Heyer 2009: Kerstin Frank: ‘The Thermodynamics of Georgette Heyer'

Laura Vivanco

Kerstin Frank works at the University of Heidelberg. She is the author of Die Erneuerung des Romans im Zeichen postmoderner Realitätsauffassung: Sinnstiftung und Sinnzerstörung in Christine Brooke-Roses Werk but has now moved on from studying postmodern British novels to working on the eighteenth-century fantastic and gothic genres. As a result, this year she is teaching a course on "Werewolf and Vampire: Manifestations of Otherness and the Transgression of Boundaries."

In "The Thermodynamics of Georgette Heyer: Variations on the Quest for Revitalisation" Frank drew on thermodynamics, a branch of physics which deals with the conversion of energy. [LV comment: at this point it might (or might not!) help to turn to Flanders and Swann's "First and Second Laws"


The lyrics to this can be found here or here]

So, thermodynamics explains that heat passes from a hot object, whose particles move around more, to a cold body, which has relatively little kinetic energy. Historical romances also depict the interactions between hot and cold bodies. Coolness tends to be used metaphorically to describe a lack of emotion (e.g. "as cold as a fish"). In Heyer's novels upper-class life is critiqued and described humorously. It can be thought of as "cold" because it is relatively static, with the boundaries of upper-class behaviour clearly defined. Members of the ton tend to have high social status, but they must demonstrate indifference to the details of money and fashion. "Warm" or emotionally exuberant behaviour is frowned on, as when Lady Bridlington is displeased by Arabella's rescue of a chimney sweep in Arabella. The ton is, however, fascinated by those who transgress the limits of polite, "cold" behaviour.

Heyer's heroes often show their "cold" indifference by stifling yawns or fiddling with their neckties. Many of them are affluent and have perfected an attitude of coldness and indifference. They despise society but nonetheless epitomise its rules in their exaggerated boredom and adherence to the rules of dress. Such heroes may have cynically bored eyes, sleepy eyes, sleepy gazes or may cast lazy glances. This indifference, arrogance and coldness are to be found in the hero of The Corinthian, who is called an "iceberg" and whose

air proclaimed his unutterable boredom, but no tailoring, no amount of studied nonchalance, could conceal the muscle in his thighs, or the strength of his shoulders. Above the starched points of his shirt-collar, a weary, handsome face showed its owner's disillusionment. Heavy lids drooped over grey eyes which were intelligent enough, but only to observe the vanities of the world; the smile which just touched that resolute mouth seemed to mock the follies of Sir Richard's fellow men.

Such heroes use their coldness to intimidate others. Even Freddy Standen, in Cotillion, uses a prop to coolly intimidate another by viewing him slowly through his quizzing glass:

Upon Mrs Scorton's reappearance, she found herself confronted, not by the fool of his family, but by the Honourable Frederick Standen, a Pink of the Pinks, who knew to a nicety how to blend courtesy with hauteur, and who informed her, with exquisite politeness, that he rather fancied his cousin was tired, and would like to be taken home. One of the uninvited guests, entering the box in Eliza's wake, ventured on a warm sally, found himself being inspected from head to foot through a quizzing-glass, and stammered an apology.
The eye, hideously magnified by the glass, continued to stare at him for an unnerving moment. 'Ah, just so!' said Mr Standen, letting the glass fall at last. 'Come, Kit! Your very obedient, ma'am!'

These heroes' coldness is challenged by the arrival of their heroines. Particles start to clash and warmth is generated:

It was not the practice of young ladies to put up their chins in just that style if Mr Beaumaris levelled his glass at them: they were more in the habit of simpering, or of trying to appear unconscious of his regard. But Mr Beaumaris saw that there was a decidedly militant sparkle in this lady's eye, and his interest, at first tickled, was now fairly caught.

The heroes are forced to abandon their coolness and become engaged in the messy events of the plot. The tension between hot and cold is never resolved [LV comment: in the words of Flanders and Swann, they do not reach a state of "perfect peace"] because the heroes continue to possess enough coolness to sort out the tangles of the plot, as Freddy does in Cotillion or as Mr Beaumaris does in Arabella, while the liveliness and warmth of the heroines continue to provide a contrast.

Karin E. Westman, in "A Story of Her Weaving: The Self-Authoring Heroines of Georgette Heyer's Regency Romances," Doubled Plots: Romance and History, ed. Susan Strehle and Mary Paniccia Carden (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2003), pp. 165-184, proposes three categories of Heyer heroines, each with differing degrees of maturity and control. The younger heroines who are less knowledgeable about society provide more of a contrast with their heroes. Older and more experienced heroines who know the ways of the world may satirise the hero's detachment. In Sylvester Phoebe may be relatively young but she is knowledgeable and she fights Sylvester verbally with the weapons of honesty and parody. She is not awed by his cool demeanour and he is eventually forced to reassess his emotional detachment. Sometimes, as in Venetia, heroines become an ally for the hero, sharing with him the fun of ridiculing society.

Heyer's heroines tend to be unconventional, possibly adopting certain aspects of masculine behaviour and language. This can unbalance the heroes and allow them to distance themselves from the social rules. With their heroines they can find a separate, private space where warmth is allowed. This private space remains very limited, however: the rules must still be adhered to in public.

Frank concluded by acknowledging that in her paper she had been forced into generalisations due to time constraints and she acknowledged that there is scope in Heyer's work for plenty of variations on the contrast between cold and hot.

She also stated that it is Heyer's humour, her awareness of clichés and patterns and her metafictional streak which set her apart from many other romance authors.

Heyer 2009: Mary Joannou: ‘Heyer and Austen’

Laura Vivanco

Mary Joannou is Professor of Literary History and Women's Writing at Anglia Ruskin University and she's listed in the database of researchers at "The Middlebrow Network [which] is an AHRC-funded project that provides a focus for research on the loaded and disreputable term 'middlebrow' and the areas of cultural production it purports to represent."

