Ronald wants me to jack up the Regency & do a worth-while book again. He says I have it in me: I don’t think I have. Says also that it was The Army which put me on the map, & why not start a big book? This is easily answered: it looks too much like work! I became Grand & Aloof, & talked about Writing only the Book one wants to write. To which he replied mildly that he had had the impression that I felt no particular urge to write The Foundling.
The suggestion that she write a “real” book was one that would trouble Georgette throughout her life, with both Frere and Ronald intermittently prodding her to write this apparently elusive tome. That both men were probably taking their cues from her and telling her what each thought she wanted to hear was irrelevant: Georgette needed those she loved and trusted to tell her that what she was doing was meaningful and important.
Her continuing wish to be recognized as a serious writer was one reason why Ronald encouraged a return to a more historical book, but he may also have been trying to relieve the pressure on her to always write a “seller.” Ronald was now earning, if not a large income, at least a reliable one and Georgette’s royalty income alone was consistently bringing in over £1,000 a year (the equivalent of £22,000 in 2009). She also received a sizeable advance for any new novel and now there were to be regular payments from Woman’s Journal. With their rent costing them only £350 a year they were comfortably situated. If Georgette had really wanted to, she could have put the Regency aside and written the “worthwhile” book she so often talked about.
The fact was, she was already writing “real books.” Her best novels were those in which she could give full rein to her comic genius and her passion for historical detail—the Georgians and the Regencies. These were the novels for which her readers clamored. And, however much she scorned them or protested their worth, in her heart they were what she wanted to write. As Jane Aiken Hodge astutely observed: “To write romantic comedy supremely well as she did, she must have enjoyed it.” Years later, Richard would assert that his mother was “a compulsive weaver of stories” and that it was “just talk to say she had to write another Regency to pay tax.”
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Heyer-addicts just ARE (& some of them are quite sensible people!), & they don’t mind What It’s About.
—Georgette Heyer
Georgette finished The Foundling in time for the first installment to appear in Woman’s Journal in September 1947. Her attitude to the novel had improved on completion and she told Rosemary White that she hoped she would like her new hero, the Duke of Sale: “He isn’t tall, or handsome, or dominant, but I rather love him myself.” Rosemary and her mother had sent another food parcel and Georgette had written a long, surprisingly frank letter (Rosemary was not yet fourteen) in reply:
And what, pray, can I possibly send you in return, from this impoverished island? I know you would like a new book by Me, but I can’t send you that, because it won’t appear until March. It is coming out in serial form in Woman’s Journal—one of those horrid monthly magazines which request you to “turn to page 175” after the first few paragraphs. For reasons which I don’t pretend to fathom, the editor has altered my title, which is “The Foundling,” to “His Grace, the Duke of Sale.” Apart from the really awful snob-value of this, I believe the dictum laid down by my son at the age of twelve is correct: A Five-Word Title Won’t Do!
Richard was now fifteen and in August his parents took him on an extended trip to Scotland. It was his first time “over the border” and, like his mother (who as a supporter of the royal Stuarts thought of Scotland as her “spiritual home”), he fell in love with the Highlands. They toured the countryside for several weeks, with Richard quoting Macbeth and the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and singing the Skye Boat Song as they went across to Skye from Kyle of Lochalsh. He and Georgette were both forced to quell Ronald’s “tendency to flippancy” at such moments.
The family also visited East Lothian where they discovered Greywalls, a former gentleman’s residence designed by Edwin Lutyens with gardens by Gertrude Jekyll. It was now a country-house hotel with magnificent views across the Firth of Forth. Greywalls backed onto Muirfield, the world-famous golf course of the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers (of which Ronald later became a member). For Georgette and Ronald there could be no more perfect place, and Greywalls soon became their favorite holiday destination. Georgette was so satisfied with their “heavenly tour” of Scotland that she felt moved to declare that “even if we have to go to some horrid watering-place next year, in a crowded train, at least we had fun this year!”
