Georgette Heyer: Difference between revisions
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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 recalled how much they had once enjoyed 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"<ref name=Obit />. But the tide has turned; by 2022, public libraries had noticed that her books are not only still in circulation but often have a waitlist<ref name=FallBackInLove /><ref name=YonkersLibr />, there is a Georgette Heyer podcast<ref name=PodCast />, amd Vox declared: "When will Hollywood discover Georgette Heyer?"<ref name=Vox />. | 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 recalled how much they had once enjoyed 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"<ref name=Obit />. But the tide has turned; by 2022, public libraries had noticed that her books are not only still in circulation but often have a waitlist<ref name=FallBackInLove /><ref name=YonkersLibr />, there is a Georgette Heyer podcast<ref name=PodCast />, amd Vox declared: "When will Hollywood discover Georgette Heyer?"<ref name=Vox />. | ||
== Regency romance books == | |||
Inspired by the social setting of the Jane Austen novels, Heyer wrote more than two dozen historial "romances", mostly set in England's Regency period (1811-1820) or earlier. The predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world, mostly set in the early 1800's (and some even earlier), 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 children 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 at some point are lucky enough to develop mutual respect and affection. Each book has Heyer's signature language: children are offspring, sporting men are Corinthians, vain men at exquisites, and there is likely to be thieves' cant, travel by coach and horseback, and fortunes changed by the Napoleanic wars. But the settings are just windows dressing; it's the family stories, the tension of a complex and unlikely courtship, that defined these novels. More than one woman might have wondered how NetFlix, in 2020, could choose to produce a TV series by Julia Quinn<ref name=Bridgerton /> instead of any one of several engrossing (but far less sexually explicit) novels by Georgette Heyer. | Inspired by the social setting of the Jane Austen novels, Heyer wrote more than two dozen historial "romances", mostly set in England's Regency period (1811-1820) or earlier. The predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world, mostly set in the early 1800's (and some even earlier), 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 children 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 at some point are lucky enough to develop mutual respect and affection. Each book has Heyer's signature language: children are offspring, sporting men are Corinthians, vain men at exquisites, and there is likely to be thieves' cant, travel by coach and horseback, and fortunes changed by the Napoleanic wars. But the settings are just windows dressing; it's the family stories, the tension of a complex and unlikely courtship, that defined these novels. More than one woman might have wondered how NetFlix, in 2020, could choose to produce a TV series by Julia Quinn<ref name=Bridgerton /> instead of any one of several engrossing (but far less sexually explicit) novels by Georgette Heyer. | ||
Heyer's stylized language, which she meticulously collected and gleaned from historical artifacts of the Regency period, have been widely copied by other writers. No doubt many women recognized the irony that the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn, made into a TV series by Netflix, are entirely standing on the shoulders of Georgette Heyer's body of work. | Heyer's stylized language, which she meticulously collected and gleaned from historical artifacts of the Regency period, have been widely copied by other writers. No doubt many women recognized the irony that the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn, made into a TV series by Netflix, are entirely standing on the shoulders of Georgette Heyer's body of work. | ||
== Detective novels == | |||
In 1932, she began writing detective stories as well. | In 1932, she began writing detective stories as well. | ||
Revision as of 16:41, 4 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 recalled how much they had once enjoyed 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 not only still in circulation but often have a waitlist[2][3], there is a Georgette Heyer podcast[4], amd Vox declared: "When will Hollywood discover Georgette Heyer?"[5].
Regency romance books
Inspired by the social setting of the Jane Austen novels, Heyer wrote more than two dozen historial "romances", mostly set in England's Regency period (1811-1820) or earlier. The predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world, mostly set in the early 1800's (and some even earlier), 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 children 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 at some point are lucky enough to develop mutual respect and affection. Each book has Heyer's signature language: children are offspring, sporting men are Corinthians, vain men at exquisites, and there is likely to be thieves' cant, travel by coach and horseback, and fortunes changed by the Napoleanic wars. But the settings are just windows dressing; it's the family stories, the tension of a complex and unlikely courtship, that defined these novels. More than one woman might have wondered how NetFlix, in 2020, could choose to produce a TV series by Julia Quinn[6] instead of any one of several engrossing (but far less sexually explicit) novels by Georgette Heyer.
Heyer's stylized language, which she meticulously collected and gleaned from historical artifacts of the Regency period, have been widely copied by other writers. No doubt many women recognized the irony that the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn, made into a TV series by Netflix, are entirely standing on the shoulders of Georgette Heyer's body of work.
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."