Georgette Heyer: Difference between revisions
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== Regency romance books == | == Regency romance books == | ||
Inspired by the social setting of the Jane Austen novels, Heyer wrote more than two dozen historical "romances", mostly set in England's Regency period (1811-1820) or earlier. The predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world provide a stable canvas for her wildly inventive tangles of household and familial relationships, often about relatives struggling to control children and children struggling for independence, or about people who can't avoid their familial relationships but neither do they feel particularly fond of their family. Each Regency novel has a female lead and a male lead who sooner or later marry and eventually develop mutual respect and affection. Each book has Heyer's signature language: children are offspring, sporting men are Corinthians, vain men are 'exquisites,' and there is likely to be thieves' cant, travel by coach and horseback, and fortunes changed by the Napoleanic wars. Heyer's stylized language, which she meticulously collected and gleaned from historical artifacts of the Regency period, has been widely copied by other writers. But the settings are just window dressing; it's the family stories and the tension of a complex and unlikely courtship that dominate these novels. | Inspired by the social setting of the Jane Austen novels, Heyer wrote more than two dozen historical "romances", mostly set in England's Regency period (1811-1820) or earlier<<ref name=Chronology />. The predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world provide a stable canvas for her wildly inventive tangles of household and familial relationships, often about relatives struggling to control children and children struggling for independence, or about people who can't avoid their familial relationships but neither do they feel particularly fond of their family. Each Regency novel has a female lead and a male lead who sooner or later marry and eventually develop mutual respect and affection. Each book has Heyer's signature language: children are offspring, sporting men are Corinthians, vain men are 'exquisites,' and there is likely to be thieves' cant, travel by coach and horseback, and fortunes changed by the Napoleanic wars. Heyer's stylized language, which she meticulously collected and gleaned from historical artifacts of the Regency period, has been widely copied by other writers. But the settings are just window dressing; it's the family stories and the tension of a complex and unlikely courtship that dominate these novels. | ||
== Detective novels == | == Detective novels == | ||
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<ref name=Bridgerton> | <ref name=Bridgerton> | ||
[https://www.netflix.com/title/80232398 BRIDGERTON], "The eight close-knit siblings of the Bridgerton family look for love and happiness in London high society. Inspired by Julia Quinn's bestselling novels." | [https://www.netflix.com/title/80232398 BRIDGERTON], "The eight close-knit siblings of the Bridgerton family look for love and happiness in London high society. Inspired by Julia Quinn's bestselling novels." | ||
</ref> | |||
<ref name=Chronology> | |||
[http://www.georgette-heyer.com/chron.html Heyer Novel Chronology] on georgette-heyer.com, a website which grew out of an earlier Heyer list-serv. This page attempts to use clues from within the novels to determine the year in which the fictional events are set. | |||
</ref> | </ref> | ||
</references> | </references> | ||
Revision as of 09:34, 7 January 2023
If anything good can be said to have resulted from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, it is that people once again turned to reading and grown women were forced to fall back on what surely had been a teenage comfort and recall their pleasure in reading the Regency romance novels by Georgette Heyer (1902-1974). Heyer was a prolific English historical novelist who had a loyal following among women during her lifetime and beyond, who arguably created the Regency romance genre that has been exploited by dozens of later (mostly lesser) writers, and whose works remained widely unnoticed after her death. She gave no interviews during her lifetime, although at least one of her books, The Foundling, was reviewed in 1948 by the New York Times, which stated, "Miss Heyer writes cheerful and highly unorthodox historical novels about Regency England, in which people never lose their lives, their virtue or even their tempers"[1]. But the tide has turned; by 2022, public libraries had noticed that her books are still heavily circulated[2][3], there is a Georgette Heyer podcast[4], Twitter is aflutter with tweets about her books (including a lively sale of older editions), and Vox declared: "When will Hollywood discover Georgette Heyer?"[5]. More than one woman might have wondered how NetFlix, in 2020, could choose to produce a TV series based on books by Julia Quinn[6] instead of any one of several engrossing (but far less sexually explicit) novels by Georgette Heyer.
See a list of more than fifty Heyer novels (and how to read them for free) on the Works tab of this article.
Regency romance books
Inspired by the social setting of the Jane Austen novels, Heyer wrote more than two dozen historical "romances", mostly set in England's Regency period (1811-1820) or earlier<[7]. The predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world provide a stable canvas for her wildly inventive tangles of household and familial relationships, often about relatives struggling to control children and children struggling for independence, or about people who can't avoid their familial relationships but neither do they feel particularly fond of their family. Each Regency novel has a female lead and a male lead who sooner or later marry and eventually develop mutual respect and affection. Each book has Heyer's signature language: children are offspring, sporting men are Corinthians, vain men are 'exquisites,' and there is likely to be thieves' cant, travel by coach and horseback, and fortunes changed by the Napoleanic wars. Heyer's stylized language, which she meticulously collected and gleaned from historical artifacts of the Regency period, has been widely copied by other writers. But the settings are just window dressing; it's the family stories and the tension of a complex and unlikely courtship that dominate these novels.
Detective novels
In 1932, she began writing detective stories as well.
Notes and references
- ↑ Georgette Heyer Is Dead at 71: Wrote Regency England Novels. New York Times obituary, July 6, 1974.
- ↑ How I Fell Back in Love...with Georgette Heyer essay by a Niles-Maine District Library librarian, Niles, IL, Oct. 2, 2020.
- ↑ Author Recommendation: Georgette Heyer essay by Yonkers, NJ public librarian Shana Rosenfield. "I proceeded to borrow all that the (Heyers the) library had, and buy any that the local bookstore had in paperback." Last access 1/3/2023.
- ↑ The Georgette Heyer Podcast: Georgette Heyer's Regency romances discussed book-by-amazing-book available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple, etc. Last access 1/3/2023.
- ↑ She was the Agatha Christie of romance novels. You’ve probably never heard of her. When will Hollywood discover Georgette Heyer? by Aja Romano in Vox Mar 11, 2022.
- ↑ BRIDGERTON, "The eight close-knit siblings of the Bridgerton family look for love and happiness in London high society. Inspired by Julia Quinn's bestselling novels."
- ↑ Heyer Novel Chronology on georgette-heyer.com, a website which grew out of an earlier Heyer list-serv. This page attempts to use clues from within the novels to determine the year in which the fictional events are set.