A much less successful trip was their Christmas holiday in Ireland. Georgette went as far as Killarney, but told her friends: “as far as I’m concerned you can have Ireland!” They returned to London just after the new year to discover a Christmas parcel from Rosemary White in Australia. Georgette felt a great kindness toward this young fan and again tried to assure her that: “Here, in England, nothing much is lacked”—a generous statement given that Britain was enduring the longest, cruelest winter for decades and she was “anxiously calculat[ing] how long the coal-ration will last!” But Georgette’s letters to Rosemary were always kind.
She could, when she chose, be dismissive of fans who wrote to her praising her novels, asking for sequels (“I wonder what more they think there is to say about them?”), posing “fatuous questions,” and even, in one instance, suggesting that a statue be erected to her. She did not always reply. When she did her answer usually depended on the nature of the question and her perception of the writer’s intelligence. Often gracious and charming, she could sometimes write the sort of answer that “seems to daunt them a bit!” Georgette had even been known to tell a fan who had pointed out an error in one of her novels that she would be better off to refrain from opening the book again.
The Foundling came out in April 1948 and Arnold Gyde, the head of Heinemann’s editorial department, wrote to congratulate her and—remembering previous blunders—to explain the blurb he had recently written for the book:
I do hope the present one is not particularly obnoxious. What struck me privately about your book was that you had developed a sense of comedy, latent in most of them, into a really flowering success. I wrote, in my poor way, much to this effect. “For heaven’s sake,” cried Frere, “do you want to give the impression that this is the first time she has achieved a comedy?” Of course, I meant nothing of the kind. What I really did feel was that you had developed this ingredient inherent in your work to a charming extent in this last book.
Gyde was right about The Foundling. Georgette had written a very funny novel with several new character types and a clever, pacy plot. Echoes of Jane Austen pervade the book and Georgette’s creation of the pliable and dim-witted Belinda—the foundling of the title—was surely inspired by Harriet Smith, the foolish foundling in Emma. Although The Foundling as a whole bears little resemblance to Emma, Georgette took pleasure in writing her own version of the sorts of jokes at which Austen excelled. In Emma, Harriet Smith asks: “Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?” on his way from Yorkshire to Surrey. Georgette created her own “geography joke” in The Foundling by having her hero spend the day searching the town of Hitchin for Belinda’s protector, only later to hear Tom Mamble tell Belinda:
“I daresay she doesn’t live at Hitchin at all, but at Ditchling, or—or Mitcham, or some such place.”
Belinda looked much struck, and said ingenuously: “Yes, she does!”
The Duke was in the act of conveying a portion of braised ham to his mouth, but he lowered his fork at this, and demanded, “Which?”
“The one Tom said,” replied Belinda brightly.
The Foundling had a first printing of 40,000 copies. Foyle’s Book Club also published the novel, selling 220,000 copies in less than a year. Book clubs were hugely popular in postwar Britain. The Foundling was Georgette’s third book with Foyle’s, who had enjoyed tremendous success with Friday’s Child and The Reluctant Widow. B
ook club royalties were considerably smaller than for her UK and foreign editions but what she lost in percentage Georgette made up in volume, and book club sales soon became a valuable addition to her royalty income.
Ronald had continued urging her to begin a serious novel and she had finally “yielded to the persuasions (some might call it nagging) of Husband and Publisher & am now committed to what Frere calls a Real Book.” But in September she was interrupted by sudden inspiration and wrote to ask Frere: “Do you mind if I revert to an old idea, and write the story of George, Lord Wrotham, who figured in F’s Child? It doesn’t matter if you do, of course, because I think I’m going to, & I’ve got lots of good bits, in my head, though no particular plot yet. Ferdy will figure largely, and altogether I think it will be fun.”
