Recently a friend stopped in to inquire about purchasing one of Georgette Heyer’s books. She collects Heyer’s works, and the book in question was the only one she didn’t own. My friend told me that she particularly likes the humor in Heyer’s writing. Ms. Heyer poked fun at the British upper classes. Our conversation about Ms. Heyer aroused my curiosity so I did a little research.
Born in 1902 Georgette Heyer died in 1974. She was a highly successful author in her time. She never did interviews or publicity tours, but her books were always best sellers. Although she wrote mysteries and other works, she is best known for her romance novels. In fact, Georgette Heyer created her own genre—Regency Romances. As her biographer Jane Aiken Hodge said, “It is not everyone who has given her name to a type of novel…”
Georgette Heyer is not read much anymore, but she still has her fans like my friend. She is one of what I call “Faded Glory” authors—hugely successful during their lifetime, but the glory faded after their deaths. There are many such authors. Although I have ideas about why an author’s popularity wanes, that is not the point of this article. I want to bring back to our collective memory a few of those authors and their works. Perhaps this trip down memory lane will encourage readers to return to them and their works.
A few years ago, a librarian friend announced proudly that he had weeded the last Dorothy Sayers book from his collection. British author Dorothy Sayers wrote mysteries. Her popularity spanned the time between the two World Wars. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriett Vane are her main characters. Lord Peter is almost too perfect for words, and reviewers criticized Sayers for this. Today, her novels are also often criticized for the racism and anti-Semitism, expressed by some of her characters. Sayers’ characters reflect their culture and should be judged according to the social mores of British society of the 1930s. Besides her detective fiction, Sayers wrote Christian and academic works.
Sayers’ father was Chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford, and Dorothy was raised at the Head Master’s House at Oxford University. Born in 1893 her early romantic life was scandalous for the time. She gave birth to an illegitimate son. She hid this from from her family and later raised him as her adopted son. He did not realize her true identity until after his mother’s death.
When I mentioned the topic of this article to some staff, Grace Livingston Hill immediately came to mind. If you thought Christian fiction began in the last 25 years, think again. Grace Livingston Hill was writing Christian Romance before 99.9% of us were born. Hill herself was born in April 1865 at the end of the Civil War. Her heroines were usually strong Christian women, and her stories centered on good versus evil. Hill still has a following today. Her books are published in paperback and large print. The list of her titles goes on and on.
As I was writing this article, more names came to mind—Janice Holt Giles, Emily Loring, and Kathleen Norris (born in 1880, not Kathleen Norris writing today). I could get several articles out of this topic, and I haven’t even mentioned male authors. The library collection still includes books by most of these writers. If you have a hankering for books that reflect a bygone era, stop by and check one out.
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