Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Devil’s Cub probably my very favorite Heyer book, but so many of them are wonderful. I squealed just a little bit when I saw you’d reviewed it. But then again, romance as a genre didn’t exist until Georgette Heyer came along. She started the whole thing.

IS probably my very favorite Heyer book.

Good Lord. I have 3 college degrees. You’d think I’d have learned to write by now.

Ever the contrarian, I’ve never cared much for Devil’s Cub. I have no idea what my problem is.

I have never cared for this one either.  I love Heyer and count this tittle as a rare exception to my affection.

Devil’s Cub is one of my top 5 or so favorite Heyer books. I really need to buy a new copy. The one I own now originally belonged to my mother and has been read to death - it’s falling apart!

Devil’s Cub is easily my favorite Georgette Heyer.  I don’t really have “favorite plot devices” in romance novels, but the heroine shooting the hero, and on purpose?  It gets me every time.  Every single time.

It is a sadly underused plot device.  I bemoan this regularly.  Much to the consternation of my husband.

Yes! I am surprised it took you so long but so very happy you discovered Heyer. These Old Shades was the first romance I ever read, snagged from my grandmother’s bookshelves when I was 9 or so.

My other favourites of hers are The Unknown Ajax and Cotillion- a romance starring two of the biggest and sweetest ditzes ever put on paper.

Damn it, now I have to read Heyer.  My British friends have been scolding me for overlooking her, and I just thought, “Well, of course they have—they’re British.”

(sigh) Ordering now…

Worth mentioning that there’s another book about the Vidals ‘An Infamous Army’ which is about the next generation, set around Waterloo.  They aren’t in any sense a series, but it’s also worth reading for the heroine.

Heyer’s probably my most steadfast comfort read - there are some of the books that aren’t that good, but the good ones stand the test of time.

I haven’t reread Devil’s Cub in ages, but I remember loving it in my teens, so I must look out my copy, and see where it now comes on my Heyer Scale.

TheDevil’s Cub is excellent—although my favourite of the three is These Old Shades.

If you are going to read The Infamous Army (and it has one of the best descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo—far better than Bernard Cornwell’s imho), you should read Regency Buck as some of the characters are also repeated. The Earl of Worth is fantastic.

Georgette Heyer is now a classic author, and it shows why she founded the whole school of modern Regency romance.

Via the wonders of ye intertubes, I discover that the cover is from a painting done by the artist Marcus Stone in 1892.

Here’s a blurb about him from: http://www.victorianartinbritain.co.uk/biog/stone.htm

Marcus Stone was born in Manchester, the son of Frank Stone 1800-1859 ARA.

He was principally a painter of historical genre pictures, many of them set in the Regency. It is quite surprising for us now, to realise that the Victorians did not regard their fashions and dress as in the least picturesque. They felt that the high-waisted flowing ladies dresses of the early nineteenth century were much more attractive-and they were right.

Stone did not start painting until he was in his mid-twenties. Many of his pictures showed the trials of young love, often with an element of humour. During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century Stone was very successful, and one of his paintings was bought by the Chantry Bequest for £800, a substantial sum at that time.

It comes as something of a surprise to realise that Stone was an unconventional individual. He was a Republican, a political radical, an atheist, and he railed against Victorian prudery. Stone was highly intelligent, and a noted raconteur. As well as a painter he was a prolific and successful book illustrator, amongst others providing illustrations for Charles Dickens, a personal friend.

Marcus Stone lived until 1921, when Victorian art was much despised, and his pictures were even more despised than most. He was the subject of an obituary in The Times.

Devil’s Cub I think goes into my ‘Good, but not actually among my favourite Heyers’ pile, but I haven’t read it in a while.

The questions of what is nobility, and who has it (and why) create the underpinnings of this novel. Nobility, to Heyer, is a quality not determined by birth status, but by character.

I have to disagree with you on this. Mary does come from a ‘good’ family, on her father’s side. She displays that family’s traits/characteristics. Her sister, on the other hand, resembles her mother, who’s from a family that were in trade (and she and the mother are vulgar). Mary’s paternal grandfather (I may have this wrong, but I think he’s a General) chose to pay for Mary’s education because he recognised her ‘quality’.

What Heyer does do is distinguish between being a ‘nobleman’ and being a ‘gentleman’. Being an aristocrat does not guarantee nobility of conduct. But those who are noble in character are of ‘good’ family, at least on one side of their family tree.

