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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marvellous Screwball comedy and great romance,
This review is from: The Corinthian (Paperback)
Georgette Heyer's "The Corinthian" starts off deceptively simply. One of London's foremost Corinthians [fashionable sportsmen], Sir Richard Wyndham, is walking home drunk, and brooding despondently on his forthcoming betrothal. Suddenly, from an upper window, a young stripling drops into his arms. He quickly discovers that the young stripling is a actually girl dressed as a boy who is escaping from her Aunt's house and determined to return to find her childhood sweetheart. Pen Creed, the cross-dressing heroine of the piece can't dissuade Sir Richard from coming along with her and she happily leads him into a labyrinth of problems. From that point Sir Richard is thrown into a series of increasingly twisted, confusing and hilarious events. In between stolen diamond necklaces, suspect looking pick-pocketing coves, an eloping couple and a pursuing Aunt this has to rate as one of Heyer's more complex plots. Numerous stories converge and overlap - and to try to explain it would be a bit like trying to explain the plot of the Marriage of Figaro - impossible. Needless to say Sir Richard's wit and good humour along with Pen's sense of the ridiculous coupled with her solemnly-uttered naievetes makes this one of Heyer's funniest and most enjoyable books Its an easy read and make be a good introduction to Heyer for first time readers.
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Book That Has It All,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Corinthian (Paperback)
This book has everything for a Heyer devotee: a sprightly handful of a heroine, an amused grey-eyed hero and a colorful and diverse group of supporting characters. Throw in a road trip, a murder over stolen jewels and a mystery and there's a little something for everyone. Miss Penelope Creed is as delightful a heroine as you will find. She meets the jaded Sir Richard "Beau" Wyndham while climbing out of a window. "Cursed with a huge fortune", she is running away from a proposed marriage to a cousin "with a face like a fish". The wealthy Sir Richard is in the same boat, having just decided to propose to a well-born but impovershed lady he has been expected to marry for years but whom he doesn't like. Sir Richard decides to escort Miss Creed on her journey to the country home of her childhood sweetheart---in a public coach, no less. You can imagine the travelers they meet! (A woman who smells of onions and a small boy with adenoids among them.) She dresses as a boy to avoid comment, a device used in other Heyer novels, but not with such amusing consequences. Penelope is actually accused of "trifling with the affections of an innocent female" and is almost called out. As it turns out, this "innocent female" is the new, and rather weepy and tiresome, innamorata of her childhood sweetheart. There seems to be nothing poor Miss Creed can do to win back his affections, so she plots their elopement. This is one of several sub-plots, including the theft of Sir Richard's almost-fiance's family jewels. (Of course, the thief was one of the people our heroine befriended on the coach journey.) This theft leads to the murder of Sir Richard's would-be brother-in-law, who is deep in debt and behind the theft. The scoundrel also attemps to blackmail Sir Richard when he discovers "Penn" ("after the great Quaker") Creed isn't really a boy. With both their families right on their heels, Penelope's friendship with the hired jewel thief, who at one point plants the jewels on her makes for a smartly paced read. Also one of her more complex in terms of plot. The final coming together of the several sub-plots is nice and tight and done as only Heyer could. Heyer's characters are always real people and we come to care for them and take an interest in what happens to them. The slang of the day, including a liberal helping of thieves' cant from a pickpocket in a catskin waistcoat, her usual fine attention to the minutia of fashion and the accurate use of titles is superb. Many other Regncy writers don't understand the correct use of titles or forms of address, one thing that makes Heyer's books superior in quality. Heyer is the first----and she is the best.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wholly charming!,
This review is from: The Corinthian (Paperback)
Sir Richard Wyndham is a Man of Fashion, a dandy, but he prefers the term Corinthian, if you please. He is somewhat bored with his life as a trendsetter of the haut ton, and is being forced to seriously consider a somewhat irksome marriage of convenience when he is waylaid by circumstance to aid Miss Penelope Creed, an heiress not yet out in society, on a quest to elope with her childhood sweetheart in an effort of avoid a match with her fish-faced cousin. The plot of the story is light-hearted and fun, full of adventure and misadventure. But it is Heyer's style, much reminiscent of Jane Austen's yet more colorful and engaging, that makes this book truly delightful. It is a must read for her description of a proper dandy alone. There were many places where I could not help but chuckle aloud. I know you will find it more than worth your effort to hunt down and read this book!
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