In ‘Heyer and Austen’ Mary Joannou noted that Jane Austen has been a very important figure for twentieth-century women authors and their debt to her was perhaps particularly intense in the 1940s. In Leavis's The Great Tradition he wrote that Austen's place in the "great tradition" of English novelists had been secured by her "marked moral intensity" but Joannou observed that he both put a premium on difficulty (and Austen is not a particularly difficult author to read) and failed to take account of her humour and use of irony.

In the 1950s postmodernism was in the ascendant but so too was Regency-set fiction. Joannou suggests that one could perhaps see Heyer's irony and humour as a signal that she was a "postmodernist avant la lettre."

Austen took comic delight in absurdity and self-delusion, and playfulness is Elizabeth Bennet's most noted characteristic. It is a similar use of humour which readers also love in Heyer. She is "fun" and her heroines are quick-witted. Heyer was writing through the Depression and the Second World War and her humour perhaps provided an antidote to the bleakness of these decades. Although there are differences between Heyer and Austen, their use of humour leapfrogs over the seriousness of the Victorian period and Joannou believes that in order for Heyer to be taken seriously, we have to see that both she and Austen were writing intellectual comedies.

Both also draw on the work of previous women writers. Austen took her cue from Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney (Joannou sees borrowings from Burney in Pride and Prejudice), but she also parodies the gothic in Northanger Abbey. Similarly, Heyer's debt to Austen only goes so far. In The Grand Sophy, for example, the scene in Goldhanger's rooms evokes the outrageous. Austen's heroines would never have pulled out a gun the way Sophy does. Nor does Sophy's matchmaking interference much resemble Emma Woodhouse's. Emma may interfere, but she wouldn't have shot Charlbury. Austen's is only a very "partial, ironic tutelage."

So are Heyer's references to history more than "costumery"? [LV comment: this is a reference to Georg Lukács. As Lisa Fletcher has written:

Georg Lukács begins his famous study of the historical novel by discounting from his consideration those "historical novels" in which "history is ... treated as mere costumery: where it is only the curiosities and oddities of the milieu that matter, not an artistically faithful image of a concrete historical epoch" (19). (Fletcher 49) ]

The Regency was characterised by profligacy, philandering, excess. These traits find their way obliquely into Austen in the persons of Wickham and Willoughby. In Heyer sexuality is obliquely present: Barbara Childe in An Infamous Army is a femme fatale. The clergymen in Austen reveal her moral values, although not all of them are impressive. In Heyer the clergymen are different. Austen and Heyer also differ in their depiction of the gradations of society, for whereas Austen has Fanny Price and her family, Heyer concentrates on the ton and brilliant matches.

The Regency was also a period of political radicalism but neither Austen nor Heyer particularly deal with this. They pay more attention to matters of style, fashion, manners, breeding. It seems as though despite (or perhaps because of) the wartime austerity which surrounded her, Heyer was delighting in excess, and public events of the Regency era assume prominence. Austen, however, tended to avoid public events and "real solemn history" (to quote Catherine Morland) was not to her taste. She deals with the ordinary, with women's strategies for coping.

This difference illustrates the slippage that is inevitable because Heyer, in writing historical romantic fiction, was mixing romance, which tends to depict an ideal world, with history, which depicts a verifiable world. She weaves fact into her fiction and we are thus reading an artefact.

Austen's novels, however, are set in the present, so there is no need for explanations of familiar fashions. Heyer, by contrast, had to make the past seem vivid by describing such details. [LV comment: this is a point I brought up prior to the colloquium in my brief post inspired by the title of Joannou's paper]. Austen tends to draw attention to fashion when she wishes to show which people are morally worthless (e.g. Lydia). Heyer's emphasis on fashion, which has been disparaged, can be read as mocking the mainstream. It takes delight in the performative possibilities of dress which allows for game-playing. A new wardrobe of clothes is transformative, e.g. in Friday's Child. An ingenue can be transformed into a glamorous woman in this playful utopia, and fashion is bound up with dreams and yearnings. Even the word "cotillion" which Heyer used as the title for one of her novels, is the name of a dance derived from the French for "petticoats." It is not only women who are interested in Heyer's Regency world: her men can and do take an interest in fashion too, in a way which was not possible for men in the period in which Heyer was writing. This allows for some fluidity in gender, but also offers up the male body for display (and consumption by female readers).

Joannou concluded by noting that Austen's novels depict youthful heroines who enter into equal marriages in which the wife does not show deference to her husband. This is also to be found in Heyer, but her historical accuracy does not extend to the sensibility of the period or to women's feelings at the time.

Romance Webinar from ALA and Booklist

Sarah S. G. Frantz

Wondering if I can live blog "Sweet Talk: Romance Fiction in the Library," a webinar by the American Library Association and Booklist.

It's a online seminar, in which the participants can listen in to the panelists' presentations but are in "listen only" mode. We'll get a PDF of the slides used in the webinar later and a recording will be posted within two weeks.

John Charles: Reference librarian at Scottsdale Public Library, AZ. 2002 RWA Librarian of the Year. (Oops, technical difficulties. Technology makes our life easier.) "Romance Statistics: Or, What's in it for Libraries." Why should libraries care about romances? 13.5% of ALL books sold are romance. Romance can transfer into circulation statistics for libraries. Not all romances are the same. Uses RWA definition of What is Romance and then discusses subgenres. Talks about Historical Romance: reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. In fact, Charles argues that we're in a Historical Romance renaissance. Shows Eloisa James, Stephanie Laurens, Mary Balogh, and Amanda Quick as examples of historical romance (also uses Boyle, Kleypas, Jeffries). Three authors who practically defined romance are doing comebacks: [someone], Jude Deveraux, Laura Kinsale. Kathleen Korbell/Eileen Dryer is coming to historical romance. New authors: Sherry Thomas, Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare, Meredith Duran, Alissa Johnson. Trends in romance: (1). Books in series: Kathryn Kaskie as one of most unique (never heard of her). (2). HR moving into Victorian romance as well. (3). Return of the Western: Jo Goodman and others.

