(For OBM, and any other fans) Georgette Heyer Appreciation Society

[wombling]

Thought it was a good idea to start this lw, so we stopped cluttering up the Austen Thread (thanks onebatmother, for the suggestion). But I have only just managed to get around to it, so is there anyone else out there who is keen?

What are your favourites, I love These Old Shades, Devils Cub, The Grand Sophy and Venetia. I also managed to discover a historical novel I didn't know wbout "The Great Roxhythe", unfortunately out of print. When googling, I also managed to find www.georgetteheyer.com, which is a mine of info I didn't know about, esp about her modern novels.

Yes, got it ... Civil Contract was the one I described ...
Convenient Marriage was Horatia with the stammer
Friday's Child was Hero and Sherry ...

Can't remember all the titles but love the scenes in many of the books where the hero's best friend is a bit of a bumbling slightly dim toff who comes out with funny things after imbibing too much ...
Very very funny ... always chuckle no matter how many times I read them.
I haven't picked up a GH for 2 and a half years (only read them at my mum's house) but I am going to the UK in June so will make sure I read a couple then ...

Oh, A Civil Contract is lovely. Very different from the other Regency novels but fantastic - appreciate it more the older I get. Although I do always want to kick Adam.

OBM .... "Do you know I think GH completely formed my romantic view."
Me too .... my poor DH

THank God, other Civil Contract fans. It's my favourite by a long chalk, although I will read any of hers (including the detective novels, I think they're perfectly fine) except the 'authentic' medieval ones, which are truly unreadable IMO. The sad thing is that she thought these were her greatest work, and they're so bad.

I also love Cotillion so much, Venetia, False Colours, Grand Sophy (of course - although the antisemitic stereotype gets me a bit now), Friday's Child....

Funny, I have a friend who is also a GH person but she loves all the 18th C ones which I feel much less strongly about and she thinks Civil Contract is boring.

I love the way she opens her novels, and I love her rogues' gallery of Appalling Mothers, particularly the Dowager Lady Sheringham in Friday's Child, who is an inspired creation.

so that's why I fancy Alan Rickman and actors with sardonic smiles! How can I have reached this advanced age without realising that?

It was so satisfying in that last chapter when the pretty empty headed childhood sweetheart went off and Adam realised that he loved his wife wasn't it?

And the perfectly lovable but ever so common Rich Industrialist Father who tries so hard to do it right with his terrible taste and huge beefy hands ...
I just always want to give him a big hug ...

I'll start with that one then

A Civil Contract here I come (I think it's upstairs......)

Lady Sherringham a much better villain than, say, Mrs Ferrers in S&S or Lady Catherine de Burgh in P&P. It's the combination of Lady S and her hideous creepy priest, lining his pockets at Sherry's expense.

I know, I want to give him a hug too, esp. when Jenny was p/g and he was so worried she'd die in childbirth he nearly worried her into an early grave.

Always think that is the saddest Heyer - do you think she might have known how being second choice felt? Or is it a sign that she was maturing into a new kind of romantic writer, by trying to create that bittersweet ending? (I'm sure I've got a PhD on this in me somewhere!)

I am in the fan club too!
Am quite shocked there are so many Georgette Heyers that I havent read. and I dont think they have been in print at least since the 1960s, because they arent in my mothers collection.

Don't think so Procrastinating, she had a fabbo marriage for umpty decades, and a son who she adored and who adored her right back (he died a couple of months ago). What she had was a truly spinechilling knack of knowing her market, I'm afraid. But I try to forget that...

Only if we can get dipped at faro, drive a phaeton to an inch and call someone out, OBM!

Goodnight!

Also the lovely bit in A Civil Contract when Jenny is breastfeeding her child ... Such a lovely normal family scene ...
She was great, Jenny.
I am going to start looking for copies to own for myself aren't I?

Morning all,

Was wondering if anyone had read her non-historical fiction at all? Not the detective ones, the others?

Ghosty, I agree with you, the episode in the nursery where she is breastfeeding was so wonderfully written. I think that book is so bittersweet, you do want to batter Adam around the head, and say "stop being suvh a fool man."

no wombling, have only read the historical.

I dreamed about this thread last night..

and double at slash Georgette!

Is nothing sacred!

I'm thinking, after a very brief skim, that Mr Wenlock might be quite diverting though.
And noting with immense satisfaction that Leonie is Not On The List.

fight, fight!