Inventing the It Girl: How Elinor Glyn Created the Modern Romance and Conquered Early Hollywood [Paperback]

A A new biography of Glyn, Inventing the It Girl, by Hilary A. Hallett, restores her to the pantheon of history with great thoughtfulness and taste. Highly readable and deeply researched... Writing with the right touch of occasional humor, Ms. Hallett gracefully restores Glyns dignity, defines her intelligence and tells the full story of her remarkable life. She makes Elinor Glyn matter. Halletts sense of history makes this a biography rich in detail . . . . the It Girl and her creator had a profound impact on modern attitudes to love and sex  one that echoes today, long after Glyns name has faded, in a romance novels eternal promise to sweep the reader away. Halletts extensive knowledge of Elinor Glyn and her milieu are apparent... [A] page-turning account . . . Hallett is equally at home chronicling the contours of Glyns life, decaying English aristocracy, and the glamour of Hollywood, easily conjuring her subject and the events and cultural shifts that shaped her. This one brings the goods. A brilliant, thought-provoking portrait of a forgotten 20th-century influencer. . . . Hallett creates a vivacious, intellectual, and fascinating narrative, and her impressive research effectively highlights an extraordinary life that aimed to let loose the genie of womens sexual liberation. Halletts biography puts Glyns glittering influence in its historical context. Its a thoroughly readable chronicling of a woman whose influence spanned generations.