She has some very sympathetic working-class characters, but they’re ones who ‘know their place’. It’s ‘mushrooms’, the vulgar who aspire to gentility that she really doesn’t seem to like. She does acknowlege that mixing of newly acquired wealth can be useful for the aristocracy. In A Civil Contract Jenny, the daughter of a ‘cit’ but educated as a lady, has to very humbly submit to her husband’s relatives in matters of taste and by the end of the novel she’s deferring to his opinions in most other areas too. But Heyer’s much more positive about the characters who are from a ‘good’ family on at least one side, such as Mary in Devil’s Cub or Hugo in The Unknown Ajax. And more often, the characters are of ‘good’ family on both sides/are members of the aristocracy.

Broadly speaking, as one person commenting on her novels at the BBC’s h2g2 pages said:

Heyer’s heroes and heroines are all either aristocratic or upper middle class, (among the ‘Upper Ten Thousand’ as they refer to themselves). Lower class characters are not delineated in detail, and they are usually there to provide comedy through caricature. There are wise and loving nannies; cautious innkeepers and their kind-hearted wives (who describe their upper class guests as ‘Quality - but not high in the instep’); there are a range of cheerful villains and easily outwitted Bow Street Runners. There also are a few mature and successful City Merchants, who are usually the doting but embarrassing father of one of the more major characters.

So glad you got around to trying Heyer!  She gave birth to a genre and even for those tired of knock-offs, the originals are still fresh and fun.

Some of my favorites: ARABELLA (the original country girl comes to London to find a husband story) VENETIA (another archetypal reforming-the-rake story), FREDERICA (pure fun), and SYLVESTER (a quintessential duke hero and some of Heyer’s deepest characterizations IMHO).

Yes, yes, yes! Devil’s Cub is in my top 5 list, but it’s still below These Old Shades. Whenever I read TOS, I spend half the book fantasizing about which actors/actresses would star in a film version.
There’s also The Black Moth, which is about Justin before he met Leonie. Beware, the character’s names are changed…
Back to Devil’s Cub, my copy is in the same state as DebR’s. :)

But outside the family, I didn’t see anyone singling out Mary as acceptable, because her nobility of character was always hidden behind the less attractive conduct of her mother and sister.

She’d made a friend while at school of Vidal’s cousin. Once she left school she pretty much had a choice of staying at home or moving in the same circles as her mother and sister and since she herself considered those to be mostly vulgar ones, most of the time she chose not to go with them. I’m not sure if we’re told where Vidal met Sophie, but I doubt it was in high society. It might have been at one of the events attended by a mixture of social classes, such as the opera, or some of the public masked balls, or at Vauxhall Gardens.

As far as I can recall, Mary also has a next-door neighbour who both admires her and aspires to marry her, but she doesn’t consider him suitable (he’s both vulgar and lower class).

What I’m saying about Heyer and class is also based on my reading of her other historical romances. In The Nonesuch, for example, there’s another well-educated youngish lady with a General for a grandfather (though both her parents are of good family). She’s obliged to teach a rich, beautiful, girl from a cit background. The governess doesn’t do anything particularly heroic, but she continually demonstrates that she’s a lady, unlike her charge. The hero recognises her ‘quality’ and marries her, while the spoilt, beautiful rich girl throws an extremely unlady-like tantrum. Sophie throws tantrums too, doesn’t she?

I re-read the Devil’s Cub at least once a year.  The scene with Mary in the French inn with the “older English gentleman” alone is worth the effort.

One correction—it’s not a Regency novel, but a late Georgian period novel.  Hence, no Prinny.  That’s why they’re in a French inn (prior to the Revolution) and why the fashions are so much more colorful for the men.  This also allows Heyer to carry the family forward into the Regency/Waterloo era in An Infamous Army

Well Heyer started me off writing historicals, and I’ve never stopped reading her books!
Even the worst is miles above some of the dross that passes as historical romance these days.
My favourites vary, but “Venetia” is probably The One for me. Her most romantic book, as many of them are better described as romantic comedies.
“Venetia,” “Black Sheep,” “Cotillion” (which breaks every rule and is still wonderful), “Arabella,” (proving that a Mr. can still lead society!), and “Frederica” are my favourites, but it’s so hard to choose!
But read “Venetia” for Damerel, and then think of how many subsequent novels have a rake hero. Damerel was the pattern card for them all.

Ha!  CM you’re completely right.  There isn’t enough women shooting men on purpose in books.

Perhaps this is why Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels is my second favorite book after Devil’s Cub!

I actually like the covers of the new Heyer editions, because they all use not actual Regency paintings, but pastiches of Regency paintings, usually work done in the late 19th/early 20th century. Which I think goes well with the books.

