Who is Author Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer (b. 08/16/1902, d. 07/04/1974) was a British author who singlehandedly created the popular Regency romance genre.

In 1921, at age 19, she took a story she had made up years before to tell her younger brother, and turned it into a publishable novel: The Black Moth. Four years later she married George Ronald Rougier. They lived for several years abroad in Macedonia and Tanganyika with Rougier's job as a mining engineer before returning to England in 1929.

Georgette Heyer was an intensely private person and refused to grant interviews or take publicity photos, despite her prolific and popular writing career. In a letter to a friend she wrote, "As for being photographed At Work or In my Old World Garden, that is the type of publicity which I find nauseating and quite unnecessary. My private life concerns no one but myself and my family." She had one son, Richard Rougier, who died in 2007; and one grandson, Nicholas Rougier. When her obituary was published on July 4, 1974, Heyer's many fans learned her married name for the first time ever.

~ tandemonimom
Photo source: see footnote.

Read Heyer's Wikipedia article.

Georgette Heyer more or less created the Regency romance genre, and her work shaped and formed all the subsequent specialty romance genres. Her work built on Jane Austen's, but Austen wrote contemporary novels about the period she herself lived in; Heyer wrote historical novels from the 20th century, set in Austen's time period.

In addition, Heyer pretty much created the entire stock of romantic storylines. If you've read a romance you enjoyed, well, Heyer probably wrote a story with a similar plot too, and better.

Finally, Heyer wrote good literature. Romance novels are often shelved as second-class literature, and unfortunately, that is because they often are second-class literature. This is emphatically not true of Heyer's novels. Her contemporary Ezra Pound, a severe literary critic and intellectual, admired her work. Her novels are true literature that happens to have a romantic theme, not mere romances or "bodice rippers."

... and oh, yes, fourth: Heyer also wrote detective novels of which I have read none. Sorry!

Georgette's paternal grandfather immigrated to England from Russia. His last name was pronounced to rhyme with "flyer." During World War II, however, the Heyers decided that sounded too German, and changed the pronunciation of their last name. First it was "hayer" which quickly became the even more British-sounding "hair." Georgette herself pronounced her last name "hair," but her very private life was lived as Mrs. Ronald Rougier while her birth name was reserved for the cover of books. No word on whether "Rougier" has a more French or British pronunciation.

1921 The Black Moth
1923 The Great Roxhythe
1923 Powder and Patch
(was The Transformation of Philip Jettan)
1925 Simon the Coldheart
1926 These Old Shades
1928 The Masqueraders
1929 Beauvallet
1931 The Conqueror
1932 Devil's Cub
1934 The Convenient Marriage
1935 Regency Buck
1936 The Talisman Ring
1937 An Infamous Army
1938 Royal Escape
1939 Pursuit
(short in Queens Book of the Red Cross)
1940 The Spanish Bride
1940 The Corinthian
1941 Faro's Daughter
1944 Friday's Child
1946 The Reluctant Widow
1948 The Foundling
1949 Arabella
1950 The Grand Sophy
1951 The Quiet Gentleman
1953 Cotillion
1954 The Toll-Gate
1955 Bath Tangle
1956 Sprig Muslin
1957 April Lady
1957 Sylvester: or The Wicked Uncle
1958 Venetia
1959 The Unknown Ajax
1960 Pistols for Two, 11 short stories
1961 A Civil Contract
1962 The Nonesuch
1963 False Colours
1965 Frederica
1966 Black Sheep
1968 Cousin Kate
1970 Charity Girl
1972 Lady of Quality
1975 My Lord John

'Pon rep! Georgette Heyer was a well-lettered woman of her day, with a formidable vocabulary to prove it. Moreover, she made a point of introducing as much of the Regency literary style and vocabulary - including the decidedly distinctive slang of the period - as possible into her novels.

Her writing may make a generation reared on Bob Books and Disney readers feel they have more hair than wit, but the stories are more than worth any effort. And there is no need to have a fit of the blue-devils, because there are several places to learn a bit about the colorful Regency vocabulary for those who feel done to a cow's thumb from trying to decipher these unfamiliar terms.

Heyer Listserv Regency Slang
The Nonesuch Regency Lexicon
Candice Hern's Regency Glossary

Ah, ibuprofen, you are my friend. Between you, dark chocolate, and unread Georgette Heyer, life is bearable.

Heyer is funny in her own right. I like that she is snarky about her characters when they deserve it.

Just finished Georgette Heyer's "The Quiet Gentleman" for the umpteenth time. Some books/authors are comfort reads.

So..."Jane Austen"y novel turned out to be rather stupid/trashy/obvious. Back to our regularly scheduled Heyer. (Georgette, that is.)

Even Georgette Heyer is twitterish...: "You´re all of a twitter: why?" (Sylvester)

At the end of 2009, I devoured a whole slew of Georgette Heyer and found myself expecting people to behave as in her books.

Eating mango and reading Georgette Heyer. Not quite "makes everything better" but it helps.

You haven't read Heyer? We are going to take away your librarian license.

I just read my first Georgette Heyer - and, much to my surprise, thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was sucked into a Georgette Heyer book - must resist the urge to use Regency slang!

I am so glad Heyer is back - read her when I was young(er) and missed her crisp, funny dialog. Also great period research.

Oh, me too! need a dose of Austen or Heyer.

Heyer really doesn't have a bad regency book. She's just a genius at plotting & dialog in particular.

Been in a horrible mood all evening. Treated with Georgette Heyer, which made evening tolerable, but still. Maybe sleep will help.

"Black Sheep", Georgette Heyer. My therapeutic author for last 50 years. Austen with kissing, to my mind.

Just finished an old Georgette Heyer mystery. Some people can pass the test of time.

GEORGETTE, GEORGETTE, GEORGETTE, GEORGETTE, GEORGETTE, GEORGETTE - someone film Heyer's books, NOW. (@penelopeelse)

She self-medicated her midlife crisis by reading Georgette Heyer! (@JackieHunter1)

Excellent insult from the pages of Georgette Heyer: "Muffin-face"! MUFFIN-FACE! (@catsgomiaow)

Suspense. Attempted murder. Romance. What more do you need? 'The Quiet Gentleman' by Georgette Heyer. (@inspringthedawn)

Just read on Kindle: The Convenient Marriage, by Georgette Heyer. "Prodigiously Delightful!" (@LinoreRose)

I have seen my doom, and it is called the Georgette Heyer $1.99 Kindle collection. (@joliehale)

1923 Instead of the Thorn (fiction)
1928 Helen (fiction)
1929 Pastel (fiction)
1930 Barren Corn (fiction)
1932 Footsteps in the Dark (crime)
1933 Why Shoot a Butler? (crime)
1934 The Unfinished Clue (crime)
1935 Death in the Stocks (crime)
1936 Behold, Here's Poison (crime)
1937 They Found Him Dead (crime)
1938 A Blunt Instrument (crime)
1939 No Wind of Blame (crime)
1942 Penhallow (crime)
1941 Envious Casca (crime)
1951 Duplicate Death (crime)
1953 Detection Unlimited (crime)

Photo source note: The "Brief Biography" photo of Georgette Heyer is believed to be a fair use of the image in question. It was scanned from the inside back cover of The Quiet Gentleman (2006), published by Harlequin Enterprises - Signature Select, and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. This image is presumably covered by copyright; however, as the subject is deceased and no equivalent image is available or likely to become available, use of this promotional image in an informational article about her is considered fair use in order to illustrate what she looked like.

Ms. Heyer' signature from TomFolio.

Regency-era sketches are all images from the public domain.