Self-medicating With a Dose of Escapist Literature.

When I was a teenager I discovered the wonderful world of Georgette Heyer.  A world inhabited by elegant Corinthians who exchanged witty dialogue with girls wearing, more often than not, sprig muslin dresses.   My favourite book of hers is These Old Shades. A brief synopsis is that an English Duke in Paris rescues a young boy and takes him on as a page. Leon, however, is actually Leonie, and she is fiercely devoted to her rescuer. The Duke has recognised her as the child of a nasty fellow of his acquaintance and ultimately exposes her as such, thereby revealing the dastardly baby swap which had been made all those years before to ensure that the nasty man had a male heir. It's good stuff and it's cheaper than therapy.

My original copy looked like this but I have since had to replace it.  I love an imaginary man in pantaloons don't you?  

 This brings me to what is a sad admission.  Georgette herself spoke disparagingly of folk like me.  Behold the following, taken from The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge:

"Unfortunately, hardly any letters survive from before the 1940s, when she herself was in her forties and had been a best-seller for years. By this time she was taking a sadly deprecatory line about

her own work. Speaking of Friday’s Child in 1943 she says: "Spread the glad tidings that it will not disappoint Miss Heyer’s many admirers. Judging from the letters I’ve received from obviously feeble-minded persons who do so wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes. I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it’s questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu. Its period detail is good; my husband says it’s witty—-and without going to these lengths, I will say that it is very good fun.”

Georgette Heyer pictured above looking down her nose at me, her most ardent admirer.

I am one of the sadly feeble-minded, but I persevere.  In my time I have immersed myself in this book and many others of a similar sort to seek refuge from the sometimes dire and often unromantic reality of the everyday.  It seems that Miss Heyer developed this self deprecating attitude as a response to the critics and commentators who did not appreciate the craftsmanship of her writing and her literary aspirations instead touting her as a proliferator of swashbuckle.

There is no doubt that she was a great writer  and in Jane Aiken Hodge's book about her it states:

"As well as the letters, Georgette Heyer left the unfinished typescript of about half of what she had planned as a serious mediaevel book, since published as My Lord John; a remarkable research library of some thousand volumes (now unfortunately dispersed); and a small but highly significant collection of papers, to which her son has kindly given me access. There was no attic full of carefully hoarded manuscripts and first drafts. A flat-dweller since 1939, she found the proliferating copies of her published books problem enough without indulging in the sentiment of keeping old papers, however fascinating they might have proved to prosperity. She saved a few reviews, and one fan letter. It was from a woman who had kept herself and her cell-mates sane through twelve years in a Romanian political prison by telling the story of Friday’s Child over and over again.” 

Romantic fiction can keep you sane!

If you are thinking of opting for this sort of panacea for the soul.  Have a look at this link which gives some good suggestions for where to start your romantic novel regime.


http://bookriot.com/2013/11/11/cat-ladies-sex-kittens-romance-rest-us-interview-sarah-maclean/