''The Constant Nymph'' is a 1924

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

Margaret Kennedy Margaret Moore Kennedy (23 April 1896 – 31 July 1967) was an English novelist and playwright. Her most successful work, as a novel and as a play, was '' The Constant Nymph''. She was a productive writer and several of her works were filmed. T ...

. It tells how a teenage girl falls in love with a family friend, who eventually marries her cousin. It explores the protagonists' complex family histories, focusing on class, education and creativity.

Success

The novel sold well from its first appearance, becoming the first novel of a genre sometimes called "

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

". Much of its success was due to its then-shocking sexual content, describing scenes of adolescent sexuality and of noble savagery in the Austrian

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

. There is a complimentary allusion to the novel in the 1934 detective story ''

The Nine Tailors ''The Nine Tailors'' is a 1934 mystery novel by the British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. The story is set in the Lincolnshire Fens, and revolves around a group of bell-ringers at the local parish church. The b ...

'' by Dorothy L. Sayers. Fifteen-year-old Hilary tells her father she aspires to write novels: "Best sellers. The sort that everybody goes potty over. Not just bosh ones, but like ''The Constant Nymph''." Sayers includes a positive mention by two characters in her 1930

epistolary novel An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...

, ''

The Documents in the Case ''The Documents in the Case'' is a 1930 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace. It is the only one of Sayers's twelve major crime novels not to feature Lord Peter Wimsey, her most famous detective character. However, the forensic analyst ...

''.

Adaptations

Margaret Kennedy and

Basil Dean Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unof ...

adapted ''The Constant Nymph'' for a three-act play that was published by Doubleday, Page and Company (Garden City, N.Y.) in 1926. A differently treated, second stage adaptation of the play was published by William Heinemann (London) in 1926.20th-Century American Bestsellers
The play was performed on the London stage in 1926 and featured

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...

and

Edna Best Edna Clara Best (3 March 1900 – 18 September 1974) was a British actress. Early life Born in Hove, Sussex, England, she was educated in Brighton and later studied dramatic acting under Miss Kate Rorke who was the first professor of Drama a ...

."New Theatre", ''The Times'', 15 September 1926, p. 10 The novel was first adapted as a

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

in 1928 by

Adrian Brunel Adrian Brunel (4 September 1892 – 18 February 1958) was an English film director and screenwriter. Brunel's directorial career started in the silent era, and reached its peak in the latter half of the 1920s. His surviving work from the 1920s, ...

and

Alma Reville Alma Lucy Reville, Lady Hitchcock (14 August 1899 – 6 July 1982), was an English director, editor, and screenwriter. She was the wife of the film director Alfred Hitchcock. She collaborated on scripts for her husband's films, including '' Sha ...

and directed by Brunel and Basil Dean. This version starred

Ivor Novello Ivor Novello (born David Ivor Davies; 15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951) was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born into a musical ...

, Mabel Poulton and

Benita Hume Benita Hume (14 October 1907 – 1 November 1967) was an English theatre and film actress. She appeared in more than 40 films between 1925 and 1955. Life and career She was married to film actor Ronald Colman from 1938 to his death in 1958 ...

.''Life''. "Movie of the Week: ''The Constant Nymph''. August 2, 1943. p. 38 It was adapted again in 1933 by

Dorothy Farnum Dorothy Farnum (10 June 1900 – 27 January 1970) was an American actress and screenwriter. She was noted for her work at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the silent era and later in Britain during the 1930s. Career Farnum was the daughter of actor Wi ...

and directed by Dean. It featured

Victoria Hopper Victoria Hopper (24 May 1909 – 22 January 2007) was a Canadian-born British stage and film actress and singer. Biography Victoria Evelyn Hopper was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and brought up in North East England. She studie ...

Brian Aherne William Brian de Lacy Aherne (2 May 190210 February 1986) was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in Britain and the United States. His first Broadway appearance in '' The Barretts of ...

and

Leonora Corbett Leonora Corbett (28 June 1908 – 29 July 1960) was an English actress, noted for her charm and elegance in stage roles, and for a number of films made in the 1930s. Life and career Corbett was born in London, the daughter of Richard Ashwin Cor ...

. A third film adaptation in 1943 featured

Charles Boyer Charles Boyer (; 28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French-American actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American fi ...

Joan Fontaine Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared ...

, and

Alexis Smith Margaret Alexis Fitzsimmons-Smith (June 8, 1921 – June 9, 1993) was a Canadian-born American actress and singer. She appeared in several major Hollywood films in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Awar ...

. It was adapted by

Kathryn Scola Kathryn Scola (November 6, 1891 – January 4, 1982) was an American screenwriter. She worked on more than thirty films during the 1930s and 1940s. Scola worked in Hollywood for a multitude of prominent production companies during the studio era ...

and directed by

Edmund Goulding Edmund Goulding (20 March 1891 – 24 December 1959) was a British screenwriter and film director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 silent film '' Three Live Ghosts'' alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwi ...

References

External links

*Full text of
The Constant Nymph
' at the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Constant Nymph, The 1924 British novels British novels adapted into films British plays Heinemann (publisher) books Novels by Margaret Kennedy Novels set in Austria