GLYN, Margot.

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An illustrated typescript account of six weeks spent motoring through Italy with her mother. An unpublished travelogue created by a young woman, containing her spirited observations and illustrated with postcards, prints, and snapshot photographs. Glyn's tour encompassed the Italian countryside and cities including Rome, Siena, Florence, and Pompeii. She is particularly frank in her descriptions of art, sculpture, and architecture, variously finding sources of spiritual inspiration and intellectual exasperation.Margot Glyn (1893-1966) was born in London to a well-known author of romantic fiction, Elinor Glyn (1864-1943). Books such as Three Weeks, whose protagonist visits Italy, caused a scandal for their depictions of female sexuality and sold millions of copies. Another feature of Elinor's novels was their "romantic effusions over scenic views and ruins" (ODNB), and Glyn's typescript has similar tendencies. She observes "the Appenines, lilac and rosy... fantastic shadow shapes falling away towards Capri, a lavender silhouette in a golden sea" (p. 44).Throughout her tour, Glyn enjoys ancient sculpture and architecture, occasionally finding it a conduit to spiritual experiences. Recalling the temple at Paestum, she writes that "I have felt the calm of the Gods descend upon me... that is a divine gift which recks not of sects and religions but is the supreme attribute of the highest" (p. 46). Of medieval and Renaissance art, she is underwhelmed by Botticelli, describing the Ve

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