I actually read Heyer’s detective fiction for the first time relatively recently - after being a fan of her regency novels since my early teens - and absolutely loved it. Funny, romantic and the mysteries are clever and satisfying.

Aaah Georgette Heyer - read the lot of them when I was 14-15.

Devil’s Cub and Friday’s Child are my faves.  I know some people will hate Hero Wantage from Friday’s Child.  I mean, she’s 16 at the start of the book and she’s as thick as the crap around the top of a bottle of ketchup but she’s fantastic.

Never could take to Venetia though.  Rum sort of girl.  Devilish bad ton.

Georgette Heyer, even more than Jane Austen, is the reason I can write Ph.D. after my name now.  I fell in love with the Regency, I fell in love with the manners, I fell in love with the books (she has a character read S+S, another one mention Radcliffe’s Udolpho, and Mary Brunton’s Self-Control), and I fell more in love with heroes, all because of Heyer.

Everything I do now is mostly because my mother handed me one of her books back when I was about 12 or 13.  Thank God for Heyer AND my mother!

I also love “The Devil’s Cub”, but my favorite Heyer is probably “Frederica”.  I *ADORE* that book!  “Venetia”, “Cotillion”, “The Grand Sophy” and “Friday’s Child” (I also love Hero—goof-ball that she is) are my other favorites.

One of my favs. I love the whole “series” that goes with this book:

The Black Moth (an early version of the Duke of Avon, under a different name)

These Old Shades (Avon and Leonie)

Devil’s Cub (Avon’s son)

Regency Buck (Earl of Worth and Judith . . . wait for it)

An Infamous Army (Avon’s great-granddaughter and the Earl of Worth’s brother)

The Devil’s Cub and Infamous Army were offered late last year by audible.com as downloada.  After I got over the shock of the voice of the Narrator in the Devil’s Cub—not at all what I expected, I listed to it while driving to South Carolina last week end.  And I was so charmed with the story—it was better than I remembered—that I listened to it again on the way home.

Will no one else speak up for Faro’s Daughter?  And the hero was not even a nobleman—just a plain Mister.  I so envy people meeting Heyer for the first time. 

When I used to read trad Regencies and would come across a particularly bad one, I think of how pissed Heyer was that people stole her reseach.

This review brought great joy to me because These Old Shades was one of my favorite books I’ve read but then I’ve only read 4 or 5 Georgette Heyer books. I had no idea that it was part of a series. Now I get to read more about the family.

I loved Avon and Leonie. One of my favorite parts was how she would rant about things in French and Avon would lovingly indulge her, enjoying her humor. I also liked the age difference between them in what it brought out in their relationship.

I’m thrilled to know about the sequels and will be looking for Devil’s Cub this week.

I’m among the squee-ers over this book and now your review has me convinced it’s time to read it again.

I just wanted to note that all of the Heyer books I’ve read so far have given me the same reaction at the beginning.  They all seem to start SOOO SLOOOW and I think if I hadn’t read one I really liked the first time ‘round there would’ve been no amount of argument that could have convinced me to try another one. 

But now that I’m armed with that knowledge, I try to make myself be patient for the first couple of chapters every time I pick up a new Heyer.  (I sometimes wonder if she’d be able to “get away with it” now in our current age of hook ‘em fast and hook ‘em hard.)

I have a copy of this but haven’t gotten around to it because Old Wine Shades is actually one of my least favorite Heyers so far. But I will definitely need to give it a shot…

I love the slow openings. That’s a romance to me. I’m not a fan of the more modern “open with a bang”. In face, I still have to write those openings to my own books and then cut them. It’s part of my process for getting into the novel.

I think it’s funny that Heyer is the topic here today, when over on

History Hoydens I’m discussing her in the guise of world building and creating a fully realized world that readers can’t forget (her ability to world build is what has established her as the QUEEN of Georgian Romances, IMO).

MAGENTA!

It’s just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
But it’s the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane,
Let’s do the Time Warp again!

I AM HYPERVENTILATING! This is my favorite est frickin heyer and romance book! I am so glad you guys liked it too! I loved it and it was my first ever real romance I read. I have the old seventies version, and I treasure it, no matter how ratty it is! Thank you thank you thanks! You are spot on about the dialogue, the wit and the quality!
xo,

Am looking over comments. Elena Green is totally right! She basically invented every ploy and plot ever used, esp. by Stephanie Laurens :/ and the like. These old shades is also another one that has been copied for ever now. Elena: I too lovelovelove Arabella! They are all so funny. I am quite glad you have tried them. Once you have gone heyer you never go back. Sort of. Hee.

So glad to see you finally reviewing Heyer - my all-time favourite romantic author. But if you liked Devil’s Cub, you absolutely have to read These Old Shades, Avon & Leonie’s romance has the only proposal which makes me cry. And get onto The Grand Sophy, already! And Cotillion (I just love Freddy), and Friday’s Child (the hero’s friends are hilarious, and there’s a lot of very poignant stuff about unrequited love, and friendship between men and women), and of course Frederica and Sprig Muslin and Lady of Quality and The Talisman Ring…so much enjoyment lies before you!

I’m glad you have finally “done” Heyer. She is the best, and so far as i can tell, is the most faithful to historical accuracy and mores of the time period her books are set in. It can make for hysterical reading. Remember The Black Moth - there is a passage which describes his apparel with great detail. The jewel buckled heels of his satin court slippers, the froth of lace spilling from his manly throat etc, etc, but it kept me in stitches for ages!

You just gotta skim through the slow start, that’s all. Heyer is the very bestest though.

Laura V wrote:

I have to disagree with you on this. Mary does come from a ‘good’ family, on her father’s side. She displays that family’s traits/characteristics. Her sister, on the other hand, resembles her mother, who’s from a family that were in trade (and she and the mother are vulgar). Mary’s paternal grandfather (I may have this wrong, but I think he’s a General) chose to pay for Mary’s education because he recognised her ‘quality’.

True, but if your argument is that Mary’s “quality” is due to a portion of her lineage being gentry, then why would the same not be true of her sister?  Nobility of character and how this may be rewarded despite the disadvantages of one’s birth seems to me to be a point that Heyer is making in this story.  Mary’s background, despite her affiliation with the gentry, is considered *very* humble by the snobbish Avon’s standards.

Certainly Heyer wrote almost exclusively about the upper classes, but I don’t get the feeling that she was *such* as social snob as some have suggested (in previous discussions of this topic.)  “The Unknown Ajax” appears to me to be a send up of that kind of mind-set, actually, with the arrogant “Darracotts of Darracott Place” obsessing over rank and birth, and convincing themselves that their estranged relative and the new heir of Darracott Place, Hugh, is an ignorant bumpkin based on the fact that his mother was a weaver’s daughter. Yes, Hugh was a gentleman on his father’s side, but his mother’s side was most definitely in trade.  Despite this, he turns out to have more sense, nobility and true breeding than any of his “pure-bred” cousins.

I usually only lurk but you have reviewed the best of the best and all I have to say is: Mary and Vidal in the “beautiful salle” with the loaded gun…the pacing of the scene, the pacing of the dialogue! Bliss and joy for any reader…

Glad to see a great review of one of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors.  Sarah, I wonder if you would have found Devil’s Cub even more engaging (!) if you’d read These Old Shades first, as I think the opening ballroom scene and Leonie’s character as a whole are enhanced by familiarity with the characters from the prequel.

Also, the circumstances of Leonie’s birth in These Old Shades very much support Laura V.‘s thesis on Heyer’s portrayal of class (I won’t spoil that plot point here, but it’s almost laughably black and white in that book).  What’s confusing about Sophia/Mary in Devil’s Cub is that in their case Heyer portrays quality like a gene that is either inherited or not—Mary got it (hence her resemblance in both looks and behavior to her father and her father’s father), Sophia didn’t (hence her resemblance to her mother and her mother’s family)—which is not, I dare say, the way most of us think about class.  And I never thought of this before now, but Leonie’s reaction to Vidal’s marriage to Mary (bitterly opposed until she seems Mary’s quality, at which point she’s utterly for it) is particularly amusing when one considers that Mary’s circumstances of birth can in a way be thought to echo Leonie’s own.

Oh, and I avoided reading The Black Moth for years because I was afraid it would spoil my love of the Duke of Avon, but it turned out to be a great read, especially impressive when you consider that it was Heyer’s first book.

Certainly Heyer wrote almost exclusively about the upper classes, but I don’t get the feeling that she was *such* as social snob as some have suggested

Elle, I think what Octavia says about ‘Heyer portrays quality like a gene that is either inherited or not’ has a lot to do with this. Also, I have the impression that she does think that some aristocrats are snobs and/or have loose morals, so the aristocracy could do with being tempered by good (upper) middle-class values. Unlike Barbara Cartland, who was also middle class but seemed fixated on the aristocracy, Heyer seems to laugh at the foibles of the aristocracy and be indulgently appreciative of the good, honest working folk. So I think she perhaps thought that the aristocracy could sometimes do with a bit of leavening with some working-class common sense. Hugo’s mill-owning grandfather is a man of common sense, and Jenny, the heroine of A Civil Contract is also sensible. But it’s worth noting that both Hugo and Jenny got ‘good’ educations and I’m fairly sure that in Jenny’s case it’s mentioned that she’s of ‘yeoman’ stock. It all begins to sound rather like horse-breeding, doesn’t it? ;-). There are also mentions of some aristocratic families in which there’s ‘bad blood’ (I remember this being mentioned in Bath Tangle). Leonie’s family is a case in point, and Babs, her great-grand-daughter seems to have inherited a lot of the wildness from both Avon and Leonie’s families).

Working-class people of country origin seem to be depicted as being a cut above the poor, industrial working classes in her work.

Heyer doesn’t have any uneducated working-class people marrying into the aristocracy. They’re usually at least one, or as in Hugo’s case two, generations removed from dealing directly in trade, and Hugo and Mary also have the ‘quality’ genes mentioned by Octavia.

I forgot to ask…does anyone know if Heyer is available in ebooks? I’ve kept my eye out, but haven’t had any luck so far. Whenever I want to read them at the moment I have to wrest them from my mother’s heaving bookcase! Exce-pt for the choice foew that I’ve managed to sneak to my house over the years…

Now you need to go read These Old Shades, Sarah.  Leonie’s behavior in Devil’s Cub will make more sense after you’ve read the other book. 

Plus I heartily recommend The Grand Sophy.  It’s not angsty at all, but for sheer good fun it’s a great read.  Events just seem to happen around the heroine, even when she tries to behave with decorum.  And it also has a lady shooting a gentleman on purpose, which we all agree we need more of in books. :)

True, but if your argument is that Mary’s “quality” is due to a portion of her lineage being gentry, then why would the same not be true of her sister?

Because it’s her half-sister. They share a mother, but have different fathers. Mary has been raised by her paternal grandfather, the General.

I am so glad you’ve reviewed Devil’s Cub.  It was the very first Heyer I read and is one of my keepers, although my absolute fave Heyer is Frederica. 

There’s a fan group devoted to the Divine Georgette http://www.heyerlist.org/join.html which, reviews one of her books monthly; and a website with trivia, games and other ephemera http://www.georgette-heyer.com/.

Georgette Heyer is IMHO, the foremost and best of the regency romance writers and I believe is one of the first to be plaguerized (pretty egregiously, I gotta say) by none other than Dame Barbara Cartland.

Anyhoo…thanks Smart Bitches for your review!

Deb (who usually lurks, but had to make a comment here)

Wheee! I’d forgotten how much fun Heyer was - thanks for reminding me. And audible.com has Devil’s Cup in audio! I spend so much time in my car these days, I have much more time for listening than I do for reading. I hope it’s a good narrator.

Heyer wrote two main kinds of books, comedies and serious romances, though of course she liked to mix elements. Devil’s Cub was breathtakingly romantic. He’s certainly one of the important prototypes of the modern dark hero. And The Grand Sophy is my favorite bildungsroman as comedy. Sophy takes her down-at-the-mouth family by storm and turns them all happier by interfering with their lives in a most amusing manner. And Cotillion was wonderful, sheer comedic bliss. I loved when a Heyer story would end with everybody showing up, one funny person after the next, at an inn, as in Sprig Muslin.

But hasn’t anybody noticed that Barbara Cartland stole Avon’s proposal to Leonie (and her family background), specifically, Leonie’s revolutionary counteroffer, almost word for word? Unless there is a well-known prior instance of this particular lost heir plot that I don’t know about, in which case they both are ripping off other writers.

This was the sad thing about Cartland being a UK writer. Anything she ever did that was really good and different, I always worried she had lifted from some other UK writer whose books never got published over here. And no, I am not accusing her of plagiarism, but of copying Georgette Heyer’s inventive plots and ideas. And probably those of other people. Still, after Heyer’s death, Cartland’s sheer volume of available historical romance material filled the gap in a way that Claire Darcy’s more modest publishing schedule could not.

Though Cartland of course hadn’t a funny bone in her body. Too busy being a vulgar social climber herself. I always figured she died happy, what with her claim to being related to Princess Di—via the horrid stepmother, of course!

Kalen, are you sure that Mary and Sophia have different fathers?  After all, Mary got Vidal’s note because he had carelessly addressed it to Miss Challoner rather than to Miss Sophia Challoner.  I would think that Sophia would have a different last name if she had a different father.

Also, Avon’s approval of Frederick Comyn (hee, hee) in the face of Fanny’s protests surely shows that breeding isn’t everything—although I guess Comyn *is* a gentleman, just not a nobleman.

