Elinor Glyn talks to Toronto women

Here’s an ad for Lux soap from the July 14 1930 edition of the Toronto Daily Star, featuring romance writer Elinor Glyn.

Elinor Glyn (1864-1943) was famous, indeed notorious, in her time: she wrote romance novels that were considered racy in that era. She popularized the concept of “it”, which apparently was a characteristic that “draws all others with magnetic force”. Whee! (Ms. Glyn explains “it” in a British Movietone News interview here.)

One of her novels, Three Weeks (which, incidentally, is shorter than 9 1/2 Weeks), inspired this bit of doggerel:

Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err with her
On some other fur?

Naturally, this novel sold like hotcakes, despite a savage critical reception. (It’s in the public domain now, and is available as part of Project Gutenberg.)

In the 1920s, Ms. Glyn became a Hollywood screenwriter; she gave Clara Bow the title of “the It girl”, which helped make her a star. At about the time this ad appeared, she had exhausted her finances, and she had returned to writing novels; the fee that she obtained for endorsing Lux probably helped her out. Ms. Glyn had two daughters, both of whom married baronets.