all the stronger and more lifelike for it, giving the novel real bite. As a reader I really invested in them wishing them well or ill by turns. John Derringham the hero is undoubtedly drawn from Lord Curzon the politician with whom Elinor Glyn had already started a long passionate affair. And it is frighteningly uncanny how plot elements in the book published several years before her breakup with Curzon are weirdly predictive of events to come in Elinor's own life especially the shockingly heartbreaking way in which Halcyone (then later Elinor) learns of John's (then later Curzon's) impending marriage. Life most definitely imitating fiction.
Whether or not the much mentioned Long Gallery of the novel is that of Montecute House is open to question as Curzon appears to have rented Montecute some time after the publication of Halcyone though Elinor may have visited there or other great Elizabethan houses of the time which also had a Long Gallery (albeit less impressive than the one at Montecute which is the longest one surviving today).
The style of writing too is a cut above other romantic melodramas of the time with frequent highly educated references to Greek mythology, great literary works and the intricacies of politics. Halcyone is a highly educated young lady. Nor is it without it's humour in the preposterous character of the parrot-like Mrs Cecelia Cricklander who to impress her guests employs a full time companion to research and write crib notes for the conversation topics Cecelia plans to hold forth upon each evening. The paid companion, the long suffering Arabella Clinker is one of my favourite characters in the book with her honest slightly waspish letters about her employer to her ageing mother. I just wish Elinor Glyn had written Arabella a postscript at the end of the novel with her own 'happy' ending.
Dated it may be, but deftly written and utterly delightful - no wonder it's author regarded it as one of her best novels.
June 25, 2014
This book was so sweet and easy to read! I am often angered by the propriety and suppression of English society, particularly Victorian society. But Halcyone is pure and true, and sticks to her values by choice and acts by her heart. Her mind is valued by those in her life, as well. It is a tale of love and authenticty, here, that I enjoyed very much.
April 20, 2018
Una lettura affascinante, qua e là un po' sopra le righe, com'è logico aspettarsi da una scrittura datata di circa un secolo. Quello che conquistò i lettori della Glyn, credo, è quella sensualità diffusa ma sempre sottobraccio, mai brutalmente esplicita... attualmente, ancora, il suo pregio maggiore.
December 20, 2019
I loved this book!
August 15, 2021
This book made me so happy :) I really adore and admire Halcyone. She is a character whose wisdom and perspective I can relate and look up to. This is a great book for someone who is looking for an easy yet meaningful read.
Want to read
October 10, 2018I was reading an original copy of this in college when I went to the bookstore to buy textbooks. There was a station at the front where you could leave your other textbooks and book bags to deter theft. I tried to walk in with this book and was stopped. When I pointed out that they didn't sell anything nearly that old, they still wouldn't let me in until I put it on the shelf.
Read this book for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13530/...
Read this book for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13530/...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews