All the same, she well earns the title Incomparable.
A Sensible Lady: A Traditional Regency Romance by Judith Lown
Who else founded a literary genre? The list is short. The answer, I believe, is that Georgette Heyer, while wholly absorbed in the mores and fashions of a specific time in history, had a keen eye for ageless human foibles and eternal human values. It began just after World War I had concluded, which left behind widows, orphans and single young women whose chances for marriage and family had died in the trenches of Normandy. The Ottoman Empire was collapsing.
Armenians were the victims of genocide. Maimed and shell-shocked veterans were struggling to find their bearings in civilian society. Then came the worldwide Depression. Fascism, Nazism, and Communism gained adherents.
Georgette Heyer: What Makes An Incomparable?
And when the war ended Britain withdrew from its Empire and experienced the longest period of food rationing of any country following the war. When Heyer died in , long held social customs were being abandoned, and it was not at all clear that The West would win the Cold War. During all those years fraught with conflict and danger, Heyer wrote about young ladies doing what they could to forge a life for themselves—preferably by making an advantageous marriage—in a hypocritical, arbitrary, and, essentially, unjust society, and, about the gentlemen from among whom they might choose to navigate those treacherous societal shoals.
New readers pick up a Heyer novel to lose themselves in the antics of an over-privileged elite of a bygone era. But Heyer never confuses froth with substance. The world into which she was born is as distant from our world as the Regency period was from hers. But she never permitted current events and preoccupations to interfere with her art, which was the interplay of the most ephemeral of worlds with the most unchanging. If you, too, are a Geogette Heyer fan, share why you love her books.
If not, nominate another author who deserves the title Incomparable. Georgette Heyer is a life-long favorite of mine.
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Thank you so much for this fascinating tribute! Her books do have an eternal quality while being a wonderful healing escape. Here were two people, Gertie and Fred, courting a. Separated between Ipswich, England, and St. Paul, Minnesota, a letter took ten days one way by train and ship.
No instant communication was possible! The letter sent was usually not the one answered. I knew there was a story here, and it never let me alone. I began by transcribing the letters.
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Fred wrote sixteen-page letters single-spaced. I chose in Chicago and Spain as the setting. Some elements—emotions, needs, hurdles, obstacles—are universal. Multiple other vehicles for communication exist. The restraints that existed in have softened, but not disappeared entirely. My research entailed digging deeper into the historical events mentioned in the letters and in the two eras. I purposely highlighted the contrasts between the two stories—modes of communication, technology, transportation, dissemination of information, fashions, speech.
My modern heroine, Lisa, despite her troubles in the dating world, has the freedom make choices, to be an independent woman. A peek at Lisa: Lisa crawled into bed and clicked off the lamp. A peek at Gertie: My vision for this book included illustrations.
So in Dear Heart: The Courting Letters , I attended to the lives of these two real people and invented two other fictional ones. I hope readers will become as fascinated with history as I am and be inspired to listen to their hearts and persevere despite obstacles. Persistence is the key to writing success. Learn about the craft, research, revise, and read.
Dear Heart: The Courting Letters
Above all, write what you love! Visit Judith at www. There are so many ways to get published in Both also write romance but Moran writes historical and contemporary fiction and Lown focuses on the Regency Period. Both know how to write a compelling tale that keeps their readers turning the pages.
Moran will talk about her historical novel, Scent of Triumph St. A very long plane trip to Paris seemed much shorter as I read the ebook edition. I began to understand so much more about the perfume industry that, of course, I had to purchase a very special new scent. I was in Paris after all!
- Georgette Heyer: What Makes An Incomparable? | Georgette Heyer: What Makes An Incomparable? |.
- La montre de lamiral (French Edition).
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- The Painted Lady.
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My characters are often running a business, and juggling their love life and family responsibilities. Like real people, they make mistakes, but they always save themselves in a creative manner. In both my contemporary and historical novels, I write for the modern woman who wants to enjoy all life has to offer. Much like her characters, Moran draws on her international travel and business experiences, infusing her books with realistic details.
Judith Lown began reading historical Regency romance during a stressful time in her life when she was a social worker helping disintegrating families. She needed to escape during her free time, and began reading historical Regencies. Heyer despised sentimentality, cowardice, and both mindless conformity on one hand, and self-indulgent non-conformity on the other. In her newest title, Boston Tangle: Regency Comes to America , Lown transports three of her English characters from previous books to Boston where they interact with the upper class and, of course, there is a love story—a tangled tale.
Heyer would be proud. Judith Lown has a Ph.
A Sensible Lady: A Traditional Regency Romance
She is a dog lover and an active volunteer for the Greyhound Adoption Center which has inspired her to include a canine character in each of her novels. During the panel discussion, authors will share their writing process very different , their publishing paths, and advice to aspiring authors.
If you do not live in San Diego County and cannot attend this stimulating evening did I mention wine and dessert? She is hard at work on a sequel but still makes time to blog. Today she pays tribute to Georgette Heyer during the week of her birthday.
Georgette Heyer might not have been the first writer to use Incomparable to designate a lady whose beauty is sufficiently compelling to thaw the hearts of icy Lords, turn erstwhile warriors into babysitters, or, most importantly, transform notorious rakes into faithful, monogamous husbands. However, she can be credited with establishing the Incomparable as a fixture of the Regency Romance, just as she established the Regency as a staple among romance novels.
But of all the Incomparables brought to life by Heyer, none is as deserving of the title as she is, herself. She was not a great beauty. She did not have a dashing career as the most sought-after debutante. She did not even participate in a London Season. Indeed, before she was of an age to do so, she was writing her first novel, The Black Moth, in order to entertain her seriously ill brother.