To read Georgette Heyer is to learn to appreciate Jane Austen. Some readers – usually male – argue that Austen cannot be considered a serious writer – like her heavily bearded nineteenth century peers -because she wrote what they dismissively describe as ‘love stories’.
Quite what is wrong would be wrong with that, I’m not sure, as these people never object to stories on other emotions. However it’s not accurate. Austen’s books are not so much about romance as they are about learning to live with yourself in the world; making bad choices; and facing the consequences. Heyer’s, on the other hand, while apparently similar – a love story, a Regency setting – are quite plainly and simply about nothing very much. They’re sheer joyous escapism. You can read them with happy confidence that all will turn out well, for those who deserve it to. As per Oscar Wilde:
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
I read a good amount of Georgette Heyer as a teenager, but haven’t opened her in a couple of decades. I was driven to it recently by an urgent need for escape – for the good to end happily – and THE GRAND SOPHY provided a delightful weekend’s reading. I was a little shame faced over reading such trash, until I looked Heyer’s life up. I was impressed to learn that she started her career back when women were barely allowed to be employed, in the 1920s, and her writing supported her flakey husband, two flakey brothers, and flakey son for the rest of her life. I was even more impressed to learn that she single-handedly invented the genre of historical romance.
I also reflected that she’s only trashy in so far as someone like Kipling – her near contemporary – was trashy: lots of plot, lots of moral, not much challenge; and yet Kipling is in the cannon. One hates to have to bring up gender all the time – so I won’t. But draw your own conclusions.