Some years ago A.S. Byatt wrote an article entitled 'Georgette Heyer is a Better Writer Than You Think'.
" ... it was the first article to offer a serious appraisal of Georgette's novels and to ask: 'Why is she so good?' For Byatt the answer lay
in the precise balance she achieves between romance and reality, fantastic plot and real detail. Her good taste, her knowledge, and the literary and social conventions of the time she is writing about all contribute to a romanticised anti-romanticism: an impossibly desirable world of prettiness, silliness and ultimate good sense where men and women really talk to each other, know what is going on between them, and plan to spend the rest of their lives together developing the relationship. "
From Georgette Heyer: The Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester.
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There's a book group post on Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract here (preceded by this one), and in the 'did you know...?' camp comes the fact that Booker McConnell were able to fund the Booker Prize from their investment in the copyrights of three authors: Georgette Heyer, Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie, none of whom, as Jennifer Kloester points out, "wrote the sort of fiction likely to be considered for the Booker."
Another piece of trivia: this was Miss Heyer's favourite holiday destination.
