Beyond The Rocks: A Love Story

"Beyond the Rocks: A Love Story" by Elinor Glyn is a romance novel written in the early 20th century. The story introduces us to Theodora, a young woman facing an arranged marriage to a wealthy, though unattractive, older man named Josiah Brown. Despite familial pressures to secure a prosperous future for her and her father, Theodora is filled with longing for true love, which she yearns to experience, especially after her encounter with Lord Bracondale, an intriguing and handsome Englishman. The beginning of the novel explores Theodora's reluctant engagement and marriage to Mr. Brown, alongside her contrasting feelings of duty and desire. Her life is complicated by a loving but inept father who prompts her to marry for security. When Theodora meets Captain Fitzgerald, her father, and later Lord Bracondale, her feelings begin to stir as she imagines a life filled with love and passion. As she grapples with her conflicting emotions and societal expectations, the opening sets up a tension between her duty to her husband and her dreams of a romantic connection, ultimately leading to her longing for an awakening to love amidst her suffocating reality. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Elinor Glyn was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction, which was considered scandalous for its time, although her works are relatively tame by modern standards. She popularized the concept of the it-girl, and had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and, possibly, on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and, especially, Clara Bow.