Georgette Heyer was an English novelist and short-story writer, in both the Regency romance and detective fiction genres.
46 Facts About Georgette Heyer
2.
Georgette Heyer's writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story conceived for her ailing younger brother into the novel The Black Moth.
3.
In 1925 Heyer married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer.
4.
Georgette Heyer essentially established the historical romance genre and its subgenre Regency romance.
5.
Georgette Heyer's success was sometimes clouded by problems with tax inspectors and alleged plagiarists.
6.
Georgette Heyer chose not to file lawsuits against the suspected literary thieves but tried multiple ways of minimizing her tax liability.
7.
Georgette Heyer was accused several times of providing an overly large salary for herself, and in 1966 she sold the company and the rights to seventeen of her novels to Booker-McConnell.
8.
Georgette Heyer was the eldest of three children; her brothers, George Boris and Frank, were four and nine years younger than she.
9.
Georgette Heyer left the army in 1920 with the rank of captain, taught at King's College London and sometimes wrote for The Granta.
10.
George Georgette Heyer strongly encouraged his children to read and never forbade any book.
11.
Georgette Heyer read widely and often met her friends Joanna Cannan and Carola Oman to discuss books.
12.
When she was 17 Georgette Heyer began a serial story to amuse her brother Boris, who suffered from a form of haemophilia and was often weak.
13.
Georgette Heyer's father enjoyed listening to her story and asked her to prepare it for publication.
14.
Georgette Heyer's agent found a publisher for her book, and The Black Moth, about the adventures of a young man who took responsibility for his brother's card-cheating, was issued in 1921.
15.
One month later Georgette Heyer's father died of a heart attack.
16.
Georgette Heyer left no pension and Heyer assumed financial responsibility for her brothers, aged 19 and 14.
17.
Georgette Heyer wrote an account of her adventures, entitled "The Horned Beast of Africa", which was published in 1929 in the newspaper The Sphere.
18.
In 1928 Georgette Heyer followed her husband to Macedonia, where she almost died after a dentist improperly administered an anaesthetic.
19.
Georgette Heyer insisted they return to England before starting a family.
20.
Unlike romantic fiction of the period by other writers, Georgette Heyer's novels featured the setting as a plot device.
21.
Georgette Heyer often clipped illustrations from magazine articles and jotted down interesting vocabulary or facts onto note cards but rarely recorded where she found the information.
22.
Georgette Heyer's notes were sorted into categories, such as Beauty, Colours, Dress, Hats, Household, Prices and Shops, and even included details such as the cost of candles in a particular year.
23.
Georgette Heyer claimed that every word attributed to Wellington in An Infamous Army was actually spoken or written by him in real life.
24.
Georgette Heyer specialised in two types of romantic male lead, which she called Mark I and Mark II.
25.
Georgette Heyer researched the life of William the Conqueror thoroughly, even travelling the route that William took when crossing into England.
26.
Georgette Heyer often read the proofs of her historical romances to catch any errors that she might have missed, and served as a collaborator for her thrillers.
27.
Georgette Heyer provided the plots of the detective stories, describing the actions of characters "A" and "B".
28.
Georgette Heyer found it difficult at times to rely on someone else's plots; on at least one occasion, before writing the last chapter of a book, she asked Rougier to explain how the murder was really committed.
29.
In 1935, Georgette Heyer's thrillers began following a pair of detectives named Superintendent Hannasyde and Sergeant Hemingway.
30.
Wingate further mentions that Georgette Heyer's thrillers were known "for their wit and comedy as well as for their well-woven plots".
31.
Georgette Heyer had an option on her next book; to make them break her contract, she wrote Penhallow, which the 1944 Book Review Digest described as "a murder story but not a mystery story".
32.
Georgette Heyer refused to accept the deal, explaining that she had given her word to transfer the rights.
33.
In 1950, Georgette Heyer began working on what she called "the magnum opus of my latter years", a medieval trilogy intended to cover the House of Lancaster between 1393 and 1435.
34.
Georgette Heyer estimated that she would need five years to complete the works.
35.
Georgette Heyer then asked that the rights to her newest book, Black Sheep, be issued to her personally.
36.
In May 1950, one of her readers notified her that Barbara Cartland had written several novels in a style similar to Georgette Heyer's, reusing names, character traits and plot points and paraphrased descriptions from her books, particularly A Hazard of Hearts, which borrowed characters from Friday's Child, and The Knave of Hearts which took off These Old Shades.
37.
Georgette Heyer completed a detailed analysis of the alleged plagiarisms for her solicitors, and while the case never came to court and no apology was received, the copying ceased.
38.
Georgette Heyer's lawyers suggested that she leak the copying to the press.
39.
Georgette Heyer's lawyers recommended an injunction, but she ultimately decided not to sue.
40.
Georgette Heyer was shocked at the impropriety but soon came to love her daughter-in-law, later describing her as "the daughter we never had and thought we didn't want".
41.
When her brother Boris died later that year, Georgette Heyer was too ill to travel to his funeral.
42.
Georgette Heyer's fans learned her married name for the first time from her obituaries.
43.
Besides her success in the United Kingdom, Georgette Heyer's novels were very popular in the United States and Germany and achieved respectable sales in Czechoslovakia.
44.
Georgette Heyer's books were very popular during the Great Depression and World War II.
45.
Georgette Heyer essentially invented the historical romance and created the subgenre of the Regency romance.
46.
Georgette Heyer has been criticised for anti-semitism, in particular a scene in The Grand Sophy.