Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective [Paperback]

Mary Fahnestock-Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2001

Fully indexed collection of articles on the popular author's works, addressing such subjects as "'What Fun!' Detection as Diversion"; "Georgette Heyer and the Uses of Regency"; "Cross-Dressing in Wartime: Georgette Heyer's THE CORINTHIAN in its 1940 Context"; "Gendering Places: Georgette Heyer's Cultural Topography," to name only a few.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) wrote 56 best-selling novels over the course of a career that spanned over 50 years, yet she remains one of the most overlooked authors of the 20th century. Mary Fahnestock-Thomas seeks to rectify the error with this unique compilation. At once a scholarly work and a labor of love, this remarkable collection includes:

* 3 short stories and 3 essays written by Georgette Heyer which have never been published in the U.S.

* Over 200 book reviews dating from 1921 to 1989

* 35 articles and excerpts addressing various aspects of Heyer's work

* 12 movie and theater reviews of productions based on Heyer's novels

* And much more!

About the Author

Mary Fahnestock-Thomas holds degrees in German and Comparative Literature. She lives in Ohio with her husband, two children, and lots of books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Prinnyworld Press (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966800532
• ISBN-13: 978-0966800531
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #594,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

114 of 116 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Long Overdue!, May 17, 2001

By 

Catmommie (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective (Paperback)

Georgette Heyer gets no respect. Reviled by both feminists and literati, her work has been consigned to a small neighborhood in the literary ghetto that is romance fiction. What a sorry fate for a woman whose craftsmanlike prose, unerring eye for the absurd, and genuine wit have delighted loyal readers for 80 years! Heyer is often compared to Jane Austen, as both wrote novels set in the Regency. This isn't really a valid comparison. Austen wrote ironic comedies of manners about her contemporaries. Heyer--who could sling irony with the best of them, when she chose to--wrote what Graham Greene referred to as "entertainments." Although her historical scholarship was formidable, the world Heyer created in her novels probably bears little resemblance to the real Regency. Heyer is more usefully compared to P.G. Wodehouse, a master farceur who created an immensely pleasant fictitious universe. (I've always been at a loss to understand why Wodehouse is remembered with such critical affection while Heyer is routinely dismissed. I have a sneaking suspicion this is because Heyer's audience is composed mainly of women; her work therefore cannot be concerned with the important, weighty issues that so exercised Wodehouse.)

Mary Fahnstock-Thomas's Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective is a long overdue compendium of articles written about this influential yet underappreciated writer. Fahnstock-Thomas has gathered and organized 50 years worth of book reviews, articles, critical writings, short stories, obituaries, and remembrances into this volume. (Among them is A.S. Byatt's excellent 1969 essay "Georgette Heyer is a Better Writer Than You Think." Ms. Byatt has persistently championed Heyer; I can only surmise that she has been summarily tossed out of the Intellectuals Guild for her crimes.) Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective is a welcome addition to the bookshelves of not only the Heyer addict, but to anyone interested in 20th century fiction and good writing. It is beautifully published in softcover by Prinnyworld Press, a small private publishing house (reason enough to purchase this book--support the small publisher!). Despite her modest claims to the contrary, Ms. Fahnstock-Thomas's scholarship is also formidable. To paraphrase Nigel Tufnel, Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective goes all the way up to eleven.

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended to Heyer Fans, July 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective (Paperback)

Georgette Heyer officianados will want this book. I'm talking about those of us who have a complete list of all her titles and notes about the ones we liked. There isn't much bio on this exceptionally private author, and this effort focuses on a history of critical reviews of Heyer's work. But, it also contains several unavailable shorts published in the 1920s, as well as excerpts from the out-of-print 1998 biography of Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge, and a 1996 print interview with Heyer's son, Sir Richard Rougier, that are worth the price in themselves. Highly recommended.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective, October 30, 2005

By 

M. Morgan (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective (Paperback)

I was pleased to find that someone had put a book like this together. The author, Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, is a fan of Heyer's and is presumably writing for other fans. She is a reasonably well-organised and thorough fan, however, and produced an interesting collection.

The book is a useful contribution to anyone wanting to do further research on Heyer. It also features material hard to find, or not previously published in the US, including three short stories and several articles by Heyer, and an article featuring reminiscences of Heyer by her son, Sir Richard Rougier.

The reviews are arranged chronologically and treat the historical fiction and the detective novels even-handedly. There is an index, and Heyer's novels are listed both chronologically, as well as alphabetically in appendices.

The author clearly had much readier access to American, rather than to English sources, as so many of the reviews are from provincial US rather than from provincial UK publications. Reviews by nature are ephemera, and many of those collected here bear the mark of hasty and ill-informed readings; some glaring literary snobbism; and some historical howlers. Any reviewer prepared to place a work mentioning the Battle of Waterloo in the late eighteenth century should have been slapped by his or her editor, but presumably the editor didn't know either or didn't care. The reader familiar with Heyer's work can afford the satisfaction of feeling superior.

The scholarly articles bear witness to the growing field of studies in popular culture in the late twentieth century, and it is good to see them collected. Taken as a group with the reviews, the discomfort is apparent of many of their authors with Heyer's skill as a writer, her grasp of her own literary lineage; her historical rigour and her undoubted and continuing popularity at apparent odds with the projected ignominy of her place in popular fiction. The reader feels them wishing Heyer could have aspired to write "serious" work, yet happy she wrote so many of the novels they keep returning to for pleasure. Fahnestock implicitly acknowledges this uneasy middle ground, and leaves it open to the reader to explore further.

An interesting and unpretentious work.