Georgette Heyer

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Georgette Heyer (pronounced "hair") (16 August 1902 – 4 July 1974) was an English historical romance and detective fiction novelist.

Contents

[edit] Life[1]

Heyer was born in Wimbledon, London in 1902. Her first published work, The Black Moth, inspired by Baroness Orczy, was written while she was seventeen to amuse her convalescent brother, and published in 1921. By the time she married Roland Rougier in 1925, she had published five novels. These Old Shades, published a year later, became her first popular success, selling 190,000 copies in hardback. Her husband initially worked as a mining engineer, and Heyer lived briefly in Tanganyika (1927) and Macedonia (1928), returning to London in 1929. The couple moved to near Horsham in Sussex, the setting of several of Heyer's novels. The increasing popularity of her novels allowed Heyer to support the family; Rougier abandoned mining engineering to run a shop, before studying for the Bar. Their only child, a son, was born in 1932.

In 1939, Rougier was called to the Bar and the family moved first to Brighton, then to Hove, finally settling in London in 1942. In 1959 Rougier became a Queen's Counsel. The family remained in London until Heyer's death from cancer in 1974.

[edit] Works

Heyer's early historical romances were mostly set during the 18th century, including These Old Shades and The Masqueraders. Heyer later created her most popular work when she started setting her novels during the English Regency, a period which is strongly identified with her novels. Novels from this period include The Unknown Ajax, Frederica, Venetia, and Black Sheep. These Regency novels, together with the works of Jane Austen, inspired the creation of the entire subgenre of Regency romance. Heyer did a tremendous amount of research on this period but glossed over the bleaker realities of life when she wrote.

She also wrote whodunit mysteries set contemporaneously in England between World War I and World War II, many of which are classic country-house murder mysteries. In addition, she wrote historical romances set in a variety of other periods, a few straight historical novels, and four contemporary novels. In all, she published 56 works, of which the last, My Lord John, was released posthumously.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Georgian & Regency Novels

[edit] Medieval, Elizabethan, Cromwellian & Restoration Novels

[edit] Contemporary fiction

  • Instead of the Thorn (1923)
  • Helen (1928)
  • Pastel (1929)
  • Barren Corn (1930)

[edit] Mysteries

[edit] Short stories

  • Pistols for Two (1960), ISBN 0-09-947638-X (short stories)
    • Pistols for Two;
    • A Clandestine Affair (1st appearance);
    • Bath Miss;
    • Pink Domino;
    • A Husband for Fanny;
    • To Have the Honour;
    • Night at the Inn;
    • The Duel;
    • Hazard;
    • Snowdrift;
    • Full Moon
  • "A Proposal to Cicely" (1922)
  • "Pursuit" - Text online (in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross, 1939)
  • "Runaway Match"
  • "The Bulldog and the Beast"
  • "Linckes' Great Case"


[edit] Reference

  1. ^ Hodge JA. The Private World of Georgette Heyer (Bodley Head, 1984)

[edit] Further reading

There have been four significant books on Heyer's life and work:

  • The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge (1984), ISBN 0-09-949349-7
  • Georgette Heyer's Regency England by Teresa Chris (1989), ISBN 0-283-99832-6
  • Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective by Mary Fahnestock-Thomas (2001), ISBN 0-9668005-3-2 (includes short stories "A Proposal to Cicely", "Pursuit", and "Runaway Match")
  • Georgette Heyer's Regency World by Jennifer Kloester (2005), ISBN 0-434-01329-3

[edit] External links

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