Kayleigh George, Library Marketing Coordinator at HarperCollins: Shout-out to AvonBooks.com. A list of Avon's new books. Really a marketing opportunity for HCP/Avon. Joss Ware--back to back releases--more zombies. Rachel Gibson has another hockey book in April. Crafting has become a huge trend in romances: Lori Wilde and Rachael Herron.

Shelley Mosley, 2001 RWA Librarian of the Year award. Also won Veritas Award (twice) and is also an author. o_0 "The Myth of the Fairy Tale Princess in Romance Novels." If you're looking for "spunky" heroines, romance is the right place. (I've got such a dirty mind.) Slam on a hunkalicious cover. "The only people who say romance novels are anti-feminist are those who haven't read one." Really? A bit too expansive for me. Just listing some of her favorite romances (mostly historicals but she covers most series).

Cheryl Herman Library marketing for Books on Tape: Romances exceeding all expectations in today's difficult economy. Compares romance to "comfort food"--yuck. Audio books promote sense of intimacy and take you back to earlier time in human and personal history with oral traditions. Women's fiction/romance imprints are completely outpacing all the other genres BOT puts out. Again, another opportunity for the speaker just to market their products.

I had to duck out before Madeline Hunter finished her presentation on RWA, but I saw the beginning, and she's talking about connection between libraries and RWA, including grant opportunities and RWA website.

I didn't realize that the Webinar was basically a marketing opportunity. I didn't know what I THOUGHT it was going to be, but it's really just marketing for the presenters (HarperCollins and Books On Tape). The librarians, on the other hand, just list a bunch of books they really like. Which is great. But I was hoping for something with a little more meat to it. I think John Charles had the most substance, in that he followed through on some romance trends.

I loved the format, though, and it's certainly something for IASPR to think about. Online "webinars" on romance scholarship every now and then, maybe in conjunction with the release of JPRS issues? Hmmm....

Heyer 2009: Sam Rayner: 'Publishing Heyer'

Laura Vivanco

Sam Rayner has published work on Ricardian poetry and she lectures on publishing. In her paper, ‘Publishing Heyer: Representing the Regency in Historical Romance,’ she explored the ways in which Heyer's novels have been marketed in the UK via their cover art and copy. As Rayner observed, Heyer herself "was never too busy to care about this aspect of her work" (Aiken Hodge 176). The paper was illustrated by a great many slides which, unfortunately, I cannot reproduce in full in this summary but I've included pictures of, and links to, some of the covers mentioned by Rayner.

Rayner began by looking at the recent reissues by Arrow Books, which is part of Random House. The cover of Cousin Kate shows part of Charles Haigh Wood's Love Will Triumph. [LV comment - as far as I can tell, Haigh Wood was born in 1856 and died in 1927, so his paintings look back to the Regency period, rather than being contemporaneous with it.] These new paperback editions are in the larger "B" size.

Heyer herself was fond of the covers designed by Barbosa [LV comment: many of these can be seen at the Georgette-Heyer.com website.] His style is clean, unfussy, and elegant, with the romantic elements not stressed. This perhaps reflects the fact that at this time Heyer's novels were not targeted particularly at a female readership. Heyer had many male readers, including many of her husband's legal colleagues. Rayner pointed out that on the Barbosa cover of False Colours the female element is reduced to a stone sphinx.

When Pan acquired the paperback rights, however, their covers were very different. In fact, Rayner describes their colour choices as "lurid" and they had some rather sensational pictures. The early Pan cover of Regency Buck, for example, depicts a fight scene and puts Judith Taverner into an extremely low-cut gown. Heyer had provided the backcover blurbs for many of the hardback editions of her novels but these were not adopted on the paperbacks. Instead the new blurbs focused on the aspects of "Adventure! Excitement! Romance!" which are promised on the front cover of Regency Buck. It appears that these technicolor covers were drawing inspiration from the movies and movie posters of the period. Pan's house style was competing with Penguin in the paperback market, and with film which was an important leisure alternative to reading. Heyer herself objected to what she saw as marketing to the lowest common denominator of reader.

Pan later moved to a new template which featured a cameo of a scene from the novel. Strong fonts were used but the blurbs were reworked to make them less rumbustious. Later, curlicues were added around the cameos. In many of the cameos one can detect the influence of contemporary fashion, as in the hair and dress of the heroine on this cover of The Reluctant Widow.

Penguin also published some paperback editions of Heyer's novels. Rayner showed us the cover of their 1966 edition of False Colours, which is illustrated with a photo of a lady and gentleman. They also published a Peacock edition of Devil's Cub in 1963, which rather surprised the audience since this was an imprint for children. Penguin would appear not to have been entirely satisfied with the 1966 cover of False Colours because a new edition appeared in 1967 with a geometric design. Rayner quoted again from Aiken Hodge's biography of Heyer:

Penguin let her see the proposed new jacket for False Colours when they reprinted it in 1967 and she approved its abstract design without enthusiasm: 'I did suggest that it was a trifle dim, and would hardly strike people as being an advertisement for any book of mine. I was told that the firm was now adopting a policy of Quiet Elegance -! Also (rather loftily) that all my previous jackets had been on the vulgar side. You know, Max, I was lost in admiration of myself! I did NOT say, "Well, yours certainly was!"' (176)

In 1971 Penguin redesigned the cover once again.

Pan also overhauled its covers in the 1970s. Their new look featured pictures which Rayner describes as "inspid," "chocolate box" and "romantic" and she chose as an example their new version of the cover of False Colours. [LV comment: they can all be found on this page, where they have been collected by someone who considers John Rose's pictures "to be some of the most aesthetically pleasing and artistically satisfying covers ever to grace the covers of Heyer paperbacks."]

In the 1990s Arrow reissued the novels with small cameos featuring a portrait, set against an architectural background. These perhaps pick up on the earlier Pan use of cameos and Barbosa's use of Georgian architecture and they give the books a more literary feel.

The latest Arrow reissues [LV comment: which can be seen here] are in the rather larger "B" size and the artwork extends over the whole of the cover. They are perhaps more romantic in tone, and (as in this example), there may be a focus on the feminine.

