A romance between a young Englishman and a noble Queen incognito. She desires him and they have a passionate affair for three weeks in Switzerland, which changes both of their lives. ( )

The 1907 equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey, panned by critics but setting readers’ hearts aflutter. Handsome and athletic young Englishman Paul Verdayne is sent abroad by his family to recover from an unfortunate romance with a girl below his class. In Switzerland, he meets an older Mysterious Lady, who affects a bright red slash of lipstick against a pale complexion (Perhaps author Elinor Glyn was modeling her heroine on the Marchesa Casati? I think the timing isn’t right; I don’t believe the Marchesa had adopted her trademark makeup style by 1907). Said Mysterious Lady quickly seduces Paul – well, quickly by 1907 standards, mostly accomplished with a “strange kiss” – and they spend the titular three weeks engaged in very discretely described amatory activity; in the most risqué scene, he enters her rooms and finds her stretched out on a tiger skin, with a rose in her teeth (she’s clothed – it’s 1907, after all – but it’s a “close-fitting” garment). I can’t go any further, lest spoilers. Strangely fun. In a latter novel, Ms. Glyn coined the term “It” to describe sex appeal; when “It” was filmed, Clara Bow became the “It Girl”. ( )

A high rating for this extraordinary book. Not for its literary quality, gawdelpus, but for the enormous pleasure to be derived from reading it, with its glorious, unintentional, comic qualities! ( )