Though there is a variation of Ferdy in the novel (in the character of Felix Scunthorpe) Georgette appears to have (temporarily, at least) discarded her idea of writing Lord Wrotham’s story. Her new book was Arabella and by October Georgette had written nearly twenty thousand words. She described her eponymous heroine as “a nice wench, and giving me a lot of fun” while, “as for Mr. Beaumaris, the fans will fall for him in rows, because he’s their favorite hero.” Georgette occasionally described her heroes as either Mark I: “the brusque, savage sort with a foul temper” and “a Know-All,” or Mark II: “enigmatic or supercilious” and “suave, well-dressed, rich, and a famous whip.” Arabella’s Mr. Beaumaris was the “no. 2 model.”
She finished the book in just over a month and Moore easily sold it to Woman’s Journal. Heinemann forecast it as a big seller and Arnold Gyde advised the recently appointed head of Heinemann’s new Australian office, Clem Christesen, to prepare for a first Australian print run of fifteen thousand copies. “Spare no efforts with this book,” he told Christesen, “as not only is Georgette Heyer an excellent seller in Australia but she personally is a great personal friend of Mr. Frere the Chairman, and nothing will be better than to be able to show him the largest subscription a Heyer book has ever had in Australia.”
Australian readers were avid Heyer fans. The Foundling had sold ten thousand copies there on publication and eighteen thousand in its first six months. Christesen was not to “make any mistake about her selling qualities in Australasia” but he did not need convincing. He was already preparing Australian reprints of Friday’s Child, Regency Buck, and The Masqueraders in what was becoming an increasingly lucrative market for Georgette’s mother, who still received her “colonial” royalties. Georgette’s novels and short stories were often published in the country’s most popular magazine The Australian Women’s Weekly (circulation 725,000). As early as 1937 they had touted her as “the greatest writer of the romantic historical drama.”
Georgette had recently returned to the short-story genre, publishing a whimsical Regency tale entitled “Full Moon” in November’s Woman’s Journal and another Regency, “Snowdrift,” in The Illustrated London News. She was glad to have the extra money from the shorts, because her brother Frank was getting married in March and Georgette was paying for the reception. She had almost despaired of seeing either of her brothers wed and was delighted when, after taking a job as Classics master at Denstone College in Staffordshire, Frank had met Joan Peacock-Price. Joan was an attractive widow in her thirties with a young son. She was a vibrant, athletic woman and a first-rate tennis player (she had played mixed doubles at Wimbledon). Georgette and Joan would never be close (especially as Georgette was given to announcing proudly that she “took no exercise and played no ballgames”) but she was happy to see her brother married and to welcome Joan into the family.
Sylvia was also pleased to see Frank married. Georgette’s mother had returned to South Kensington after the War and taken rooms at Courtfield Gardens, a short ride on the underground from her daughter. Georgette worried about her living alone and tried to persuade her to engage a companion. Sylvia refused. Her sisters, Ciss and Jo, were now in their eighties and resiliently active. Even after Jo had suffered a slight stroke, Georgette found her aunt as fiercely independent as her mother. Her aging relatives were another reason why Georgette still struggled to relax about money. For twenty-five years she had been her family’s financial safeguard—no easy task during the Depression and the War—and yet, despite the anxiety it often caused her, it was not a responsibility she chose to relinquish. She had a great affection for her aunts, who had known her since birth and who were strong-minded, forthright, and amusing, and she had a genuine concern for their well-being.
Despite her independent attitude, Georgette’s mother did need her support, although this was sometimes a thankless task. Sylvia had a tendency toward depression (it was said in the family that Boris had inherited his manic depressive condition from his mother). Although Georgette herself was not always easy, she sometimes found her mother difficult to the point that she later admitted: “When Mama is at her worst she makes me ill—do what I will I cannot overcome this!” Nevertheless she continued to care for Sylvia and also, whenever necessary, for Boris. Self-sufficient during his army years, now that the War was over, Boris struggled to find a suitable occupation. Aware of the difficulties caused by his extreme moods and mercurial temperament, Georgette did what she could to smooth his path financially. Although her family was sometimes a burden Georgette felt a strong duty of care. If she occasionally complained about her mother and aunts, in practice she was unshakably loyal and supportive.