This style has inspired other publishers, including Sourcebooks, which are reprinting Heyer with covers that they describe as having a "Marie Antoinette" look [LV comment: they can be seen here. I think it's perhaps also worth noting that Mills & Boon having been using a similar kind of artwork for the covers of their Regency Lords and Ladies Collection and in fact, the Sourcebooks cover of Regency Buck uses exactly the same painting, Hearts are Trumps by George Goodwin Kilburne, as appears on the cover of volume 4 of Mills & Boon's Regency Lords and Ladies collection. The Arrow cover of Simon the Coldheart features God Speed by Edmund Blair Leighton which, as I mentioned a while ago, seems to have provided the inspiration for the Mills & Boon cover of Carol Townend's An Honourable Rogue. In addition, the Sourcebooks cover of False Colours features Two Strings to her Bow by John Pettie and so does Ann Herendeen's Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander, published by HarperCollins.

For those interested in seeing more of the early Heyer covers, many of them can be found here and here.]

Heyer 2009: Laura Vivanco: 'The Nonesuch as Didactic Love Fiction'

Laura Vivanco

My academic work is currently focused on the romance genre but I began as a hispanomedievalist, writing about death in fifteenth-century Castile as well as texts such as Celestina and the Spanish sentimental romances which are about love, but which definitely don't conclude with a Harlequin Mills & Boon happy ending.

In ‘“So educational!” she said. “And quite unexceptionable!”: The Nonesuch as Didactic Love Fiction’ I began by suggesting that one could compare The Nonesuch itself to the presents, described in The Nonesuch as “a book, or some trifle,” which Sir Waldo brings to “amuse” Charlotte Underhill during her convalescence. When Mrs Mickleby, learning of these presents, launches a brief attack on “romances,” Ancilla Trent defends some of them as being “well-written” and I believe that Heyer would have been very happy to accept this as a description of her own novels.

Ancilla continues by noting that a puzzle Sir Waldo brought Charlotte is “So educational! [...] And quite unexceptionable!” Again, this is a description which can also be applied to The Nonesuch itself. It may be deemed “quite unexceptionable!” because it is a "sweet" romance that avoids any description of sexual activity beyond a kiss, and its "educational" nature is suggested by the fact that it is a novel in which both the hero and heroine educate others.

The heroine, Ancilla Trent, is a governess and the hero, Sir Waldo, is a role model to the many young men who aspire to emulate his sporting prowess and fashionable mode of dress. Laurie and Tiffany are secondary characters who serve as demonstrations of the negative consequences of a lack of suitable education. Their bad habits and traits were learned easily, but effecting changes in their behaviour is rather more difficult and requires both knowledge and cunning on the part of their teachers. Miss Trent, for example, is described as using “unorthodox” methods, including lies, in order to guide Tiffany. Sir Waldo also uses his cunning to teach the besotted Julian about Tiffany's faults: he subtly provokes her into “betray[ing] the least amiable side of her disposition” with such skill that “His trusting young cousin” remains unaware “that Waldo’s lazy complaisance masked a grim determination to thrust a spoke into the wheel of his courtship.”¹

Heyer herself can perhaps also be thought of as having employed subtle educational methods since she concealed the didactic elements of her novels beneath a highly entertaining outer layer. The authorial approval for the modest yet brave Patience Chartley, and the disapproval of the vain and selfish Tiffany, for example, serve as examples of both the right and the wrong way for a young woman “to go on in society.”

The Nonesuch can thus be classified as what Deborah Lutz terms “didactic love fiction - romance that has a didactic project, is future-directed, and attempts to represent a moral way of living ” rather than as “amatory fiction” which “cannot be, generally speaking, recuperated morally.” Sometimes “the enemy lover” of amatory fiction, “Contrary to all expectation […] appears in […] didactic fiction” (3), but when he is the hero of a work of didactic love fiction he is “set up as dangerous only to then be reformed in the end” (3). This type of hero does appear in some of Heyer's novels:

my youthful fans [...] seem (from their letters) to be convinced that my Ideal Man is the prototype of what I call the Heyer Hero, No. I pattern – a horrid type, whom no woman in the possession of her senses could endure for more than half a day (Aiken Hodge 197)

He does not, however, appear in The Nonesuch, which is therefore more completely didactic in nature.

Perhaps the most obvious aspect of Heyer's didacticism is to be found in her use of historical detail. As is apparent from the size of Jennifer Kloester's Georgette Heyer's Regency World, Heyer did include a lot of details about the Regency period in her novels. The accuracy of these details allow us to date the chronological setting of the novel very precisely to June 1816, a “couple of years” after the death of “Lady Spencer – the one that [...] was mad after educating the poor.” Heyer's attention to accuracy is also suggested by the presence in John Bigland’s Yorkshire volume of The Beauties of England and Wales (1812) of an engraving of what he calls the “Dropping Well” at Knaresborough, which may have formed the inspiration for the one spotted by Heyer’s Lord Lindeth in Leeds. Heyer also recognises the less pleasant aspects of Regency life via her mention of Leeds' charitable organisations and the presence in the novel of a “ragged urchin” who has to be reassured by Patience Chartley that he will not be handed over to “the beadle (an official of whom he seemed to stand in terror.” Again, Heyer seems to have been drawing on contemporary sources, since John Ryley in his Leeds Guide (1806) describes the beadle, along with the Chief Constable, as “personages who are, to vulgar thieves, as terrific as the Chief Justice himself” (89).²

The Nonesuch is a Regency romance populated by fictional characters but Heyer also wrote some works of biographical historical fiction, including The Conqueror (1931) and The Spanish Bride (1940). Heyer seems to have wanted to write more works of biographical historical fiction but after her death her husband revealed that “The penal burden of British taxation, coupled with the clamour of her readers for a new book, made her break off to write another Regency story.” Jennifer Kloester suggested in her presentation that there were other reasons why Heyer eventually concentrated her talents on Regency romances, and she promises that all will be revealed in her forthcoming biography of Heyer. Whatever the precise reasons, I concluded that most of us of who are fans of Heyer's work are probably very glad that circumstances pushed her to write more of these only somewhat “educational” yet “quite unexceptionable” novels.

