The Dusty Bookcase: Elinor Glyn's Christmas Ghost Story (and others)

16 December 2024

Elinor Glyn's Christmas Ghost Story (and others)

The Contrast and Other Stories
Elinor Glyn
London: Duckworth, 1913
312 pages

As is typical of short story collections, this book is overshadowed by the author's longer works. The Contrast and Other Stories was published in the very same year as Glyn's novels The Sequence and The Point of View. Of these, the former, a story of the romance between "tall, stern and cynical" Sir Hugh Dremont and "pale, sensitive and spiritual" Guinevere, is the more notable for having earned a spot sixty-five years later as volume 17 in Barbara Cartland's Library of Love.

Those character descriptions of Sir Hugh Dremont and Guinevere come from Dame Barbara herself. I must read it, if only to learn Guinevere's surname.

The Point of View failed to reach quite that height, but it has an equally interesting publishing history. The novel was first published from start to finish in the February 1913 number of Ainslee's Magazine. Later that same year, it appeared as a book in the United States, though not in the United Kingdom. My first American edition was purchased three years ago for fifty cents .

New York: Appleton, 1913

The Point of View is one of five "stories" in The Contrast and Other Stories. Spanning 184 of the collection's 312 pages, it cannot help but dominate.

Frontispiece to the Appleton edition.

The heroine of the novel – again, it is a novel – is 21-year-old Stella Rawson, a pretty brown-eyed orphan who was raised by her uncle and aunt, Canon and the Honourable Mrs Ebly. The spring of 1913 finds the three visiting Rome. While dining at the restaurant of the Grand Hotel they notice Count Roumovsky. He's hard to miss. The count dresses in such fine clothes and wears such a slim wristwatch that the Canon and the Honourable Mrs. Ebly take offense. And then there's his hair:

It seemed incredible that such an almost grotesque arrangement of coiffure should adorn the head of a man in modern evening dress. It should have been on some Byzantine saint. However, there he was, and entirely unconcerned at the effect he was producing.

By all appearances, Roumovsky is oblivious to the Eblys' attentions, Stella's included, but when alone with her the following morning he makes his move in arranging an afternoon tryst, which is followed by another, and an evening encounter in which he proposes marriage. Stella is hot for the Russian dandy, but is already betrothed to Reverend Eustace Medlicott, a High Church Anglican who is prepared to leave his life of celibacy.

It pains me to write that 'The Point of View' is the best "story" in the collection, because I really wanted to focus on 'The Irtonwood Ghost;' Canadian Christmas ghost stories being so uncommon.

Can 'The Irtonwood Ghost' be considered in any way Canadian? I say yes. Elinor Glyn came to Canada at two months of age and left as a nine-year-old. Those are formative years, right?

First published in the 1911 Christmas Issue of Pearson's, 'The Irtonwood Ghost' is the second longest piece in The Contrast and Other Stories. It's on par with the four others in that it is neither more nor less memorable. I read it two weekends back and can't quite recall what it was all about. From what I do remember, it concerns graceful young widow Esther Charters who has been invited to spend Christmas at Irtonwood Manor, located somewhere in the English countryside. Its a good break from her worries, which centre on a century-old marriage certificate that needs be found to secure the property she has inherited from her late husband. Unbeknownst to her, there is an enemy, Ambrose Duval, amongst the other guests. Duval has been on the hunt for the very same certificate, but only so that he might destroy it. The supernatural comes into play in the form of haunting dreams in which premonition plays a part. Oh, and there is a ghost.

'The Contrast' is an odd choice for the title tale in that it is the weakest of the five stories. Irish songbird Pauline is being strung along by a ne'er-do-well while a devoted man, the better in every way, pines from the wings.

In 'Her Advice,' a young wife chooses to confront an older femme fatale whom she believes is threatening her marriage, and instead comes away with advice on how to tend the flames of desire.

The closer, 'Fragments,' concerns an unnamed woman married to Ernest, a man made invalid by war. It is either Glyn at her most experimental or nothing more than notes being passed off as a short story.

I think 'Fragments' is the only one of the five to have a sad ending, though I may be wrong. In the course of its twenty pages, the wife falls in love with able-bodied landowner and dog breeder Sir John Harrington, and he with her. Neither act on that love out of deference to Ernest. The story ends with the wife arriving home one day to find her husband dead. Could it too be a happy ending? After all, Ernest is no longer suffering, and his wife is now free to be with Sir John.

That the ending is so very predictable reflects on Glyn's chief flaw as a storyteller. Once set in motion, her plots follow the simplest course toward a happy conclusion. There is conflict to be sure, as expected with matters of the heart, but there are no obstacles of any significance.

Each story ends with every character happy or at the very least satisfied, the exception being Ambrose Duval of 'The Irtonwood Ghost.' Esther Charters ends up with the lost marriage certificate, not him. On the other hand, Duval is allowed to escape, which must have made him happy.

Even Eustace Medlicott of The Point of View is happy, despite losing his charming fiancée to a Russian count. Bonus: Reverend Medlicott is free to maintain his life of celibacy.

The Point of View ends with the marriage of Stella and Count Roumovsky, but would they live happily ever after? After all, their whirlwind romance takes place in the spring of 1913, a mere fourteen months before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. I wonder how they fared once the Bolsheviks took power.

Soon to become ghosts themselves, perhaps.

Object: Once part of the Hammersmith Public Libraries, it isn't nearly so scarred as one might expect.

At some point it belonged to someone named O. Farnworth.

I purchased this copy, a first edition, earlier this year from an Edinburgh bookseller. Price: £15.

Access: A Quebec bookseller is offering a "Very Good" copy of the Duckworth edition for US$30.00, while another in New York State has listed the same in perhaps lesser condition at US$65.00. Both have blue boards, which I can only assume is a variant.

The only other edition of which I am aware is the Tauchnitz, published in Leipzig in 1913. Just one copy is listed for sale online; this by an Ottawa bookseller:

Half Bound. Condition: VG. 271 pages in very good, clean condition; edges a little yellowed. Marbled endpapers. Half bound with brown leather over marbled boards. Gilt titles and decoration on the spine. Light scuffing on the leather and boards. Edges rubbed. Corners not bumped. VG Size: 4 1/2 x 6 1/2.

Sounds intriguing.

The Duckworth edition can. be read online here thanks to the Internet Archive.

The Point of View was published in 1913 by Applewood and Authors' Press, then never again. As I write, two online booksellers are offering jacketless copies of the latter online at US$4.50 and US$5.00, but at US$10.00, the copy to buy is this Appleton first: