Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller
Jun. 1st, 2012 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessFirst, a quick announcement: the upcoming Georgette Heyer reread on Tor.com/Heroes and Heartbreakers that I've been yammering to some of you about really is upcoming – sometime. Sometime soon. It will be accompanying, not replacing, the rereads of children's books, which is going to more than occasionally make me into a cranky mariness (I am decidedly not Jo Walton) but unfortunately, if I didn't do the rereads jointly, I was never going to get around to doing this reread at all. So. The children's books will take priority, so this may end up being an every other week reread. (Again, I am decidedly not Jo Walton.)
Anyway....since that is coming up, I thought it was about time that I actually posted my initial impressions of the recent biography by Jennifer Kloester. Small warning: I read the book and wrote this several months back, so...I actually don't remember even writing this, but here you go:
#
During her life, author Georgette Heyer was not fond of giving interviews or indeed any information about herself whatsoever; indeed, her readers did not even learn her married name until after her death. Heyer claimed that everything people needed to know could be found in her books, and to a certain extent, that's true. The personality that eventually emerged in those books – a creation in itself – did give a strong portrait of the author. Not that this stopped fans from wanting to know more. After Heyer's death, and in the initial biography from Joan Aiken Hodge (which mostly reads as an apologia for Heyer, and a defiant, yes, yes, Heyer's really good, really, she is, I promise) some details began to emerge.
Despite the impression her later books might have given, Heyer was not an aristocrat, although as a well educated daughter of an upper middle class man she was able to move in some upper class social circles. What she felt there seems to have been best expressed by her later character, Fredericka, who points out, truthfully, that what is acceptable from a daughter of a marquis is considerably less acceptable from a mere "miss." While to a certain extent this reflected genuine attitudes during the Regency period – Lady Caroline Lamb, for one, engaged in some behavior that would be shocking even today, most of which was waved over thanks to her rank and her known indulgent upbringing – Fredericka's statement also ignores the very real truth recorded by Jane Austen: middle class women absolutely engaged in less than proper behavior themselves, and sometimes were even able to re-enter society, to an extent, afterwards. Mary Shelley is probably the best known real life example of this – she did, after all, run off to Europe with a married man, but managed to return to England and regain a slightly respectable life after that. (And also worked full time while raising a child. Yes, that sort of thing also happened in the 19th century.)
Heyer, then, was less reflecting the actual attitudes of Regency England, which certainly allowed its moral lapses – the period is named, after all, for a Regent who married two women bigamously and treated both of them terribly, and who was a model of fiscal imprudence – and more reflecting her own experiences, as someone always on the edge of high society, and never. quite. there.
She tried. She married a thoroughly respectable man – he had trained as a naval officer next to Lord Mountbatten – with ambitions. She travelled to Africa and Macedonia with him, adding the cachet of travel, before insisting that they return home to England. She wrote serious, non genre novels that she hoped would gain her literary respect (for the most part, they did not) and serious historical novels that she hoped would gain her intellectual respect (with one exception, they did not.) She befriended intellectuals, writers and aristocrats.
But she was continually trapped by finances. Her husband had to delay his own professional dreams of becoming a barrister for some years; financial stress kept forcing her to churn out mystery novels (not her strength) and romances (which would slowly become her strength.) The romances frustrated her; the popular ones were the ones featuring the brilliant, witty dialogue that would become her trademark, but their very popularity and humor also ensured that literary critics (mostly male, and suspicious of popular fiction) dismissed her. (Across the pond, Lucy Maud Montgomery experienced the same frustrations.) Her mysteries suffered by appearing next to the masterpieces of Agatha Christie and the thoughtful literary approaches of Dorothy Sayers. Her straight historicals were often boring.
And yet, despite what seems in retrospect terribly obvious, it took her more than twenty years and thirty novels, and a complete failure of a novel she hoped would be received as a serious masterpiece (Penhallow), for her to realize what she was good at writing: witty dialogue. And even then, she was only convinced by comparing her sales receipts. It's both odd and oddly inspiring.
Kloester does an admirable job of tracking this development, although I think she misses one important point: Heyer's mysteries, serious historicals and contemporary novels suffer because she was following literary trends, not creating them. This is not necessarily a bad thing – Agatha Christie, for one, triumphed mostly by staying completely within the expectations of mystery novels. But it was not good for Heyer, who needed to create a place of imagination that she could control, and where she could lead. She found that in the Regency period, a place where she had a certain amount of expertise. Later comparisons between Heyer and Austen completely miss the mark, largely because the two writers were attempting very different things. Austen was critiquing the world she lived in; Heyer was attempting to control hers.
Beyond this, Kloester's biography fills in many other gaps – discussing Heyer's friends and family, exploring her initial attempts at writing, and confirming that Penhallow was actually meant as a serious literary novel (I know, I know.) She also delicately discusses the state of Heyer's marriage and equally delicately confirms what many readers had long thought: Heyer's husband was not always faithful, but Heyer dealt with this. (The unimportance of merely frivolous affairs, compared to a meaningful marriage, is a subtheme of many later books.) She also discusses a certain legal issue between Heyer and Barbara Cartland (Heyer accused Cartland of plagiarism) in a fascinating sideline.
The biography is meticulously researched and well written, and Kloester made the most of her sources. And yet, Heyer remains a distant, private figure. I can't blame Kloester for this: Heyer's walls were so high, and so tight, that she was willing to create an alternate history to keep them solid.
#
I'll have more to say as the reread starts. For now I go under a rock for a bit.
mariness (I am decidedly not Jo Walton) but unfortunately, if I didn't do the rereads jointly, I was never going to get around to doing this reread at all. So. The children's books will take priority, so this may end up being an every other week reread. (Again, I am decidedly not Jo Walton.)Anyway....since that is coming up, I thought it was about time that I actually posted my initial impressions of the recent biography by Jennifer Kloester. Small warning: I read the book and wrote this several months back, so...I actually don't remember even writing this, but here you go:
#
During her life, author Georgette Heyer was not fond of giving interviews or indeed any information about herself whatsoever; indeed, her readers did not even learn her married name until after her death. Heyer claimed that everything people needed to know could be found in her books, and to a certain extent, that's true. The personality that eventually emerged in those books – a creation in itself – did give a strong portrait of the author. Not that this stopped fans from wanting to know more. After Heyer's death, and in the initial biography from Joan Aiken Hodge (which mostly reads as an apologia for Heyer, and a defiant, yes, yes, Heyer's really good, really, she is, I promise) some details began to emerge.
Despite the impression her later books might have given, Heyer was not an aristocrat, although as a well educated daughter of an upper middle class man she was able to move in some upper class social circles. What she felt there seems to have been best expressed by her later character, Fredericka, who points out, truthfully, that what is acceptable from a daughter of a marquis is considerably less acceptable from a mere "miss." While to a certain extent this reflected genuine attitudes during the Regency period – Lady Caroline Lamb, for one, engaged in some behavior that would be shocking even today, most of which was waved over thanks to her rank and her known indulgent upbringing – Fredericka's statement also ignores the very real truth recorded by Jane Austen: middle class women absolutely engaged in less than proper behavior themselves, and sometimes were even able to re-enter society, to an extent, afterwards. Mary Shelley is probably the best known real life example of this – she did, after all, run off to Europe with a married man, but managed to return to England and regain a slightly respectable life after that. (And also worked full time while raising a child. Yes, that sort of thing also happened in the 19th century.)
Heyer, then, was less reflecting the actual attitudes of Regency England, which certainly allowed its moral lapses – the period is named, after all, for a Regent who married two women bigamously and treated both of them terribly, and who was a model of fiscal imprudence – and more reflecting her own experiences, as someone always on the edge of high society, and never. quite. there.
She tried. She married a thoroughly respectable man – he had trained as a naval officer next to Lord Mountbatten – with ambitions. She travelled to Africa and Macedonia with him, adding the cachet of travel, before insisting that they return home to England. She wrote serious, non genre novels that she hoped would gain her literary respect (for the most part, they did not) and serious historical novels that she hoped would gain her intellectual respect (with one exception, they did not.) She befriended intellectuals, writers and aristocrats.
But she was continually trapped by finances. Her husband had to delay his own professional dreams of becoming a barrister for some years; financial stress kept forcing her to churn out mystery novels (not her strength) and romances (which would slowly become her strength.) The romances frustrated her; the popular ones were the ones featuring the brilliant, witty dialogue that would become her trademark, but their very popularity and humor also ensured that literary critics (mostly male, and suspicious of popular fiction) dismissed her. (Across the pond, Lucy Maud Montgomery experienced the same frustrations.) Her mysteries suffered by appearing next to the masterpieces of Agatha Christie and the thoughtful literary approaches of Dorothy Sayers. Her straight historicals were often boring.
And yet, despite what seems in retrospect terribly obvious, it took her more than twenty years and thirty novels, and a complete failure of a novel she hoped would be received as a serious masterpiece (Penhallow), for her to realize what she was good at writing: witty dialogue. And even then, she was only convinced by comparing her sales receipts. It's both odd and oddly inspiring.
Kloester does an admirable job of tracking this development, although I think she misses one important point: Heyer's mysteries, serious historicals and contemporary novels suffer because she was following literary trends, not creating them. This is not necessarily a bad thing – Agatha Christie, for one, triumphed mostly by staying completely within the expectations of mystery novels. But it was not good for Heyer, who needed to create a place of imagination that she could control, and where she could lead. She found that in the Regency period, a place where she had a certain amount of expertise. Later comparisons between Heyer and Austen completely miss the mark, largely because the two writers were attempting very different things. Austen was critiquing the world she lived in; Heyer was attempting to control hers.
Beyond this, Kloester's biography fills in many other gaps – discussing Heyer's friends and family, exploring her initial attempts at writing, and confirming that Penhallow was actually meant as a serious literary novel (I know, I know.) She also delicately discusses the state of Heyer's marriage and equally delicately confirms what many readers had long thought: Heyer's husband was not always faithful, but Heyer dealt with this. (The unimportance of merely frivolous affairs, compared to a meaningful marriage, is a subtheme of many later books.) She also discusses a certain legal issue between Heyer and Barbara Cartland (Heyer accused Cartland of plagiarism) in a fascinating sideline.
The biography is meticulously researched and well written, and Kloester made the most of her sources. And yet, Heyer remains a distant, private figure. I can't blame Kloester for this: Heyer's walls were so high, and so tight, that she was willing to create an alternate history to keep them solid.
#
I'll have more to say as the reread starts. For now I go under a rock for a bit.