Georgette Heyer - give me your top five

Frederica. The balloon bit, the Baluchistan hound bit - brilliant Sunday evening TV.

I don’t understand why there have never been any Heyer miniseries. Some of her stories are at least as witty—if not quicker and more satisfying—than Austen. Some of her relationships are a bit…problematic as to age and power (These Old Shades), and The Spanish Bride [but that is historically accurate] and Venetia (bit creepy). But lots are just, as you say, ripping yarns.

thanks to this read i am now reading Beauvalet for the first time. A right ripping yarn.

I read all of Heyer as a young girl (now 64) and have a complete hardback set on my shelf. For years I read and reread them as a romantic anglophile does. Now I find that I can’t really reread them or I skip about looking for favorite passages. However for the last 28 years I have also come to know them in a different way than as a silent reader as I read them aloud to my daughters as a bedtime story. My dd’s 28 and 26 and my husband, for some reason, still love me to read these books aloud to them while driving long distances or when moving my dd’s into university or a new apartment. Our too read alouds are

Masqueraders
Beauvallet
Talisman Ring
Faro’s Daughter
The Reluctant Widow
The Quiet Gentleman

They are currently recording me reading because they are anxious after my recent cancer scare so I have had the dubious pleasure of listening to myself—I seem to read at top speed.

But what I wanted to say is that Heyer’s dry wit and gift for both direct and indirect speech only really becomes apparent when you read her aloud. She is amazingly easy to read, her characters all have different voices, and her authorial voice and style makes even the lengthiest sentences easy to say so that the pauses and the jokes are fully voiced.

How about most entertaining villains? Swithin Liversedge?

Did someone mention me? The Grand Sophy was the first Heyer I read as a teen and remains my favourite (I skip the anti-Semitic passage on every re-read). A friend had found a paperback edition from the late 60s on her aunt’s bookshelf and she and I later read the other three her aunt had (Powder & Patch, These Old Shades and Devil’s Cub). A couple of years later they started being reprinted in paperback in the U.K., I found more in various libraries so that within a few years I had bought/borrowed and read all the historical ones. I read one of the detective novels but guessed the murderer half-way through so didn’t try any of the others.

A few years ago, a secondhand bookshop near me was selling around 10 or so Heyer first editions for £5 each and I bought the lot. I passed on my duplicate paperbacks to daughter of the friend who had lent me the first one. The bookseller told me they often received collections of Heyers from house clearances etc as those who read one, then started reading/collecting the others.

To answer the original question, my top 5 mainly based on the number of times I’ve re-read them:

The Grand Sophy
Frederica
Sylvester
Friday’s Child
Devil’s Cub/Cotillion

That’s six but Cotillion can only be appreciated after reading several others to see why Freddy is a different type of hero. Devil’s Cub is the one hardest to justify but Mary is sensible and I developed a crush on the awful marquis when I first read it. So much so, a couple of years ago DD and I went to Paris and I ended up choosing a hotel close to Rue St Honore simply because that is where Avon House was.

Also honourable mentions to The Quiet Gentleman, Sprig Muslin, The Reluctant Widow, Venetia, False Colours and The Talisman Ring. I haven’t re-read The Unknown Ajax or The Foundling recently and plan to do so soon.

There was an audio mini-series of The Grand Sophy released in 2019. The story and particularly the ending is truncated but it was a fun listen: https://open.spotify.com/show/3CQupXfXvSugH7xPRPj1eW?si=9A27hVVPSLS5lamIJt1zGw

I've counted up the votes for this and thought others might be interested.

I've only counted votes where people voted for five or fewer (sorry to those who couldn't decide). I make it 37 people who voted in this group, casting 152 votes.

The stand-out was Frederica (1965), with 18 votes.
The Grand Sophy (1950) was next, with 13 votes.
Cotillion (1952) had 12 votes.
A Civil Contract (1961) had 10 votes.
Devil's Cub (1932) and Venetia (1958) both had 9 votes.
An Infamous Army (1937) and The Unknown Ajax (1959) both had 7 votes.
The Toll-Gate (1954) and The Nonesuch (1962) both had 6 votes.
These Old Shades (1926) and The Reluctant Widow (1946) both had 5 votes.

Then almost everything else had 1-4 votes. I think the only Regency-set books which weren't mentioned by anyone were April Lady (1957) and Charity Girl (1970) - though one poster mentioned a book about someone running away, which could have been Charity Girl, The Corinthian (1940) or Black Sheep.

Looking at the votes by year of publication, the highest-scoring period was from 1958 to 1965: seven years in which she published Venetia, The Unknown Ajax, A Civil Contract, The Nonesuch, False Colours (didn't make it into the top list above, but did get 4 votes) and Frederica. That's very impressive.

She's entitled to her view, but surely the real heroes of The Reluctant Widow are Miss Beccles, Bouncer and Nicky?

Heyer is very good at maddening but lovable adolescents and Awful Dogs.

The Toll Gate, The Foundling, The Quiet Gentleman, The Unknown Ajax, The Reluctant Widow, Frederica, Sprig Muslin, Cousin Kate, False Colours, Cotillion.

That's five, isn't it?

I love a lot of The Grand Sophy but the anti-Semitic caricature spoils it (ps and the lens of time makes it worse, she wrote it in the late 1940s when the result of the outworking of European anti-Semitism had been made obvious)

I've just remembered how much I absolutely detested, 'Powder and Patch'.

I love that I know all those quotes!

I don't like Devil's Cub much as Vidal has nothing going for him but his looks, although I do love the elder Alastairs (and I have a deep affection for These Old Shades as it was the first one I ever read). But it's worth it for An Infamous Army, where we get a glimpse of Dominic and Mary in old age.

The Grand Sophy
A Civil Contract
These Old Shades
Lady of Quality
The Spanish Bride

Favourite line - from The Grand Sophy, where Cecilia has commented that Eugenia will disapprove of Sophy's very fashionable dinner gown, because Eugenia thinks there are more important things in life than fashion. To which Sophy replies "Of course. But not, I hold, when one is dressing for dinner".

It was Sprig Muslin, I had a look on my bookshelf!

Devils Cub was my first one & I do really love it still, but find it a bit coercive if I have my 21st century head on.

I can’t believe it’s never occurred to me to look for Heyer audiobooks on Spotify. THANK YOU.

But at least Avon didn’t see it coming and had tried to make provision for Leonie elsewhere - and their relationship in Devils Cub after nearly 30 years is still fun!

someone also mentioned the anti-semitism in the Grand Sophy.

As with all books, they need to be read through the lens of the time they were written, and the appreciation that times do change. (Tangent - I am not a fan of trigger warnings either in books, or heard on the radio/tv. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the audience that they cannot understand that views and language were different in the past, even the relatively recent past)

On Spotify, The Grand Sophy is read by Louise Jameson and she has a lovely voice for it.

Thank you!

To answer the actual question though, my favourites are Cotillion, Venetia, Frederica, The Grand Sophie, The Quiet Gentleman, The Nonesuch, The Unknown Ajax 😊 I could probably go on. I do prefer the ones when the male lead doesn't call the female lead "my child" though, I find that a bit off-putting tbh (although obviously I power through😂)

You can see I can’t even limit to my top five.

I have a treat for you then (I hope), this website hosts fan fiction of all kinds and there are clearly some aspiring authors who feel the same way as you. Cotillion is my favourite by some way and I did enjoy just a little bit more of Freddie's world view 😁

You may have to create an account, but it's easy to do and there's no downside that I have seen (no spamming emails etc).

The first link is to a series of vignettes after the book ends, including the honeymoon in France and is amusing fluff you might enjoy. The second is a slightly longer piece, which I enjoyed and captures the voices of all of the characters nicely, including Lord Legerwood, who was a particular favourite of mine.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42485586

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889020

There are lots of Georgette Heyer inspired stories for most of her novels on there, presumably because of her habit of ending her books fairly abruptly sometimes. Inevitably, the quality varies, but I have found sorting by kudos (which is basically their like system), puts the good stuff at the top of the list.

I hope you enjoy them. I did.

The Masqueraders
The Talisman Ring
The Unknown Ajax
Faro’s Daughter
Cotillion
These Old Shades
The Reluctant Widow

Loved that analysis! Also very happy to have encountered the phrase “Heyer but gayer”, which made me snicker childishly.

A Civil Contract
Black Sheep
Venetia
Devil’s Cub

The fifth changes - probably Cotillion at present.

Like others, when I first read them I was young enough to be a main character, but I would now be classed as old. That’s not a comfortable thought as she is merciless to many of her older female characters with comments like the “shady side of 40” (although there are some exceptions like Leonie & Sylvester’s mother).