Early in 1949 the injection of cash from Woman’s Journal for Arabella created enough of a hiatus between novels to enable Georgette to at last begin working on her “serious” book. By April she was “lost in the fifteenth century.” She called the book Fettered Eagle. Its subject was John, Duke of Bedford, younger brother to Henry V. Georgette’s vision was of a grand medieval novel which would take a year or two of research and writing and be the sort of book to make people “sit up and take notice.” She had learned a great deal in the twenty years since Simon the Coldheart and The Conqueror and while she was not entirely unhappy with The Conqueror, she loathed Simon, condemning it (along with Roxhythe) as her worst work which she wished only “to smother, remainder, and destroy.”
The new medieval book was to be quite different and she was excited by its prospects, even taking a research trip to France with Ronald that year to see the places where John of Bedford had lived and ruled. They visited Orléans, where Joan of Arc had led the French army against the English, and Rouen where they saw John’s tomb. Georgette spent time trying to decipher early French while Ronald worked at translating Latin inscriptions. That first trip was only a beginning, but it was enough to convince Georgette that “Fettered Eagle is going to be grand!” By September, however, she had put the medieval novel away and begun writing a new Regency. Fettered Eagle would need time for both the research and the writing, whereas Georgette could pen a witty period novel in a few months. It also helped that these were the books her readers wanted to buy in ever-increasing numbers.
Frere fulfilled his promise to begin reprinting her novels that year. They were to be issued in a Uniform edition with new dust jackets which he assured her were “going to sell such a lot of books.” Philip Gough would do the artwork for the Uniform series, for Arabella, and for the Foyle’s Book Club edition of The Foundling. The wrappers were tasteful and stylish, and a welcome change after the plain jackets of the War years. Georgette was delighted with them, declaring “each picture more charming than the last. If I have a preference, I think it is for The Foundling, which is utterly Stubbs!” She also liked Gough’s design for Arabella—although she felt compelled to tell Frere: “there is an error in it. For a few moments I couldn’t think what was wrong, and then it dawned on me! The lady’s stance! Even in my mamma’s youth, any lady crossing her legs would have been torn right off the ship.” However, she deemed it a great improvement on the cover of the paperback edition of The Corinthian, her first-ever Pan title, published the previous year: “Have you ever seen such a vulgar-loo
king job? What I particularly admire is the come-hither look on the heroine’s face: you may see the same any evening in Burlington Gardens!”
Georgette hated any sort of salacious take on her work, but worse was to come, when in November 1949, she received the advance publicity for the film of The Reluctant Widow. A few moments’ perusal was enough to convince her that her story was being advertised as a kind of bodice-ripper:
I feel as though a slug had crawled over me. I think it is going to do me a great deal of harm, on account of the schoolgirl public. Already I’m getting letters reproaching me. They have turned the Widow into a “bad-girl” part for Jean Kent, and this week’s Illustrated carries two pages, headed “Jean Locks Her Bedroom Door.” Also seduction scenes 1 and 2…I should like a notice to appear in every paper disclaiming all responsibility. At all events, I think I can get my name removed from the thing, and I shall. It seems to me that to turn a perfectly clean story of mine into a piece of sex-muck is bad faith, and something very different from the additions and alterations one would expect to be obliged to suffer. If I had wanted a reputation for salacious novels I could have got it easily enough. The whole thing is so upsetting that it is putting me right off the stroke.
Georgette was no prude, but she found it difficult to have her book torn apart and put back together with only the faintest resemblance to her story and not even a vestige of its original wit or humor. It was an unpleasant interruption to her writing, especially as she was trying to finish her latest novel before Christmas. She had already written seventy thousand words of The Grand Sophy which “My brother says is most amusing. But I have bought a large bottle of disinfectant.” She wrote Frere a long, satirical advertisement for the book and appended a witty, self-mocking summation of her personal principles for successful novel-writing:
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