The Special Relationship and the Allure of Transatlantic Travel in the Work of Elinor Glyn

Abstract

Winston Churchill famously said that the United Kingdom and the United States of America had a ‘special relationship’. This article takes a look at Elinor Glyn's Atlantic travel in her life and in her novels, and her visits to the United States, drawing on her archives, her memoir, magazine articles and contemporary newspaper reports of her trips. Her novel Six Days (1924) was adapted into a popular silent film which was exhibited in Europe and the United States. It is a combination of love and romance, transatlantic travel on a Cunard liner, a secret military mission and political cooperation, and is taken as an example of how the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom has been depicted in romance novels. It draws parallels between the movies 6 Days (1923) and Titanic (1997). This article was the keynote address at the Love Across the Atlantic Conference at the University of Roehampton in June 2017.