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Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) - Also wrote as Stella Martin |
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British writer who published about 40 historical novels - Regency romances - and a dozen detective novels from the 1930s to the 1950s. Georgette Heyer's best known detective characters are Superintendent Hannasyde and Inspector Hemingway. Her Regency novels meticulously recreated the period in the smallest detail of social code, dress, food, and language. Heyer also wrote short stories and a radio play from her own novel. --"Am I cold?" Georgette Heyer was born in Wimbledon, the daughter of George Heyer, a teacher at King's College School, and Sylvia Watkins, whose father owned tugboats on the River Thames. She was educated at seminary schools and Westminster College, London, but never passed any form of examination. Heyer's father died of a heat attack after a game of tennis with George Ronald Rougier, her fiancé. They married in 1925, a few months after his death. Rouguier was a mining engineer, and Heyer moved with him for three years to East Africa, where she wrote the essay 'The Horned Beats of Africa', published in The Sphere in 1929. From 1928 to 1929 they lived in Yugoslavia. After settling in England George Rougier quit his job. For some years he run a sports shop in Horsham in Sussex and then he pursued a career as barrister. He was called to the Bar in 1939. Their son, Richard, born in 1932, also became a barrister and a colorful High Court judge, who earned a reputation as a hard-liner in a series of prominent criminal cases in the 1990s. He died in 2007. In the 1942 the Heyers moved from Sussex to London. During the war, Heyer reviewed books for her publisher, Heinemann. Her first novel, The Black Moth (1921), Heyer wrote at the age of 17 to amuse her sick brother Boris. Heyer's father had encouraged her to send it to an agent and eventually it was published by Constable, London, and Houghton Mifflin, Boston when she was nineteen. The opening words already revel Heyer's strength and lifelong fascination with details: "Glad in his customary black and silver, with raven hair unpowdered and elaborately dressed, diamonds on his fingers and in his cravat, Hugh Tracy Clare Bermanoir, Duke of Andover, sat at the escritoire in the library of his town house, writing." The Transformation of Philip Jettan (1923) came out under the name Stella Martin and later under her own name. Rougier is said to have devised plots to several of his wife's mysteries. Heyer's accurate knowledge of the legal system is seen in Duplicate Death (1951). The motive of the murderer is in many cases acquisition of an inheritance. Usually Heyer set her stories in the English village milieu or in the social circles of London. In The Grant Sophy (1950) the protagonist arrives in London to find a husband. She lacks beauty - so she thinks - and she has a mind of her own. However, Heyer always found suitable husbands for her heroines. Although Heyer's early works were swashbuckling adventure stories, the great majority of her novels are historical romances. They offer much information about the costume, social customs, and forms of speech of the era – these are the traits for which her books are still read and admired today. Her historical romances were well researched, and in addition to her large reference library, Heyer had a good memory; she rarely made mistakes. Thus, when she found out that Barbara Cartland 's Knave of Hearts (1950) had similarities with her These Old Shades (1926), she was absolute sure that Cartland had copied names, characters and plot details from her novel without attribution to her. Knave of Hearts was reissued in the United States under a new title, The Innocent Heiress (1970), and a heading: "In the tradition of Georgette Heyer". An Infamous Army (1937) showed Heyer's skill as a war historian. The Regency comedies sometimes used elements from crime stories, as in The Corinthian (1940), or spy fiction, as in The Reluctant Widow (1946). In later period she produced works which had humor and irony, and dealt with family relationships. In Beauvallet (1929) an English buccaneer harassing Spanish ships under Queen Elizabeth is distracted by his love for a Spanish Protestant noblewoman. The Talisman Ring (1936), which combines romance with murder, depicts a murder suspect, who meets a woman fleeing an arranged marriage. In Faro's Daughter (1941) the heroine runs a gaming salon. Frederica (1965) centers on the initiation of an outsider aristocratic male into a domestic world of family relationships. Four of Heyer's classical style mysteries feature Superintendent Hannasyde, Death in the Stocks (1935), Behold, Here's Poison! (1936), They Found Him Dead (1937), A Blunt Instrument (1938). His associate, Inspector Hemingway, features also in four, No Wind of Blame (1939), Envious Casca (1941), Duplicate Death (1951), Detection Unlimited (1953). Heyer's immense popularity and success embroiled her in tax problems from which she tried to escape by producing more books. From the beginning of her career, she refused to give interviews. Heyer also published short stories, and two articles on literary topics, 'Books About the Brontës' and 'How to Be a Literary Critic', both of which appeared in Punch in 1954. Her last major projects included the trilogy of John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V. This magnum opus was never finished. Georgette Heyer died of lung cancer on July 4, 1974. The first volume was prepared for publication by her husband, who died on the following year. As her own model Heyer mentioned Jane Austen, with whom she shared the same the ironic tone. Often the fast paced and ironic dialogue contrasted attitudes and roles of her female and male characters. Her Regency romances have been criticized for their conventional plots and "escapist" qualities or, alternatively, acclaimed for historical accuracy and authenticity of the dialogue and slang. The feminist novelist Brigid Brophy characterized Heyer's False Colour (1963) in New Statesman as "a piece of childish let's-pretend but blessedly unpretentious" and "nimble to the point of wit in copying period detail." Elaine Bander described Heyer as attractive, unusually tall, intellectually arrogant, and caustic" (Great Women Mystery Writers, ed. Kathleen Gregory Klein, 1994). Feminist critics have noted that Heyer's spirited heroines are "tamed" at the end by the love of a good man. Often her women concentrate entirely on the business of getting married like Austen's heroines, and they show intelligence and and strong will. Heyer's work have influenced such novelists as Jane Aiken Hodge, the daughter of Conrad Aiken and sister of Joan Aiken. The of her books have been filmed, The Reluctand Widow in 1950 and Arabella in 1959. For further reading: The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge (1984); Georgette Heyer's Regency in England by T. Chris (1989): World Authors 1900-1950, Vol. 2, ed. M. Seymour-Smith and A.C. Kimmens (1996); Contemporary Popular Writers, ed. Mavid Mote (1997); Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective by Mary Fahnestock-Thomas (2001); Georgette Heyer Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester (2011). Other 20th-century writers of historical, romantic novels: Daphne du Maurier, Catherine Gavin, Constance Heaven, Pamela Hill, Victoria Holt, Joanna Trollope, Phyllis A. Whitney. Selected works:
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