Mention the name Georgette Heyer, and most people know her for
an authoress. However you will also probably discover a general
opinion that she wrote "trash" and "bodice rippers"

I admit it, I thought this was a fair description of them, without having
read any Heyer. This state of affairs ended when one of my new friends,
knowing of my passion for fashion, asked if I had ever read her books. I
said no, and he was scandalised, quoting verbatim passages concerning
satin pelisses trimmed with swansdown and broad-lace, and laced lilac coats
at me. I agreed reluctantly to read Arabella after he handed - or rather, thrust
it upon me with great force.  I carried Arabella in my pocket, reading it in the
college cafeteria, in between classes, and was somewhat baffled. The language
was like nothing I had seen before. However, the descriptions were masterful,
especially the opening scenes where Arabella and her family ransack her
mother's old wardrobes. But there was something there that prevented me from
handing the book back to my friend and saying that I was sorry, but it hadn't done
anything for me. It was definitely worth giving Heyer a second chance. I have since
reread Arabella twice, and now consider it an excellent Heyer novel, instead of
being a merely competent one.  Cousin Kate was the next Heyer I read. Having
crashed one night at my friend's house, and been unable to sleep, I noticed that
there were some Heyers on a bookshelf in the room. I settled down to while away
the night with Cousin Kate.  It is a very strange book, being positively Gothic.
However, I liked it enough to re-read it twice in a row after I bought some Heyers
from a old people's hospice féte, including Cousin Kate. Unfortunately, my next
two books almost put me off her, now and forever, amen. The Toll Gate and The
Spanish Bride both seemed so dull and unexciting, that I practically gave up on
Heyer. Ironically, I now think that, even if it is very non-Heyersque, The Spanish
Bride is a masterly historical document about life on the battlefields. And The
Toll Gate? Although it still sure as hell isn't one of my favourites, it's a sight better
than certain others of her books.  But I struck at it, and read some of the slimmer
Heyer paperbacks. The Corinthian and The Talisman Ring proved that I was
right to have persevered. April Lady proved rather sweet and insignificant, but
to my amazement, I realised that I had read it fluently, instead of halting over the
prose. And then... I fell completely and utterly in love with Cotillion and Frederica.
From then, I was a Heyerite.

Heyer did something more than become one of my literary heroes. She made
Literature accessible. Victorian and Georgian prose became comprehensible.
Instead of being fazed by an out-moded style of writing and huge mouths of
dialogue, I now understood it with ease. In fact, Georgette Heyer's novels acted
like a Rosetta Stone for me.   Her literary references to Shakespeare (especially
in The Unknown Ajax and Venetia), Jane Austen, and other authors of the day
made me want to read them. And having read Heyer, I understood Austen and her
contemporaries with greater ease. As someone recently observed, Heyer's novels
of the English Regency act as one of the most accurate and well-researched
resources for that period.

Heyer's best known novels are These Old Shades, Arabella, and
The Grand Sophy, probably because the heroines of these books were
recently immortalised in porcelain by the Franklin Mint., but more likely
because they represent Heyer's work best.

These Old Shades, like most of Heyer's pre-1940 novels, is set in the 18th
century, whilst the other two are classic forerunners of the Regency romance.
I say forerunners, because, although Heyer's work definitely falls into a romantic
category, it is also hard-headed historical fiction.  There is far more depth and
diversity of character in any one of Heyer's novels than there is to be found in an
average example of the modern Regency Romance, (although I have read many
books which stand on their own merit.) and I have not discovered any other authors
who come close to a favourable comparison to her. Although one recognises the
influence of many 18th and 19th century literary figures, (Austen, Burney, Dickens,
D'Orczy, and Thackeray among others) Georgette Heyer's novels are undeniably
Georgette Heyer's.

But she wrote romantic literature. Just because an author is known as a
writer of romances does not mean that he or she is therefore a writer of "pulp"
or "women's thickies" (a bookseller acquaintance's term for modern romances
in the Jilly Cooper / Danielle Steel mould.)  Despite the frivolity and lightness of
Georgette Heyer, there is a severely realistic basis to her books. What is a feather
boa without the stout string to which the feathers are attached? What good is
champagne without anything to hold it in? With the skill of the author, she has created
books to which one returns again and again, and, to quote one review, "a world of
her own."

These titles are my own recommendations for first Heyers:-

The Grand Sophy - a novel for people who appreciate humour and
delicate farce - if farce can be delicate. This is a very witty, fast-paced book,
subtle and yet farcical, and always has me laughing out loud. Sophia
Stanton-Lacy is one of Heyer's most unforgettable and indefagitable heroines
in a book rich in memorable characters.

Venetia - can a self-admitted cad woo a lovely girl? Can we love the cad?
You bet we can. This is a story of an intelligent and witty beauty, long hidden
from the public eye in her country manor home, whose existence is thrown into
turmoil by the appearance of the local Black Sheep. Probably Heyer's finest
straight romance, it also has much humour and some of her best characters.

Friday's Child - Probably Heyer's most sustainedly hilarious book.
From the first sentence, it is full of Laugh-out-loud moments. A gentleman,
scorned in love, sets out to marry the first female he sees, with predictably
amusing results. Bath and London, a canary, a bad tempered pug-dog, a
ravishing beauty, abduction, and a gentleman addicted to duels all meleé
into this witty, fast-moving gem.

These Old Shades - If swashbuckling is more to your taste, you could
do worse than try this famous Heyer book - the story of a die-hard rake
and a tempestuous red-headed cataclyst. Not a Regency, it abounds
in the bewigged gentlemen in their laced satin coats of circa 1755,
but it has a fast-moving plot, an excess of romance, and somehow contrives
to be THE favourite of many Heyer fans. At best it'll bring out the teenage
romancer in you. Devil's Cub is its sequel, and is just as wildly romantic,
with added humour.
 

Click on this detail from Barbosa''s cover
of  Sprig Muslin to visit the Georgette Heyer website,
which has many wonderful links and much information!
 

Short cut back to my Home Page!

The background uses a detail taken from the cover of the first UK  paperback edition of Cotillion, published by Pan.