Geogette Heyer

 I was looking for some fiction to read when I was a senior in college, so a friend who was a history major handed me my first Georgette Heyer. It might have been THE CORINTHIAN. I found the story interesting but I can recall thinking that the conversations very all very long winded, verbose and in cases somewhat full of prattle. But I was drawn into another world of the regency romance. Shortly I was asking if she had more. There was such a blend of sarcasm, wit and humor that the stories were delightful.
Over the years I read Georgette Heyer when ever nothing else would suit me. I owned many of the titles in several editions, though not at one time.

This first novel  by Heyer written in 1921 was written at the age of 15 to amuse her convalescent brother. While most of her books are stand alones there are two books that she wrote that use the same characters as the The Black Moth. These were These old Shades and The Devil's Cub. Her last book was My Lord John. My favorite of her historical novels is The Conqueror written in 1931 about William the Conqueror and the battle of Hastings and all that lead up to it as Willam grew and became the historical figure that he was. Heyer made it come alive, exciting and fascinating. It was almost as good as fiction. I had never really enjoyed historical books prior to this unless they were quite fictionalized. Heyer did fictionalize  hers as well, but subtly so.

Those were the days when you took a book in any order that you found it on the shelf. There was none of this wonderful indulgence for the obsessive reader compulsive reader of sites like Fantastic Fiction and Stop,You're Killing Me! which lists the correct order in which the books were written and printed. At that time we went by the list in the front of the book and it was only later after buying the book that you realized that the order was inaccurate.

I graduated from the university in the late sixties and went on with my education but still needed mental easing by Georgette Heyer. I thought, wrong again, that I had read and reread and reread everything she had written until the days of Amazon and the WWW. It was in 2007 I got a complete matching set. set of all Heyer's books and began at the beginning. There were some novels that were not included in this set. One such as HELEN, which I purchased as a very old HB. I have not read it yet.

 

There are two of the histories I have been waiting to read and about three of the mysteries left. But the regencies were the first in line. I have been rereading COTILLION for a reading group and it is surely one of the best. It is her 23 book written about thirty years after her first. Heyer was so successful with these novels that she sparked a great trend called the regency romance novel. She was emulated by dozens of authors. There was a time when you could go into a bookstore and there would be a special shelf dedicated to the genre. She thought she was being plagiarized but of course imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Heyer herself, would have preferred to write her historicals but I for one am glad she gave us her regencies. She died in 1974 at the age of 71. Everybody says the same thing about her. She was intensely private and she did not give interviews. She spent her time writing books which have certainly enlivened my life.