Georgette Heyer (1902–1974)
Author of The Grand Sophy
About the Author
Georgette Heyer was born on August 16, 1902 at Wimbledon, London. She wrote The Black Moth as a story for her brother Boris. Her father, impressed with his daughter's imagination, suggested that she prepare it to be published, which it was by Constable in 1921. Having scored an instant success with show more The Black Moth at the age of nineteen under her own name, Georgette Heyer, she experimented with a pseudonym, Stella Martin, for her third book, published by Mills & Boon. She continued writing and in 1925 she married Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer. After reasonable but not spectacular sales from her first few books the instant success of These Old Shades in 1926 brought her a solid source of income which was very necessary at the time since the family relied to a large extent on the income from Georgette Heyer's writing. She wrote over fifty books during her lifetime and created the Regency England genre of romance novels. She died on July 4, 1974 at the age of 71. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Georgette Heyer, 1939
Series
Works by Georgette Heyer
The Georgette Heyer Omnibus: Faro's Daughter, The Corinthian, and the Nonesuch (1973) 62 copies, 1 review
These Old Shades + Sprig Muslin + Sylvester + The Corinthian + The Convenient Marriage (1977) 38 copies, 1 review
Great Historical Romances: The Talisman Ring + The Gambling Man + The King's Pleasure (1978) 19 copies
The Early Georgette Heyer Collection: The Transformation of Philip Jettan; The Black Moth; The Great Roxhythe; Instead of the Thorn; A Proposal To Cicely (2020) 11 copies
Georgette Heyer 3 copies
Šibalská Sophy 1 copy
Vojvodova pomsta 1 copy
Diabolský únos 1 copy
Pistols for Two + Hazard 1 copy
Royal Escape / Black Sheep / A Blunt Instrument / Regency Buck / Envious Casca / The Corinthian (1980) 1 copy
Aşka Bir Şans Daha 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Rougier, Georgette Heyer
- Other names
- Martin, Stella
- Birthdate
- 1902-08-16
- Date of death
- 1974-07-04
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Royal College of Music
- Occupations
- novelist
historical novelist
crime novelist - Awards and honors
- Blue Plaque
- Relationships
- Oman, Carola (friend)
Rougier, George Ronald (husband)
Heyer, George (father) - Short biography
- Georgette Heyer wrote meticulously researched historical-romance novels, specializing in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth-century, and was most famous for her Regency novels. She lived a sheltered childhood and at age 17, created a serial story to amuse her brother Boris, who was ill; their father asked her to prepare it for publication and his agent found a publisher for it -- this became The Black Moth (1921), about a disgraced young aristocrat who becomes a highwayman. According to Georgette Heyer's biographer Jane Aiken Hodge, that first novel contained many of the elements that would become standard for Heyer's works, the "saturnine male lead, the marriage in danger, the extravagant wife, and the group of idle, entertaining young men." Beginning in 1932, Heyer released one romance novel and one detective thriller each year. Her books were highly popular both in the UK and the USA and she remains an enduring international bestseller, read and loved by four generations of readers.
- Cause of death
- lung cancer
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Wimbledon, London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- England, UK
Wimbledon, England, UK
Paris, France
Tanganyika
Macedonia - Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Burial location
- Cremated
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
OT: Heyer censored in Folio Society Devotees (May 2025)
Georgette Heyer - Frederica in Folio Society Devotees (September 2023)
Found: Victorian era woman comes into her own in Name that Book (August 2021)
BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE - JUNE 2017 - HEYER & SCHAMA in 75 Books Challenge for 2017 (October 2017)
Read GEORGETTE HEYER in June in 2014 Category Challenge (July 2014)
FREDERICA - Group Read - SPOILERS POSSIBLE in 75 Books Challenge for 2014 (March 2014)
Can't remember the names of these books in Name that Book (August 2013)
Bujold fan looking for a Georgette Heyer introduction in Almack's (July 2013)
Georgette Heyer in Cozy Mysteries (December 2012)
January 2012: Georgette Heyer in Monthly Author Reads (March 2012)
Fantasy casting: Frederica in Almack's (May 2010)
Heyer Discussion: [Friday's Child] in 75 Books Challenge for 2009 (February 2010)
Historicals in Almack's (January 2010)
Adaptations? in Almack's (December 2009)
Reluctant Widow film adaptation in Almack's (December 2009)
Music in Heyer in Almack's (November 2009)
Heyer, No Wind of Blame, rev. jimroberts in Reviews reviewed (September 2009)
Reviews
This story of two siblings, Prudence and Robin, who swap genders and masquerade as Peter and Kate Merriot in order to escape detection after participating in the Jacobite rebellions, is one of Georgette Heyer's more improbable tales. Caught up in the whirl of London high society, the pair soon find themselves in love: "Peter" with his friend, Sir Anthony Fanshave, and "Kate" with the lovely Letitia Grayson. But how will they disentangle themselves from their deception, and can two show more adventurers ever turn respectable?
