The Price of Things

They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest...Elinor Glyn (née Sutherland; 17 October 1864 - 23 September 1943) 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. She 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.Early life and family backgroundElinor Sutherland was born on 17 October 1864 in Saint Helier, Jersey, in the Channel Islands. She was the younger daughter of Douglas Sutherland (1838-1865), a civil engineer of Scottish descent, and his wife Elinor Saunders (1841-1937), of an Anglo-French family that had settled in Canada. Her father was said to be related to the Lords Duffus.Her 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 (now Ontario) with her two daughters.Here, young Elinor was taught by her grandmother, Lucy Anne Saunders (née Willcocks), daughter of Sir Richard Willcocks, a magistrate in the early Irish police force, who helped to suppress the Emmet Rising in 1803.Richard's brother Joseph also settled in Upper Canada, publishing one of the first opposition papers there, pursuing liberty, and dying a rebel in 1814. The Anglo-Irish grandmother instructed young Elinor in the ways of upper-class society. This training not only gave her an entrée into aristocratic circles on her return to Europe, it also led her reputation as an authority on style and breeding when she worked in Hollywood in the 1920s.The family lived in Guelph for seven years at a stone home that still stands near the University of Guelph. By 1872, their mother had remarried and took the sisters back to Britain. They were preteens at the time and years later, would build their careers in the United States. Glyn's elder sister grew up to be Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, famous as a fashion designer under the name Lucile. Glyn's mother remarried in 1871 to David Kennedy, and the family returned to Jersey when Glyn was about eight years old.Her subsequent education at her stepfather's house was by governesses.