The Reception of Elinor Glyn's Work in Spain (1926–57)

Abstract

The work of the British author Elinor Glyn was wildly successful in Spain. Twenty-five of her books were published between the years of 1926 and 1957 by Editorial Edita, during a period when the publishing sector created a number of collections of romance novels aimed mainly at female readers. Glyn's work was characterized by a high degree of exoticism and sensuality, far removed from the traditional, conservative world-view espoused in domestically written novels like those by Rafael Pérez y Pérez. The author's success was reflected in the Spanish press of the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, some of her most iconic works were adapted for the cinema and played on screens in Spain, which in turn helped to increase her popularity further. Her characters’ outbursts of passion caused the first editions of her books to be accompanied by texts justifying their publication and defending their suitability for female readers. Literary catalogues, listings that classified books according to moral criteria, did not share this opinion and deemed the books suitable only for highly educated readers.

Keywords:

• Elinor Glyn
• romance novel
• translation
• censorship
• reception
• Spain

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In the late nineteenth century, Spanish publishers accounted for just 3 per cent of the overall market in Spanish-speaking America, a figure far below those of North American, French, English and German publishing houses. Just 40 years later, in 1936, half of the Spanish publishing industry's output was consumed by the Latin American market (Dalla Corte and Espósito 2010).

2 The authorization for its publication was denied up to three times (1949, 1950 and 1953). As stated in the first report (File 4431-49), ‘the plot as well as the descriptions’ were found to be ‘frankly immoral’. The other two reports (Files 4173-50 and 5214-53) refer to the first one to justify the denial. All censorship reports issued during the dictatorship can be consulted at the Archivo General de la Administración in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid).

3 In a January 1950 report (File 5982-49), the two state readers in charge of censoring Three Weeks agreed that the novel was immoral on all of its pages and that its publication could not be authorized. Some months later, in September 1950, a report referred to the previous judgement of the novel to reject publication again (File 4743-50).

Additional information

Funding

This article is part of the activities of the Grup d’Estudis de Gènere: Traducció, Literatura, Història i Comunicació (GETLIHC; 2014 SGR 62) and of the R+D+i project ‘Traducción y censura: género e ideología (1939–2000)’ [reference number FFI2014-52989-C2-2-P], financed by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of Spain.