(Georgette Heyer, though living in the 20th century, makes the list because her many of her novels take place in the 18th-19th century.)
Lifespan: 1902- 1974
Nationality: English
Genres: Historical Fiction; Regency Romance; Detective Fiction
Types of Work: Novels
Contemporaries:
Influence: Jane Austen
Other Names: Stella Martin
Style: Her novels contain several common elements: a melancholy male protagonist, a threatened marriage, an spendthrift wife, and a group of idle young men. Many of her characters displayed modern-day sensibilities. Most of her stories take place among the wealthy upper class of England.
Bio: Georgette was born August 16, 1902 in Wimbledon, London to George Heyer and Sylvia Watkins. She studied cello and piano, and was in the top three students at the Royal College of Music.
Georgette began her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17. Her father, who sometimes wrote for The Granta, had his agent find a publisher for the story.
In 1920, Georgette met George Rougier, a student at the Royal School of Mines. Five years later, they were engaged, but their happiness was soon mitigated as Georgette's father died one month later, leaving no financial provision for his family. George and Georgette married two month later, on August 18, 1925, and she assumed financial responsibility for her two younger brothers.
In 1926, These Old Shades was published amidst the UK General Strike of 1926. Despite the fact that the strike coverage allowed for no publicity of her novel, Georgette found that her book still sold 190,000 copies, and she subsequently refused, for the rest of her life, to promote herself or her books.
In 1927, George was sent to the East African territory of Tanganyika on mining business. Georgette joined him there, and the couple lived in a hut made of elephant grass. She was the first white woman that people in that area had ever seen. While in Africa, she wrote The Masqueraders as well as a personal account of her African adventures, entitled The Horned Beast of Africa.
After leaving Africa, the couple moved to Macedonia for awhile, then returned to England, where George left his position with the mining company and eventually opened a sports shop. Georgette provided the bulk of the family's income through her writing.
Most of her earlier and more popular novels were in the genre of the Regency Romance, a genre that takes place in the late part of the 18th century to the early 19th century. Her first novel in this time period, Regency Buck, basically established the genre. As Georgette was writing about a period 100 years before her time, she invested much of her time in studying about the period, acquiring over her lifetime more than 1,000 historical reference books. She made and cataloged volumes of notes on everything from Hats, Dress, Shops, and even Food and Crockery in an effort to be as historically accurate as possible.
In 1932, Georgette published her first thriller novel, Footsteps in the Dark and also gave birth to her only child, Richard. Over the next several years, she published one romance and one thriller novel each year. Her mystery novels mostly took place in the time when she wrote them and focused on upper-class families. These thriller novels were never as popular as her romances and received less than glowing reviews, being cited as unoriginal, cliché, and predictable, with their best points being the humor and wit displayed by the characters.
During World War II, paper rationing caused lower sales of Georgette's books, and put the family in financial distress. To help alleviate the strain, she sold the copyrights to three of her popular novels, reviewed new books for a publishing company, and established a limited liability company to minimize her tax liability.
In 1950, Georgette began work on what she considered "the magnum opus" of her later life. The work was an intended trilogy covering the medieval House of Lancaster. Only the first novel, My Lord John, was completed and published posthumously. Following several years of ill-health, Georgette finally succumbed to lung cancer and died July 4, 1974.
Novels:
The Black Moth (1921)
The Transformation of Philip Jettan (1923) (later republished as Powder and Patch) (1930)
These Old Shades (1926)
The Masqueraders (1928)
Devil's Cub (1932)
The Convenient Marriage (1934)
Regency Buck (1935)
The Talisman Ring (1936)
An Infamous Army (1937)
The Spanish Bride (1940)
The Corinthian (1940)
Faro's Daughter (1941)
Friday's Child (1944)
The Reluctant Widow (1946)
The Foundling (1948)
Arabella (1949)
The Grand Sophy (1950)
The Quiet Gentleman (1951)
Cotillion (1953)
The Toll-Gate (1954)
Bath Tangle (1955)
Sprig Muslin (1956)
April Lady (1957)
Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle (1957)
Venetia (1958)
The Unknown Ajax (1959)
A Civil Contract (1961)
The Nonesuch (1962)
False Colours (1963)
Frederica (1965)
Black Sheep (1966)
Cousin Kate (1968)
Charity Girl (1970)
Lady of Quality (1972)