![]() ![]() Like Christie, Heyer was extremely prolific by the time she died in 1974, she had published 56 novels, most of them historical romances. Like Christie, her sprawling career spanned the 20th century, from the 1920s to the ’70s Heyer’s first novel, The Black Moth, was published in 1921, just a year after Christie’s famous first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. Like Christie, Heyer was British and hailed from an upper-middle-class family. In terms of form and impact, we might think of Georgette Heyer (pronounced “Zheorgette Hay-er”) as the Agatha Christie of romance novels. ![]() And though she has nearly 10 times as many books available for cinematic adaptation as Austen, Hollywood has yet to discover her. Despite singlehandedly creating the modern romance, Heyer is still a niche author. That patriarchal lack of respect for the art of writing about love may also explain why few outside of romance fans have ever heard of Austen’s primary successor: Georgette Heyer. One 19th-century critic wrote approvingly that “she sets her face zealously against romantic attachments.” While other women writers of her time like Fanny Burney were reviled as trashy, Austen’s lack of interest in high drama and romance made her work acceptable to male readers as well as to women. She has been one of the most frequently adapted novelists of the modern era, with only six completed books to her name.Īusten’s relative lack of sentiment also helped her gain popularity and respect as a writer in a male-dominated century of literature. She was a wryly observant comedian first, and a romantic second, and this is part of what has made her novels so popular with Hollywood. It’s not that there was no romance in Austen’s books - you know she thought Darcy was a dish - but it was always a subordinate theme to Austen’s many other social concerns. To the average book reader, Austen is among the most well-known writers of this frothy genre, so named because it explores the passions and privileges of British aristocrats during the short but heady period between 18, when the country was run by the indolent prince regent, the soon-to-be George IV.īut if there’s a single mistaken apprehension about Jane Austen, it’s this: Her books aren’t romance novels at all - at least not what modern readers think of as historical romance. It is a truth universally acknowledged - at least among romance readers - that whenever someone brings up the Regency romance, the sentence that follows must inevitably mention Jane Austen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |