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The Reflections of Ambrosine
"Everything!" he said, in a fury, thumping the table so hard that a little Dresden-china figure fell down and broke into pieces on the parquet floor. "Everything! Your great eyes are always sad. You never take the least interest in anything about any of us. You are docile--yes; and obedient--yes; and when I hold you in my arms I might be holding a stuffed doll for all the response you make. And when I kiss you, you shudder!
- GenresRomance
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1903
7 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Elinor Glyn
238 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 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 10, 2013
3.5 stars. This story is told from the heroine's first person POV and was much more engaging than I expected.
Ambrosine is a young woman from an old, proud, and impoverished noble family. She was primarily raised by her French grandmother who had plans for Ambrosine's marriage to a distant cousin but becomes ill before her plans can be carried out. Instead, a hasty marriage is arranged to an admirer whom Ambrosine pretty much despises but during the week of her engagement she accidentally meets the cousin and falls almost intstantly in love with him. Unfortunately it is too late. Ambrosine stays true to her promise to wed and the marriage is a distaster. Eventually, fate plays a hand to bring the intended lovers together. (Anything more would be a spoiler)
Kissing only - no sexual content.
Ambrosine is a young woman from an old, proud, and impoverished noble family. She was primarily raised by her French grandmother who had plans for Ambrosine's marriage to a distant cousin but becomes ill before her plans can be carried out. Instead, a hasty marriage is arranged to an admirer whom Ambrosine pretty much despises but during the week of her engagement she accidentally meets the cousin and falls almost intstantly in love with him. Unfortunately it is too late. Ambrosine stays true to her promise to wed and the marriage is a distaster. Eventually, fate plays a hand to bring the intended lovers together. (Anything more would be a spoiler)
Kissing only - no sexual content.
July 16, 2010
Well, this was quite fun! Which does not mean that it was actually good. Elinor Glyn seems to have specialized in deliciously trashy novels, a sort of Jazz-Age version of Jackie Collins or Judith Krantz. Today, Ambrosine reads as pretty tame (any sex is implied rather than explicit -- it's just that plenty of it is implied!), but its tone of delighted naughtiness and its gawking at the imagined decadence of aristrocrats are tremendously entertaining.
Ambrosine, our narrator, is a penniless young girl brought up by her impeccably elegant French gran-mere and groomed for a fine match. In other words, Glyn had read "Gigi" more than once. Alas, poor Ambrosine is married off to a rich middle-aged boor because Granmere's health is failing. She then divides her time between being horrified by her husband's dreadful taste in home furnishings and his uncultured relatives (Ambrosine is a horrible, horrible snob -- an attitude that Glyn seems to find quite admirable) and gawking at racy banter of his elegant country-house neighbors, who all hop in and out of each other's beds and generally carry on. Of course, it wouldn't be a good trashy novel without an improbably happy ending that wraps up in the last few pages.
I'm making a lot of fun of the book here, and frankly it deserves it -- but it's really very enjoyable to read. In spite of her snobbery and prejudice, Ambrosine's voice is lively and the book is often intentionally funny and always vivid, at least until the soppy conclusion. Lots of Glyn's novels are available dirt-cheap as e-books, and I will certainly pick up some others.
Ambrosine, our narrator, is a penniless young girl brought up by her impeccably elegant French gran-mere and groomed for a fine match. In other words, Glyn had read "Gigi" more than once. Alas, poor Ambrosine is married off to a rich middle-aged boor because Granmere's health is failing. She then divides her time between being horrified by her husband's dreadful taste in home furnishings and his uncultured relatives (Ambrosine is a horrible, horrible snob -- an attitude that Glyn seems to find quite admirable) and gawking at racy banter of his elegant country-house neighbors, who all hop in and out of each other's beds and generally carry on. Of course, it wouldn't be a good trashy novel without an improbably happy ending that wraps up in the last few pages.
I'm making a lot of fun of the book here, and frankly it deserves it -- but it's really very enjoyable to read. In spite of her snobbery and prejudice, Ambrosine's voice is lively and the book is often intentionally funny and always vivid, at least until the soppy conclusion. Lots of Glyn's novels are available dirt-cheap as e-books, and I will certainly pick up some others.
December 16, 2016
Dopo un infelice giro tra sconcertanti 'New York Times bestselling authors of historical romance', ho cercato un po' di conforto in un'autrice la cui collocazione biografica (tra la Francia di fine ottocento e l'Inghilterra della prima metà del novecento) mi faceva ben sperare.
Decisamente, tutta un'altra classe! Il romanzo è semplice, non molto lungo, ma elegante, intelligente, garbatamente romantico. E seguire le riflessioni della protagonista (la Ambrosine del titolo) è stata una vera delizia.
Decisamente, tutta un'altra classe! Il romanzo è semplice, non molto lungo, ma elegante, intelligente, garbatamente romantico. E seguire le riflessioni della protagonista (la Ambrosine del titolo) è stata una vera delizia.
June 30, 2016
Sweet amish story.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews