A Civil Contract [Import] [Paperback]

Georgette Heyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 26, 2005

Adam Deveril, a hero of Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Georgette Heyer, who wrote over fifty novels died in 1974.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Arrow (July 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099474441
• ISBN-13: 978-0099474449
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, making the Regency period her own. Her first novel, "The Black Moth," published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote eleven detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the Heyer novels, October 17, 2006

By 

Maxxie "Maxxie" (Vacaville, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Civil Contract (Paperback)

I own every book Heyer wrote, but this is by far my favorite. A Civil Contract covers the first year and a half of an arranged marriage between an impoverished peer desperate to save his family estate from foreclosure, and a rather plain, but very nice, banker's heiress -- who unfortunately is also the former schoolmate of the woman he is in love with. I've read (in Jane Aiken Hodges' excellent biography of Georgette Heyer) that Ms. Heyer deliberately set out with this book shake up the expectations she herself had established in the romance genre -- and she succeeds admirably. Jenny has to adjust to life in the aristocracy, struggle to gain acceptance, deal with her husband's infatuation with her own school friend (a far more typical heroine), and learn how to make him happy.

Charming secondary characters include the hero's dynamic sister and of course the heroine's vulgar but winning father. Jenny is the only Heyer heroine who has a baby (and is seen by the obstetrician who historically later killed Princess Charlotte with his treatments!).

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reality and the Regency Novel, January 6, 2003

By 

Jessie B. Sackler "sephorim" (Dallas, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Civil Contract (Mass Market Paperback)

We have all read Regencies in which the destitute hero marries for money and finds true love as well. "A Civil Contract" is not one of these stories.

Adam Deveril is one of Georgette Heyer's quiet gentlemen: handsome, honorable, and brave. He needs a great deal of bravery when his father dies. That death shatters Adam's life. He has a career in the army; he must sell out. He loves the fairy-tale beauty Julia and she loves him; a man in debt to his neck cannot afford a merely respectable portion, nor can the lover honorably ask her to join him in grinding poverty. He does what his honor insists that he do.

None of the things which he has lost could help him . He needs to marry money, in the form of the plump and plain daughter of a domineering and vulgar man--a very wealthy man, who is willing to take on Adam's debts to marry his daughter to a nobleman.

But Jenny loves Adam, and has loved him ever since she, as Julia's companion, watched the golden pair fall in love. Jenny can marry him and rescue him financially, which Julia can't; she can be the wife of the man she loves, knowing that he still loves Julia; she can fulfill her father's dreams for her. And she does.

Surely this must have happened in life. Not every merchant's daughter would turn out to be beautiful. Not every wealthy merchant would turn out to be a man of sensitivity and charm. Not every marriage made for money could turn out to be a marriage for love.

The novel begins with Adam, his problem, his terrible losses, his quietly heroic determination to do both the honorable thing and the sensible thing,no matter what his personal desires are. All he has to sell is himself and his title, and he sells them. It is important that we know all this, because only with this knowledge can we see how much this has cost him. Heyer wants us to admire this man, and we do.

Of course Jenny loves him, we feel. Who wouldn't? As we come to know Jenny, we see how different she is from both Adam and Julia. Jenny is plain, as they are not. She doesn't have good taste; she allows her father to overdress her plump form and bury her plain features in expensive and tasteless jewelry. These are only surface features; the real difference lies in her practicality. Adam has been harnessed into practicality, Julia will never be practical, but Jenny is naturally practical. She knows that her father's money will enable Adam to restore his estate and care for his family. She is willing to go into a marriage in which the loving is one-sided and unacknowledged, in order to make Adam's life better.

This is not a novel about "happy ever after." It may well bring on tears (or at least a little sniffle); it does for me. There are sad moments, but there are also happy ones and humorous ones. This may not be your favorite Heyer, but I think you will find some reality with your fairy tales will make a terrific novel.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is more about ordinary people, March 16, 2007

By 

Teresa McCullough "Teresa" (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Civil Contract (Paperback)

I read a few reviews from people who said this whas their favorite Georgette Heyer book, and that is true for me. This is the only Georgette Heyer I remember whose heroine is ordinary. Although the story is primarily told from the hero's point of view, my heart really goes out to the heroine. SLIGHT SPOILER: Before the book opens, she falls in love with someone she believes she cannot possibly get to even notice her. She has a chance to marry him and save him from finacial ruin, so she takes it. END OF SPOILER.

There are many ideas in the book. At least one other reviewer suggested that it was a good thing we don't marry our first love. That is true, but the book is also about making the best of what one has. The heroine is shy and average looking, but uses good sense to make the best possible life for herself and her husband. She succeeds, not to the levels of exalted love, but of caring and comfort. It is a book for realists, and Georgette Heyer succeeds with this story better than she ever has.

There are also a number of enjoyable characters, especially the heroine's father. There are also a couple of side stories that could make novels, if we saw more than glimpses of them.

As is often the case, Georgette Heyer gives the book historical context. As is a bit unusual for her, a plot twist revolves around a historical event.