Georgette Heyer Novels and other Regency Historic Reading

Post author:HFM
Post published:February 20, 2007
Post category:Reading Lists

Georgette Heyer Regency novels are some of my favorite guilty pleasures. I stumbled across Heyer when in junior high – which must have been about 1981 or so – and I was initially fascinated by the fact that several of her books had female characters that disguised themselves as men. At the time there were no gay teen novels like there are now, and cross-dressing female characters were one of my first identifications with my sexual orientation, so I scoured the library for books about tomboys and other gender-role breaking females.

But I kept reading Heyer long after I had read those particular books, because she wrote strong, amusing characters and entertaining plots that paid detailed attention to rules of polite society in upper-class England during the Regency period. I hadn’t yet discovered Jane Austen, but when I did, I recognized the world she lived in, because Heyer was obviously inspired by Austen’s novels, although Heyer’s work is quite a bit more comical.

Georgette Heyer, along with Jane Austen, inspired the whole sub-genre of Regency Romance, but her novels shouldn’t be confused with cheap paperbacks; Heyer did a tremendous amount of research on the Regency period of English history. Most of her novels were written in the 1920s through the 1970s – but their popularity has kept them in print fairly regularly since then, and many have been reprinted recently by modern romance publishers.

Heyer’s Georgian/Regency Novels

A Civil Contract

The Convenient Marriage

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle

Heyer’s Other Historic Novels

Beauvallet (1929)

The Conqueror (1931)

The Great Roxhythe (1923)

My Lord John (1975)

Royal Escape (1938)

Simon the Coldheart (1925)

Non-Fiction about Heyer

Georgette Heyer: A Critical Retrospective
Mary Fahnestock-Thomas

Georgette Heyer’s Regency England
by Teresa Chris

Georgette Heyer’s Regency World
by Jennifer Kloester

The Private World of Georgette Heyer
by Jane Aiken Hodge

Jane Austen Mystery Series

An often entertaining mystery series by author Stephanie Barron that casts Jane Austen as its heroine; in between writing her classic novels, Jane solves crime with the help of the mysterious and romantic Lord Harold Trowbridge. I wonder what the real Jane would think.

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

Jane and the Man of the Cloth

Jane and the Wandering Eye

Jane and the Genius of the Place

Jane and the Stillroom Maid

Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House

Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Jane and His Lordship’s Legacy

Jane and the Barque of Frailty

Beau Brummell Mystery Series

Another Regency mystery series by author Rosemary Stevens, this time starring real-life Regency dandy Beau Brummell. These were okay; not as much fun as the Jane Austen, but Beau Brummell was quite a character.

Death on a Silver Tray

The Tainted Snuff Box

The Bloodied Cravat

Murder in the Pleasure Gardens