Georgette Heyer

September 24, 2012
English Regency social historian Kloester details the life of Georgette Heyer (1902–1974), the “Queen of Regency romance,” who sold her first book at age 17 and, over the next 50 years, married Ronald Rougier, bore one son, and wrote 55 books. With access to a thousand pages of new material plus full access to Heyer’s private papers, Kloester adds to, and sometimes corrects, some facts in Joan Aiken Hodge’s 1984 biography, while remaining frustratingly reticent about others. Despite the new material Kloester, like Hodge, provides scant insight into the writing process of the fiercely private Heyer, who granted a single interview and destroyed all her manuscripts and most of her personal correspondence. Kloester relies on Heyer’s early contemporary novels for clues to the author’s inner life bolstered with guesses based on quotations from correspondence, especially with Heyer’s agent and publishers. Kloester is not completely uncritical but her sympathy is obvious, often putting the best possible spin on Heyer’s snobbery and poor financial decisions. The result is a parlor portrait of this famous writer who claimed to despise her readership while craving the critical attention that eluded her. 73 illus.

November 1, 2012
A detailed, yet sometimes-plodding study of the life and work of Georgette Heyer (1902-1974), the best-selling British Regency romance writer. Kloester (Georgette Heyer's Regency World, 2005) spent 10 years researching this book, which draws from "new and untapped archives of [Heyer's] letters," as well as the author's notebooks and other private papers. The result is a carefully crafted, narrowly focused biography that concentrates on Heyer and her novels to the near exclusion of the times in which she was writing. The woman whom the Daily Telegraph called the "20th Century Jane Austen" was "born an Edwardian." But Kloester points out that Heyer's upper-middle-class world and many of the traditions that informed it--"servants, horses and carriages, good manners, correct speech, the right clothing and a certain level of education and cultural literacy"--were products of the English Regency. Encouraged from an early age by her literature-loving father to read widely and write, Heyer produced her first novel when she was just 17. However, it would be more than 20 years before she would focus exclusively on the Regency romances for which she is best remembered. Until that time, she dabbled in historical, contemporary and detective fiction writing and experienced modest, but steadily increasing, success with each novel she published. After her father died in 1925, Heyer supported her mother and two brothers on her literary earnings. Until her husband could practice as an attorney, she had to support her own household as well, factors that Kloester believes contributed to her all-consuming drive to write. Heyer produced more than 50 novels in her lifetime, in addition to numerous short stories. Unable to see her work as being on par with "serious" writers, she would assert that her books sold because they were historical romances "that [didn't] date." But as Kloester observes, the literary legacy Heyer could not fully own still "endures." Meticulously researched, but with limited audience appeal.

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October 15, 2012

Georgette Heyer published her first novel, The Black Moth, in 1921 when she was 19 years old and published her 56th and last one more than 50 years later. Heyer is recognized today as the creator of the Regency genre of historical fiction. Kloester (Georgette Heyer's Regency World) contends in this biography based on her PhD thesis that Heyer's body of work--her historical novels, crime fiction, and especially Regency novels--continues to inspire readers and writers around the world and that her significance in the literary arena endures. With rare access to Heyer's private papers as well as newly identified letters, Kloester perceptively analyzes Heyer's novels. Plots, characters, sales figures, and income are detailed as she methodically chronicles the appearance of each novel and reveals the steady progress of Heyer's rise to best-seller status. Kloester also documents Heyer's family life, her relationships with business associates, and even her luncheon with Queen Elizabeth II, who described the novelist as "formidable." VERDICT This well-written, thoroughly researched biography is more detailed than Jane Aiken Hodge's The Private World of Georgette Heyer. Heyer enthusiasts and readers interested in popular romantic historical fiction or the Regency period of English literature will enjoy this.--Kathryn R. Bartelt, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2013
Georgette Heyer was a publicist's worst nightmare. She refused to grant interviews, rarely answered fan mail, and firmly believed that her personal life was nobody's business but her own. Yet she became one of the most popular novelists of the twentieth century, and her Regency romances are now considered classics in the genre. Though Kloester's is not the first biography of Heyercredit for that literary achievement goes to Jane Aiken Hodge, whose The Private World of Georgette Heyer (1984) was recently reprinted by SourcebooksKloester, the author, too, of Georgette Heyer's Regency World (2010), spent 10 years researching Heyer. Granted unlimited access to private papers, Kloester also mined a newly discovered archive of Heyer's early letters for insight into this very private writer. She effectively builds on Hodge's biography by providing extensive details on Heyer's entire literary output, including her contemporary novels, historical fiction, and mysteries, as well as covering her often-stormy relationships with her publishers and agents. The result is an absorbing and enlightening biography, a must-read for Heyer fans and all who cherish Regency romances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)