Man, I am totally inspired to reread this book.  Thanks, everyone!

Because it’s her half-sister. They share a mother, but have different fathers. Mary has been raised by her paternal grandfather, the General.

Ah. Of course I cannot lay my hands upon my copy of this book at the moment to review Mary’s geneology myself, but that does sound right.  But then why do Mary and her sister (and mother) all have the same last name in that case (Challoner?)

I think that Sophia and Mary have the same parents, but Mary “takes after” her father’s side and spent more time with them.  Sophia “takes after” her vulgar mother.  La belle Georgette was a total snob IMHO, but I still love her books, despite being a Democrat, myself.

Yes, Sophie and Mary are both Sir Giles Challoner’s granddaughters. It’s just that all the “quality” went to Mary.

Personally I find Heyer’s class snobbery extremely hard to swallow - it’s relatively subtle in this book, although of course Mary must have her Challoner family side to be considered an acceptable wife for Vidal…but I love the romance of Devil’s Cub and can get past it.

However, These Old Shades is atrocious in that respect. I remember being actually shocked when I read it. Heyer basically states that most members of the aristocracy are genetically beautiful, smart, sensitive and worthy, while the lower classes are innately hideous, stupid farmers who are incapable of being educated. The big “crime” in the book is when this nobility-on-top natural order is violated, and the happy conclusion is when it’s restored and everyone is sent back to their place.

Honestly, I know she’s such a favorite, and as I said I do love Devil’s Cub, but Heyer’s class issues really make it hard for me to enjoy her books a lot of the time. It’s hard to keep reading when she’s making me see red.

p.s.

I just want to clarify that I have no problem when characters in historicals are snobby about class - in fact it adds to the atmosphere of the time. I’m not a fan of wallpaper regencies where the Duke’s family is suddenly happy to welcome a servant or someone as Duchess, just because she’s a nice girl and makes him happy. It just gets me when the author is obviously promoting it as her own point of view.

The trouble with Barbara Cartland is that she couldn’t write for toffee.  There are much better would-be-Heyers.  I used to really enjoy a writer called Marion Chesney when I read a lot of romance as a teenager but I haven’t read anything by her in ages.  She had a brilliant series called the “Six Sisters” which was very funny.

Personally I find Heyer’s class snobbery extremely hard to swallow - it’s relatively subtle in this book, although of course Mary must have her Challoner family side to be considered an acceptable wife for Vidal…but I love the romance of Devil’s Cub and can get past it.

Very true.  The Avons are definitely snobs (but then, as you say, that is more realistic than them cheering over the heir to a dukedom falling in love with a scullery maid, as one sometimes encounters in historical romance.)  Certainly Leonie herself was only acceptable as a wife for Avon because of her “true” lineage.  And poor Babs’ (Vidal and Mary’s granddaughter and the heroine of “An Infamous Army”) unhappy first marriage was to someone her family selected for financial and dynastic reasons.
 

However, These Old Shades is atrocious in that respect. I remember being actually shocked when I read it. Heyer basically states that most members of the aristocracy are genetically beautiful, smart, sensitive and worthy, while the lower classes are innately hideous, stupid farmers who are incapable of being educated. The big “crime” in the book is when this nobility-on-top natural order is violated, and the happy conclusion is when it’s restored and everyone is sent back to their place.

The “switched at birth” plot works better when the ones who are switched seem to belong in their original positions, but I agree that Heyer was more than a little heavy-handed with her characterization of the farmer’s son raised as a noble who still just wanted to milk cows (or some such thing.)  But the true evil in this story, IMO, was the nobleman who could reject and abandon his own child in order to preserve his own dynastic power.

Honestly, I know she’s such a favorite, and as I said I do love Devil’s Cub, but Heyer’s class issues really make it hard for me to enjoy her books a lot of the time. It’s hard to keep reading when she’s making me see red.

Taken in isolation, “These Old Shades” seems to prove your point that Heyer felt that upper class/noble birth equals good looks, intelligence and innate nobility.  But “The Unknown Ajax” runs counter to that thesis.  Hugo, the hero with the very unsnobbish family connections, despite his placid disposition and a “bovine”  countenance, was smarter and more noble than his snooty cousins.  And in “Cotillion”, Jack was the one who had it all—good looks, breeding, brains, charm and athletism, but Heyer put more value on Freddie’s good heart.  Both were of good birth and family, but I do not find that Heyer always portrays the upper class as a uniformly more intelligent, nobler and superior race.

Have to agree, Heyer was an awful snob. Nature v nurture in here, nature wins out most of the time. Poor heroines are proved “worthy” by having socially acceptable parents or grandparents.
But I also have to agree about the servant girl being welcomed into the family in modern historical novels. There are practical reasons why that didn’t work - ie networking. A servant girl had a different network, not useful to society. One servant girl who married a duke was a highly intelligent woman but she and her husband were never allowed into society for the rest of their days, even though she invested wisely and ended up humungously rich as well as titled. So there could be a book about it, but I’d like to see it followed through properly. It could be very romantic!
Heyer seemed to forget the networking reason, and go for the ‘good birth’ thing every time. And it is more prominent in some books than in others.
I still love them!

The way I see it, Molly, I don’t have to believe in string theory to read about it and I don’t have to believe in aristocracy to read about them.  I think Heyer was very young when she wrote These Old Shades, very early twenties.  I vaguely remember being more of an absolutist in my twenties too.  As her writing matured, her characters became more human and more humane.  I discovered her when I was twelve, so maybe these little blips bother me less.

I think Heyer was very young when she wrote These Old Shades, very early twenties.  I vaguely remember being more of an absolutist in my twenties too.  As her writing matured, her characters became more human and more humane.

That’s a good point - and if she wrote These Old Shades in her early twenties, count me a little jealous. Whatever else I might not like about the book, it is very well and wittily written.

And I admit I’ve never read The Unknown Ajax, but I’m putting it on the TBR list now.

You know, if I thought Heyer was a crap writer, she wouldn’t bother me. I don’t. It’s definitely a love/hate thing…

Georgette Heyer’s dialogue is wonderful, and her storytelling in what she doesn’t say.

Possibly my favourite line of all is in Venetia, when she arrives back to find Damerel somewhat sozzled, and remarks that she would “build me a willow cabin at your gates” (they’ve been quoting Shakespeare and other poets back and forth throughout) but that “November is not the month for willow cabins.”

My shortlist:
Venetia - for that quoting dialogue
Frederica - for the delightful family life
The Unknown Ajax - for Hugo
A Civil Contract - for upending the stereotype and having Adam finally realise he’s much better off with prosaic Jenny than flighty Julia
The Grand Sophy - for Sophy’s delightful upending of her relatives, for their own good.
But there are lots of good ones.  The Masqueraders, Devil’s Cub, Arabella…

“The private world of Georgette Heyer” is a good biography.

I discovered Georgette Heyer at around age 12, “The Masquarade”.  This was in the ‘70’s, when Xena warrior princess hadn’t been thought of, and I was looking for books about women who DID something.  And here on the cover was a woman dressed as a man!  I got more than I bargained for with that book…  Devil’s Cub is in my top 5 also, but the Masquarade will always hold a special place in my heart!

I just have to weigh in on the class and snobbery issue in regard to Devil’s Cub and These Old Shades especially.

For a writer of historical romances, the advantages of upperclass/aristocratic characters are obvious. There is far more information about their lives available through research! Published memoirs and letters, fashion plates, periodical publications, portraits, etc., are all far more plentiful for the upper classes than for the lower.

Furthermore, the characters themselves will have more freedom of movement and more opportunities for action if they are wealthy aristocrats. They can take a trip across the Channel to France, they can fight duels, they can engage in races in their private carriages, and they can go off to visit a friend’s country house. This aspect of the issue reminds me of what Dorothy Sayers (another writer often accused of snobbery) said about the reasons for creating a wealthy sleuth: he doesn’t have a day job, and lack of money does not restrict his movements or plans. So Lord Peter could fly across the Atlantic to try to save his brother from being convicted for murder—a year or two before Lindbergh did it, I believe!

The discussion about inheritance of nobility as a character trait is a very interesting one. It’s actually less of an issue in Devil’s Cub, because it is Mary’s “breeding,” including her manners and morality, that sets her off from her sister. Their “birth” is the same. But in These Old Shades, there is the issue of the young man who wants only to farm instead of running the estate as a landowner. This character certainly comes down on the “nature” side of the nature/nurture debate!

Many people forget that in the early twentieth century, belief in genetic determinism was considered highly scientific and was generally approved. The eugenics movement was quite popular, and the Nazis had not yet discredited it. Perhaps Heyer was echoing some of these ideas in some form. After all, much as she obviously knew about the historical periods which she chose as settings, she herself was a woman of the twentieth century.

I like it, though, that some comments pointed out how evil Leonie’s aristocratic father is! Birth isn’t everything, even in romance.

Jeannine—very good comments!  I was bothered by the class implications when I read These Old Shades.  That nature would always triumph over nurture, and Leonie’s false brother could be unmasked by his lack of aristocratic sensibilities. 