Like all of Heyer's Georgian romances, The Masqueraders is quite a swashbuckler, complete with all the secret identities, duels, abductions, highwaymen, and long-lost aristocrats that one could wish for. The reader will even encounter the proverbial "glove-slap to the face" that must surely precede every duel of note! It's all a little bit silly, and as some have noted, highly implausible. But with its fast-paced narrative, witty dialogue, and appealing characters, it will nevertheless charm. Who, I ask, wants a romance that is at all probable? show less
Like all of Heyer's Georgian romances, The Masqueraders is quite a swashbuckler, complete with all the secret identities, duels, abductions, highwaymen, and long-lost aristocrats that one could wish for. The reader will even encounter the proverbial "glove-slap to the face" that must surely precede every duel of note! It's all a little bit silly, and as some have noted, highly implausible. But with its fast-paced narrative, witty dialogue, and appealing characters, it will nevertheless charm. Who, I ask, wants a romance that is at all probable? show less
From time to time Georgette Heyer left the Regency world in which she was steeped and wrote of other periods in History.
In ‘Royal Escape’ she tells the story of Charles 11’s escape after defeat at the Battle of Worcester and the desperate attempts of his supporters to evade Cromwell’s troops and get the King to safety in France.
The book plays out like a thriller and encourages me to try Heyer’s detective stories, another genre in which she wrote successfully.
The king is moved from show more one safe house to another, danger never far away and his helpers are not just fellow aristocrats like the hard pressed Lord Wilmot whose task it is to organise a boat to carry the King to safety, but also royalists from many different backgrounds ranging from country people able to pilot the King through the countryside to various safe havens and middle class landowners who harbour him in their Manor Houses. Some of these are Catholic and have handy priests holes and other hiding places which are valuable in this perilous situation.
A couple of young ladies with very different temperaments are also involved in these adventures. Charles 11’s well known propensity for the fair sex is explored and one of these girls, Jane Lane ,has the misfortune to fall in love with him.
Heyer does not white wash his character. She reveals his cynicism, his lascivious temperament, and his lack of faith in most people. She shows how this has come about because of his experiences in recent years, including having to endure the execution of his father. Trust now does not come easily to him.
However the steadfast loyalty which he finds in those who help him and the knowledge he gains of classes of people whom he would normally never encounter does impress him and he promises to remember and reward them when he gains his throne.
I was very impressed both by Georgette Heyer’s research(always impressive) and by the pace and excitement of the story she tells. She makes me want to know more about this period of history and also to explore her other non-regency stories, much as I love these. show less
In ‘Royal Escape’ she tells the story of Charles 11’s escape after defeat at the Battle of Worcester and the desperate attempts of his supporters to evade Cromwell’s troops and get the King to safety in France.
The book plays out like a thriller and encourages me to try Heyer’s detective stories, another genre in which she wrote successfully.
The king is moved from show more one safe house to another, danger never far away and his helpers are not just fellow aristocrats like the hard pressed Lord Wilmot whose task it is to organise a boat to carry the King to safety, but also royalists from many different backgrounds ranging from country people able to pilot the King through the countryside to various safe havens and middle class landowners who harbour him in their Manor Houses. Some of these are Catholic and have handy priests holes and other hiding places which are valuable in this perilous situation.