-----

1 I didn't mention this in my presentation, but I thought I'd note here that it's interesting that Heyer uses this particular metaphor to describe Sir Waldo's actions. Sir Waldo has a reputation as a nonpareil, a "nonesuch" at driving and it was he who taught Julian to drive. Now he takes a metaphorical spoke and pushes it into the "wheel" of Julian's courtship so as to prevent Julian from hitting a dangerous obstacle and driving off the straight and narrow path towards a respectable and happy marriage. Julian, of course, currently believes that the obstacle is his destination, and he would therefore consider the spoke-poking to be sabotage. For this reason, Sir Waldo has to use all his skill to prevent Julian from realising that his carriage is quite deliberately being redirected.

2 In my presentation I didn't have time to give more details about Heyer's description of Leeds. I hope that if/when the paper is published in full I'll be able to include more about this. I'd also like to acknowledge the assistance I received from Greta Meredith, Assistant Librarian, Thoresby Society, who kindly pointed me in the direction of useful primary and secondary sources about Leeds, and from Louise-Ann Hand, Information Librarian: Local and Family History Library, Leeds City Council, who was a fount of useful information about the streets and inns of early nineteenth-century Leeds.

Heyer 2009: Jay Dixon: 'Heyer and Place'

Laura Vivanco

Jay Dixon has worked as an editor at Mills & Boon, is the author of The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon 1909-1990s and also wrote a short essay, "An Appreciation of Georgette Heyer," in 2002 to mark the centenary of Heyer's birth.

Dixon began her paper, ‘Heyer and Place,’ by reading from the opening of Powder and Patch. Before starting work on this paper, Dixon had been under the impression that this description was a long one, but on returning to the novel she discovered that it is, in fact, rather short although it succeeds in summing up Sussex in one sentence. Indeed, Dixon suggests that Heyer's descriptions of place are, in general, not very long. Heyer and Dixon then took us to the bustling, bewildering London which flashes past the eyes of Judith Taverner (Regency Buck) as she arrives by coach. Again, Heyer uses few words but succeeds in capturing the essence of the place.

Dixon noted that although Heyer's descriptions of landscapes tend to be short, her descriptions of homes tend to go into considerable detail: a page in The Foundling and no less than four pages in Civil Contract in which the hero's new father-in-law refurbishes the hero's town house as a surprise after his marriage to the heroine. There is also considerable attention paid to items of clothing and to matters of fashion.

In Cotillion the reader accompanies Freddy and Kitty on a quick tour of the sights of London but on the whole Heyer's London is basically Mayfair, comprised of places such as Almack's and the streets in which the ton were to be found. It is a small social space, almost a village. The same is true of Bath in which Heyer mentions streets and place names: Upper Camden Place, the York Hotel, etc. It is these names, from both London and Bath, rather than long and detailed descriptions, which seem to conjure up the Regency period for readers.

Heyer contrasts the city, London, with the countryside, idealising the latter. Almost all of Heyer's heroes have country estates and the romantic resolutions of the novels often take place in the country, or are precipitated by the flight of others to the country. It is interesting to note that in the original version of Powder and Patch, which was first published by Mills & Boon with the title The Transformation of Philip Jettan and under the pseudonym "Stella Martin," in the final chapter the hero took his heroine to Paris but in the re-written version we are told that the couple will retire to Sussex, where they will live as a country gentleman and his wife.

Dixon referred to Susanne Hagemann's "Gendering Places: Georgette Heyer's Cultural Topography," Scotland to Slovenia: European Identities and Transcultural Communication. Proceedings of the Fourth International Scottish Studies Symposium, edited by Horst W. Drescher and Susanne Hagemann (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1996, pages 187–199). Dixon agrees that London is gendered as masculine. It is the site of male power since it is here that the Prince Regent is generally to be found and where the Houses of Parliament are located. By contrast men associated with the country, such as Gilly, the hero of The Foundling, are more feminine. Dixon sees Bath as a feminised space because women tend to dominate in Heyer's depiction of it. It is a small city set in the countryside where women such as the heroines of Black Sheep and Lady of Quality can live independently (albeit with a female companion), and young ladies do not need to be accompanied by a maid as they would in London. Although Bath features most heavily in these two later works, it also appears in earlier novels including The Black Moth, The Corinthian and Friday's Child.

Dixon concluded by musing on whether Heyer paid more attention to fashions in clothing and home interiors because they changed relatively quickly in response to fashion, whereas landscapes tend to change more slowly. Perhaps, however, what interested Heyer, who had often felt an outsider, was the evocation of a period, the Regency, rather than specific geographical locations. It was in the period of the Regency that Heyer felt at home.

Heyer 2009: Jennifer Kloester: 'The Life of Georgette Heyer'

Laura Vivanco

In her presentation, ‘The Life of Georgette Heyer,’ Jennifer Kloester revealed that she has completed a new biography of Heyer and hopes it will be published next year by Random House. [LV comment: Random House, under its Arrow imprint, has reprinted Heyer's works and published both Jennifer Kloester's Georgette Heyer's Regency World and Jane Aiken Hodge's biography of Heyer.]

Jane Aiken Hodge, who died earlier this year, granted Kloester access to her own research archive on Heyer but the new biography will also draw on a great many other archives which were not available to Hodge. Kloester has had extensive access to many letters written by Heyer which were untapped by Hodge, as well to the archives of A. S. Frere, Heyer's friend and publisher. Richard Rougier, Heyer's son (now also deceased) gave Kloester copyright permission to quote from his mother's letters. Kloester has a number of photographs of Heyer, including some taken in front of the the Rougiers' "mud hut" in Tanganyika [LV comment: A. S. Byatt, in her very short "biographical portrait" published in 1975, reports that "The Rougiers were [...] living in a hut made of elephant grass, in a compound in the bush, prowled round by lions, leopards, and rhinos."] and one by E. O. Hoppé. She also showed us photos of Heyer's family: her mother, Sylvia Watkins (1876-1962), her father, George Heyer (1869-1925), who graduated from Cambridge with a degree in classics and introduced Heyer to Austen, Dickens and Shakespeare, her brothers Boris and Frank, her son, Richard Rougier, and her husband, Ronald Rougier. Ronald had a varied career: originally training as a naval cadet before his defective eyesight was discovered, he retrained to become a mining engineer, briefly ran a sports shop and finally retrained yet again, becoming a barrister. Kloester has also found seven published, but since forgotten, short stories by Heyer, one of which was published pseudonymously.

Kloester gave a brief outline of Heyer's early life and publishing career. Georgette Heyer began writing at a very young age, and was described as a "prodigy." The Black Moth was published when she was very young. Heyer later suppressed her early contemporary novels Instead of the Thorn (1923), Helen (1928), Pastel (1929), and Barren Corn (1930), in which she struggled with the issues of gender and male/female relationships. In Helen the heroine's beloved father dies suddenly, much as George Heyer did, but at the time reviewers criticised what they considered this contrived aspect of the plot. Regency Buck (1935) was Heyer's first Regency romance. An Infamous Army (1937) was the novel that Heyer herself considered to be her best, and for a time it was recommended reading at Sandhurst because of its detailed description of the Battle of Waterloo. Kloester concluded by describing Heyer as a "great, enduring, bestseller" whose books continue to sell extremely well in the twenty-first century.

Re-reading Georgette Heyer: Summaries of a Colloquium

Laura Vivanco

The "Re-reading Georgette Heyer" colloquium was held on Saturday 7 November 2009 in Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.

Since my summaries of the papers are quite long I've decided to give each of them its own post. Links to each of the summaries are provided in the list below:

• Jennifer Kloester: ‘The Life of Georgette Heyer’


• Jay Dixon: ‘Heyer and Place’


• Laura Vivanco: ‘“So educational!” she said. “And quite unexceptionable!”: The Nonesuch as Didactic Love Fiction’


• Sam Rayner: ‘Publishing Heyer: Representing the Regency in Historical Romance’


• Mary Joannou: ‘Heyer and Austen’


• Kerstin Frank: ‘The Thermodynamics of Georgette Heyer: Variations on the Quest for Revitalisation’


• Catherine Johns: ‘Class and Breeding’


• Sarah Annes Brown: ‘Lady of Quality and Homosexual Panic’


• K. Elizabeth Spillman: ‘Cross Dressing and Disguise in Heyer’s Historical Romances’

In a press release issued online before the event,

Professor Sarah Annes Brown said: [...] I've organised quite a few conferences now - but none have received quite so much enthusiastic attention as Re-reading Georgette Heyer. But perhaps that's because I've never organised a conference about a writer who generates so much pure pleasure and enthusiasm in her readers.'

As she wrote in her observations on (and summary of) the colloquium, this enthusiasm was much in evidence on the day itself: "I’ve attended quite a lot of academic conferences – but never one where there was anything like so much cheering and laughter!" No doubt Heyer herself can take much of the credit for the laughter, since her novels are so full of comic moments and characters. Many of the cheers, however, were elicited by Jennifer Kloester, who had new discoveries and announcements to make.

Other summaries of the day have been written by:

• Sarah Annes Brown, who has also posted a summary of the responses to a questionnaire completed by roughly half of the people who attended the conference.
• Una McCormack
• Bex Lewis, who has written up a very detailed summary which also includes an outline of some of the topics raised during the pre-lunch and post-conference discussions.
• Ann
• Sally Houghton, of Georgette-Heyer.com
  

Heyer and Austen: Historical vs. Contemporary Fiction

Laura Vivanco

This weekend I'm travelling (but not in the stylish conveyance depicted on the left) to Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, where I'll be presenting a paper on didacticism and The Nonesuch at a colloquium titled "Re-reading Georgette Heyer." I'm planning to take notes of the other speakers' presentations so that I can write up a summary when I get back. In the meantime, I thought I'd leave those not able to attend with a post about Georgette Heyer.

Lillian S. Robinson, in her 1978 essay "On Reading Trash" states that "Most of this essay will be focused on a contrast between the works of Jane Austen and those of Georgette Heyer" (202). The comparison seems to have been prompted by the way in which Heyer's novels have been marketed:

Georgette Heyer is the acknowledged Queen of the Regency romance (later paperback editions make some such peculiar claim), and it is a clear selling point to say that the book you are touting is just like "a" Georgette Heyer [...]. But for Heyer herself there can be only one predecessor sufficiently glamorous and sufficiently connected in the public mind with the Regency period and that is Jane Austen. (208)

For Robinson "the comparison can only prove disappointing" (208) yet she suggests that "Once the absurd incongruity of any connection between the two writers is duly acknowledged and assigned its proper weight, it has much to tell us about female literary experience" (202). Robinson's sense of the "absurd incongruity of any connection" between Austen and Heyer is based on her assessment of their respective literary merit (or lack of it, in the case of Heyer). Having made the comparison at some length, however, she concludes that

I can imagine no greater waste of energy than an elaborate demonstration that Jane Austen is a better writer than Georgette Heyer. In drawing so extensive a comparison between the two, my intention has not been to belabor the obvious points about what makes a great writer great. (220)

Personally, I'm rather less sure of what "obvious points" there are that make "a great writer great." I'm fairly sure that some of the writers who've been acclaimed as "great" in one period have gone out of fashion in others, so I'd have been interested to know the criteria by which Robinson judged greatness.

In her essay, the "extensive [...] comparison" she makes focuses on the differing ways in which Heyer and Austen present details of customs, dress, etc. Heyer's novels, Robinson states, "concentrate on precisely those minutiae of dress and décor that Austen takes for granted" (208). Can the presence of such details be sufficient to determine a lack of "greatness"? Robinson describes this sort of material in Heyer's novels as "pseudoinformation not because it is untrue [...] but because, ultimately, it reveals nothing about the society that fostered an institution like Almacks as its elite marriage market" (212) whereas Austen "communicates a far more vivid sense than we can attain to of the daily reality" (216) of life in the Regency period. I think this perhaps underestimates the amount and variety of historical information that Heyer's novels do convey about the Regency period. The "pseudoinformation" collected and organised by Jennifer Kloester (who will also be at the Heyer colloquium this weekend) in Georgette Heyer's Regency World makes for quite a substantial book. Heyer's information may not be of the type that most interests Robinson, but I think she goes too far in labeling it "pseudoinformation."

In addition, that Austen can convey a "vivid sense [...] of the daily reality" of living in the Regency period must surely be ascribed, at least in part, to the fact that Austen was writing contemporary novels, for a contemporary audience. Heyer was writing historical fiction, for a modern audience, a fact of which Robinson is well aware. Sarah Bower (2004) has noted that

Madame Bovary, Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice are not historical novels; their authors were writing about their own contemporary society, though, thanks largely to Andrew Davies, we are inclined to categorise them as period or costume dramas. The difference is, I think, self-evident.

Bower, however, does not seem to have found it so entirely self-evident as to make her own work superfluous, and her essay explores some of the ways in which "historical setting can heighten the effect of the romance." One of the ways derives from

the physical attributes of this “other country” called the past [which] can have an important role in raising the temperature of a romance. [...] What could be more romantic than Ivanhoe, armed and visored, under the escutcheon of the Disinherited Knight, tilting for love and English honour in the lists at Ashby de la Zouche?

As for the "pseudoinformation" so scorned by Robinson, Helen Hughes's response, as summarised by Sallie McNamara, might be that it owes its presence to the different requirements of historical fiction: "She argues that the language used, details of clothing, and so on, relating to the period, create a sense of verisimilitude" (85). Robinson acknowledges that they do serve this purpose but phrases her recognition of this in pejorative language:

Heyer [...] tells us about colors, cut, fabric, and trimming, [...] not only because the acquisition and display of clothing are more central to the existence of Heyer's heroines than they are to Austen's, but in order to invest the novels with that meretricious quality Henry James would have called "the tone of time." (208)

If Robinson had wished to compare like with like, she could perhaps have compared Heyer's novels to texts such as Sir Walter Scott's historical novels (including Ivanhoe, the novel mentioned by Bower), some of which were published before Austen's death but were set in much more distant historical periods. Robinson does not do so, however, and her insistence on comparing works of contemporary fiction with works of historical fiction, and then denigrating the latter because they are less authentic in representing the period in question than the former, suggests an inherent preference for contemporary fiction which neither Heyer nor any other author of historical fiction could entirely overcome. Robinson believes that

since historical fiction almost invariably takes the position that progress is desirable and that which in character, taste, or judgment most resembles present Western civilization is best of all, the context is created for a melioristic approach to historical process. At the same time, human personality tends to be portrayed as static, in that the most admirable and heroic characters have a modern view of themselves and what happens to them. The general impression one comes away with is that things used to be different (harder) for women way back then (whenever), but that women themselves were precisely the same [...] in what they needed, asked, or found in life. (207)

I think Robinson is correct in believing that historical fiction may have much to tell a careful reader about the period in which it was written but she gives little evidence to support her assertion that "historical fiction almost invariably takes the position that progress is desirable and that which in character, taste, or judgment most resembles present Western civilization is best of all." Perhaps some, if not all, offer authors and readers space to make comparisons between the past and the present which are less conclusively in favour of modernity. Sallie McNamara suggests that

The historical romance offers distance from the period in which it is written. Anxieties or tensions in relation to the contemporary society (of gender and sexuality) can be reworked within a constructed historical setting. (84-85)

Jane Austen may have been "aware that new social forces do encroach on the way of life - prosperous, decorous, and cultivated - that is the common heritage of Mansfield, Pemberly, Hartfield, Kellynch, Norland, and Northanger" (Robinson 214) but Heyer was also aware of "new social forces" encroaching, as is evident from her statement that she was "made violently unwell by the reflection that I am being forced to contribute towards a Welfare State of which I utterly Disapprove" (Aiken Hodge 122). Heyer, it would seem, did not believe that "present Western civilization is best of all," at least not in all respects. Sir Walter Scott, too, may have expressed in his novels some of the "Anxieties or tensions" which existed in his period. Sandra Schwab believes that "Sir Walter Scott, whose historical novels filled with knights, adventure and romance (Ivanhoe anybody?), certainly has to shoulder a large part of the blame" for Victorian medievalism which sought to "revive the spirit of the Middle Ages, the great ideals of "the days of old when knights were bold" (or at least what were thought to be the ideals of the knights of old)--in one word: CHIVALRY." Historical fiction which seeks to revive the spirit of an earlier age can surely not be read as an unambiguously triumphant statement to the effect that "progress is desirable and that which in character, taste, or judgment most resembles present Western civilization is best of all" (Robinson 207).

Historical fiction, then, while it may seek to teach the reader something about the period in which it is set, or at least be full of "pseudoinformation" may also, obliquely, suggest much about its authors' views of their own historical period, and those views may be rather more varied than Robinson seems to have recognised.

• Aiken Hodge, Jane. The Private World of Georgette Heyer. 1984. London: Arrow, 2006.
  
• Bower, Sarah. "Proud Protestations." Solander: The Magazine of the Historical Novel Society 8.1 (May 2004): 24-26.
• McNamara, Sallie. "Georgette Heyer: the Historical Romance and the Consumption of the Erotic, 1918-1939." All the World and Her Husband: Women in Twentieth-century Consumer Culture. London: Cassell, 2000. 82-96.
  
• Robinson, Lillian S. "On Reading Trash." 1978. Sex, Class, and Culture. New York: Methuen, 1986. 200-222.
• Schwab, Sandra. "Social Movements: Victorian Medievalism." Unusual Historicals, 23 April 2008.
  

Call for Papers: Romance Fiction and American Culture

Romance Fiction and American Culture:

Love as the Practice of Freedom?

Edited by William Gleason and Eric Selinger

Call for Proposals and Essays

Last April, Princeton University hosted a groundbreaking two-day conference on popular romance fiction and American culture. Gathering scholars, authors, editors, and bloggers, this interdisciplinary gathering featured panels on romance and history (both political and literary), romance and religion, romance and sexuality, and romance and race. Each explored the ways that popular romance fiction has reflected, and also helped shape, American culture from the late 18^th century to the present.

Conference organizers William Gleason (Princeton) and Eric Selinger (DePaul University) now invite proposals for a collection of essays that will build on the work of the conference: Romance Fiction and American Culture: Love as the Practice of Freedom? We welcome proposals from academic scholars from any field—American literature, popular culture, religion, women's and gender studies, African American Studies, or any other relevant discipline—as well as from authors, editors, and other members of the romance community who wish to reflect on their practice in light of the volume’s concerns.

We are eager to consider proposals or abstracts on the relationships between popular romance fiction and

• the history of reading in America, from Pamela to the present
• American cultures of sexuality, masculinity, and femininity
• American religious cultures, in Christian and other traditions
• Race, ethnicity, and exogamous desire
• “High” culture: literary fiction, poetry, visual art, etc.
• Other popular genres: mystery / detective fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, non-romance bestsellers, chick-lit
• Other popular media: film, comics, music, gaming
• The culture of sport (football, baseball, NASCAR, etc.)
• American political / military culture, from the early Republic to the present
• American psychological / therapeutic / self-help culture

We also hope for papers on the romance industry in America and the diverse community of romance readers, authors, and reviewers, both as they are and as they are represented in the media:

• Romance sub-genres—Western, Gothic, Regency, Medieval, Paranormal (vampire, were, empath, etc.), Futuristic/time travel, Multi-cultural, Erotic, Gay/lesbian, etc.—and their shifting appeal to readers
• American romance and other traditions: comparative studies, texts in translation, transnational encounters
• Romance publishing: major presses, series and lines, the rise in e-publishing
• Representations of American romance writers, readers, bloggers, book groups, conventions, etc.

Detailed abstract or draft essay and a short CV are due by January 4, 2010. Final essays will be due in June, 2010. We are happy to answer any inquiries. Please feel free to post and / or forward this email to interested colleagues, students, or friends.

Prof. William Gleason, bgleason@princeton.edu

Prof. Eric Selinger, eselinge@depaul.edu

Studies Show ... That Eric's Got a New Post Up

Eric's over at Romancing the Blog today, taking some studies with a pinch of salt and receiving encouragement from others:

it’s got me thinking–not at all scientifically–about one of the novels I taught for the first time this quarter, here at DePaul: Laura Kinsale’s Prince of Midnight.

As the novel ends, our hero and heroine, S.T. Maitland and Leigh Strachan, are trying to figure out what love means, or at least what their love means, and why S.T. should stay with Leigh, despite the flaws that he thinks forbid him to marry her.

“What can I give you in return?” he demands of her. “Give me your joy,” she responds. “Give me all your mad notions and your crazy heroics and your impossible romantical follies. And I’ll be your anchor. I’ll be your balance. I’ll be your family. I won’t let you fall.”

Studies have shown that this is one of the most moving betrothal scenes in all of romance. OK, maybe no one’s studied that. But the notion that one test of a couple is how they deal with differential happiness, spreading the wealth, rings deeply true to me.

A Land of Something Other than Milk and Cream

Laura Vivanco

Yesterday Angela T was blogging at Romancing the Blog about how

Here we are in 2009 and the case of “separate, but equal” rules how AA romances are treated. [...] I for one feel that acknowledging the issues romance writers of color face is the first step to understanding, and ultimately, supporting the inclusion of romance writers–and characters–of all colors, creeds, and nationalities into the romance genre.

Also yesterday, over at Dear Author, Handy Hunter had up a guest post about "Cultural Appropriation in Romance." Sunita added a very detailed comment which gave examples of many different possible scenarios for historical romances set in India with Indian protagonists. The discussion is still ongoing and it broadened out from the initial topic of cultural appropriation to include examples of "issues romance writers of color face." Jade Lee wrote about her personal experience:

Harlequin recruited me into the Blaze line specifically to add a dimension of multi-culturalism to it. I’ve written 3 books for them, one historical, two contemporary, all with Asian characters. No paranormal elements. Harlequin promoted me well, especially The Concubine which was the second historical Blaze ever, not the first. I think I write good books, but The Concubine was especially good and fit perfectly with senior editor Brenda Chin’s vision for the Blaze line.

After 3 books, Harlequin considers the experiement over. The sales were extremely poor. It was not the fault of promotion or marketing. I got a TON of promotion. It was also (according to senior editor Brenda Chin and the few who read the books) not the fault of the writing.

Despite the failure of this experiment, many readers on the thread expressed their wish to read romances written by "romance writers of color" about protagonists "of color." I thought I'd add a few links to some online short stories which might fit the bill:

Shobhan Bantwal - Seeking a Six-Foot Bride about Rajesh Sanwal, who is "seeking a six-foot bride."

Barbara Caridad Ferrer - For You I Will and a sequel, about Adam Cardenas and Milagros Acevedo.

Roslyn Hardy Holcomb - Rock Star Wedding, a novella and sequel to Rock Star. If you haven't already read Rock Star, you might want to just focus on the protagonists of this novella, Naysa and Twist.

Going further back in time, I suppose one could think of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda as a romance by a white author about characters from a different racial background:

George Eliot's final novel, Daniel Deronda, was also her most controversial. Few had a problem, upon its publication in 1876, with its portrayal of yearning and repression in the English upper class. But as Eliot's lover, George Henry Lewes, had predicted: "The Jewish element seems to me likely to satisfy nobody." (Owen)

If you've got more recommendations or links, please do leave a comment.

----
Both illustrations come from Wikimedia Commons. The first is "Attributed to Manohar" and is from "India, Mughal dynasty, ca. 1597." The second "was painted by Chang We-Che'ng who lived in the 8th and 9th centuries."