It helps to remember the milieu in which the writer was living, and the time in which the books were first published.

Thank you, Darlene! It’s always fun to talk about Heyer!

One more thing: what about all the ridiculous and silly aristocratic characters in Heyer novels! I’m not the first person to see a resemblance between several of her male characters and Bertie Wooster. Freddy in Cotillion, Ferdy in Friday’s Child (really almost a Wodehouse story in Regency clothing), and even Rupert in These Old Shades: all are silly young men about town. 

A favorite moment of mine in Friday’s Child involves the young men trying to think of how to help an abandoned unwed mother by inventing a husband who died at Waterloo. The action stops for a moment as they struggle to do the math: let’s see, baby’s age, 9 months’ gestation: nope, can’t be Waterloo!

Way late to the party but I can’t resist adding my two penn’orth.

Mary’s reasons for trying to avoid any ties to Dominic, though somewhat naive, demonstrate her intelligence and her innate nobility. She doesn’t want to be forced into anything, but moreover, she knows her station in life, and doesn’t want him to be forced into alliance with her or her family. Moreover, she doesn’t see that Dominic should sacrifice himself when she’s more than willing to work as a seamstress or a housemaid if she has to, given her ruined reputation.

I agree with your reading of Mary’s reasons except that I would not classify them as naive.  Remember, her parents did exactly this: her father moved in the highest circles of society as Sir Giles Challoner’s son.  He married beneath himself for the sake of a pair of pretty eyes and, once cut off by his family, lived to regret it.  And then died, regretting it.  However much Mary’s father was made miserable by his choice and its consequences, I think Mary is right to suppose Vidal would be more so.  Can one imagine Dominic spending time with Mary’s family?  No.  Or having to curb his spending?  No.  Or being cut off from the society of his friends and family?  No.  Mary knows what that can do to a proud man because she has seen it.  More than anything, I think that this parallel between the generations drives the plot of the novel.

“Devil’s Cub” is my favorite of all Heyer’s romance novels and I’ve read them all.  Yes there is class distinction in her novels but I feel it is still glossed over.  The true reality for a woman in those times was pretty bleak.  Even if she did “marry well” as Mary did, she was totally at the mercy of her husband.  Men had total freedom to find work, gamble, cavort, travel and women did not.  I always wondered what would have happened to Mary had she not married Vidal.  I feel that Heyer portrayed the Regency period in the most realistic light.  Other than Austen who lived during the period and knew it’s downfalls Heyer has managed to capture the period the best.  While there are things I would love to see return from this simpler time there are just as many or more that make me grateful for having been born in a more tolerant age.

Many of the morals and manners portrayed in Heyer’s Regencies were more typical of her own between-the-wars world than they were the “real” Regency, whatever that was. Read Sayers or Christie, and you’ll see similar manners and attitudes there.
If you look at the scandal sheets and caricatures of the time, you’ll see a very different Regency, the one Queen Victoria and her contemporaries rebelled against, where every man had his mistress and went carousing in Covent Garden, where estates changed hands on the gambling tables and the crudest manners and behaviour prevailed. Cruickshank depicts a very different Regency to either Heyer or Austen. Just as authentic, just as real. And just as prevalent.
Austen showed the middle class and its ways, not the upper class, and Heyer took that, added some bits of her own, and made an upper class that never existed, but is seductive in its appeal.
If you study the politics and the power plays of Regency England, you’ll find a world as complex as our own, so calling it a simpler time is perhaps to take Austen at face value, not looking deeper to the bitterly disillusioned woman underneath. That’s why Austen is a great novelist and Heyer a good one.
IMHO.

heyer gives me chills.  i’ve read regency buck, devil’s cub and friday’s child.  i can’t wait to sink my teeth into the rest of her books! 
~lAUra

I agree with your reading of Mary’s reasons except that I would not classify them as naive.  Remember, her parents did exactly this:

Well said, Ros.

I just finished this book (I’m working my way through the SBTB “A” reviews) and my feelings are alloyed.  It was finely done, despite the annoyingly slow opening with all the fops chatting about snuff-boxes.  I wish we’d had a little more of Mary and Vidal together, as everyone seems to have made up their minds rather quickly.  The shooting was wonderful, however.

I also loved the description of Mary and Mr. Comyn’s flight to Dijon; two sympathetic characters, obviously liked by the author, who are gradually revealed to be totally incompatible and are too polite to say so.  Mary’s practicality is set off by Vidal’s blood-and-thunder rashness, and Comyn’s stodginess is enlivened by Juliana’s bright, flighty nature.