A couple of young ladies with very different temperaments are also involved in these adventures. Charles 11’s well known propensity for the fair sex is explored and one of these girls, Jane Lane ,has the misfortune to fall in love with him.
Heyer does not white wash his character. She reveals his cynicism, his lascivious temperament, and his lack of faith in most people. She shows how this has come about because of his experiences in recent years, including having to endure the execution of his father. Trust now does not come easily to him.
However the steadfast loyalty which he finds in those who help him and the knowledge he gains of classes of people whom he would normally never encounter does impress him and he promises to remember and reward them when he gains his throne.
I was very impressed both by Georgette Heyer’s research(always impressive) and by the pace and excitement of the story she tells. She makes me want to know more about this period of history and also to explore her other non-regency stories, much as I love these. show less
So much darned fun. It was my first Georgette Heyer novel--it had been sitting unread on my shelf for a few years before I picked it up last week--and I'll be reading lots more.
It felt like Wodehouse-does-Austen, which is to say frothy and funny and fast, with a side order of optimism about humanity and romantic love.
It felt like Wodehouse-does-Austen, which is to say frothy and funny and fast, with a side order of optimism about humanity and romantic love.
That half star is because my expectations, based on previous Heyer mysteries, were completely blown away.
Envious Casca is both a text-book Country House Mystery and Locked Room Mystery, and it's far and away the best Heyer mystery I've read so far. It's a slow burn, certainly; almost half the book goes by before anyone dies, but Heyer placates her audience - at least this one - with the acerbic humour and no-holds-barred verbal warfare that takes place amongst the family members, written show more brilliantly by Heyer. These people are so vile to each other the only wonder is that the blades didn't come out sooner; at one point, tea was served and I thought to myself "I wouldn't drink that if I were you. Any of you."
It feels like it would be too easy to give away important plot points here, so I'll just say the murderer wasn't who I thought it would be (although I was close), some of the characters were a little too vile to be believed, and I'd have preferred at least one more paragraph, preferably a page, at the end. There's a small romance, because it's Heyer, but I'm not sure it isn't launched and HEA'd all on the same page, so it's really not more than a small also-ran. That it would end the way it did felt inevitable, but there was never any actual romancing.
The more I type, the closer I get to spoilers, so just read it if you like anything you've ever read by Heyer (she's hit and miss in both romance and mystery) and you're in the mood for a slow read with great, biting dialogue. I don't think you'll be disappointed. show less
Envious Casca is both a text-book Country House Mystery and Locked Room Mystery, and it's far and away the best Heyer mystery I've read so far. It's a slow burn, certainly; almost half the book goes by before anyone dies, but Heyer placates her audience - at least this one - with the acerbic humour and no-holds-barred verbal warfare that takes place amongst the family members, written show more brilliantly by Heyer. These people are so vile to each other the only wonder is that the blades didn't come out sooner; at one point, tea was served and I thought to myself "I wouldn't drink that if I were you. Any of you."
It feels like it would be too easy to give away important plot points here, so I'll just say the murderer wasn't who I thought it would be (although I was close), some of the characters were a little too vile to be believed, and I'd have preferred at least one more paragraph, preferably a page, at the end. There's a small romance, because it's Heyer, but I'm not sure it isn't launched and HEA'd all on the same page, so it's really not more than a small also-ran. That it would end the way it did felt inevitable, but there was never any actual romancing.
The more I type, the closer I get to spoilers, so just read it if you like anything you've ever read by Heyer (she's hit and miss in both romance and mystery) and you're in the mood for a slow read with great, biting dialogue. I don't think you'll be disappointed. show less
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Books Read in 2016 (10)
Comedy of Manners (11)
Books Read in 2025 (11)
Books Read in 2019 (11)
British Mystery (12)
Books Read in 2021 (15)
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Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 127
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 77,955
- Popularity
- #159
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 2,643
- ISBNs
- 2,117
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 357
