Backlisted - Venetia by Georgette Heyer

Episode Date: January 23, 2017

This show sees John and Andy joined by Una McCormack and Cathy Rentzenbrink to discuss Venetia, one of the Regency Romance novels by Georgette Heyer. Includes mild language and various Georgian terms for drunkenness.Timings: (may differ due to adverts)5'41 - Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis13'59 - Mad Shepherds by L.P. Jacks18'41 - Venetia by Georgette Heyer* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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$49 annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. So how many of you, have anyone gathered around this table seen La La Land yet? I haven't seen it, and I'm getting a bit of grief at home because Rachel has this theory that it's Oscar bait because it's set in LA but I am a huge

fan of the film that I discover from the Twitters that you're also a huge fan of which Le Parapluie de Cherbourg which is one of my favourite films. Which my incredibly knowledgeable film buffy wife has never seen. So I feel I'm slightly ahead of the game on this, because it does seem to be an homage to...

But he says that. The thing about La La Land is... Is he French, the director? No, he's American. But he sounds French. So the thing about Jacques Demy is Demien Chazelle. Demien Chazelle.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But he... So he makes... He's made this film and he hasn't quite said this but Jacques... So Jacques Demy

makes The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Wonderful film. French musical. Then he makes another film called Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Young Girls of Rochefort, another wonderful film. And Hollywood comes calling. And they say to him in the late 60s,

Jacques, come to America, make the film you want. You can make what you want. And he makes a film called Model Shop, which is... Never heard of it. ..a disaster. It's not a musical. It is incredibly odd it's known in the

industry as model flop for many years and Jacques Demy never gets to make another film in the States and you can watch La La Land and think oh ok, I'll tell you what this is this is somebody making the film they wish Jacques Demy had made when he got to Hollywood.

So it's set in Hollywood and it has all these references to the MGM musicals, but it's so like The Young Brothers of Cherbourg and so like The Young Girls of Rochefort. I mean, I really loved it. I loved it. Shall we start this mofo? Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. We're gathered cosily around the kitchen table in the distressed brickwork bedecked offices of our sponsors Unbound, the website which brings authors and readers together to create something special.

I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound. And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And joining us round that table are not one but two special guests this time for a unique episode of Batlisted in both its subject and the promise that has been made that it will be exceptionally foul-mouthed. So the first guest is Dr Una McCormack, a lecturer in creative writing at Anglia Ruskin University. She is also the New York Times bestselling author. By your own admission.

I love that. New York Times bestselling author. She has a sideline in writing novels based on TV and movie franchises. That's right. Such as? Star Trek. Amazing. Doctor Who.

And, this will test your age Blake Seven and you of all the people gathered around this table you are the one who knows most about Blake Seven, although I know a bit about Blake Seven usually that's true around any table it's funny when I go to

the Blake Seven folder in my brain and open it I find there's almost nothing in there. That's very like watching the DVDs. I must have watched many episodes in my young life. There are 52. They're incredible. Isn't that the same as Star Trek 75, isn't it, the original?

Oh, I can't remember. Our Georgette Hare episode will follow in several hours' time. Yes, we should say that our other guest is Cathy Rensenbrink. Cathy is an author and associate editor of the Bookseller and, like all the best people, a graduate of the Waterstones Academy for people who sell books well. Her memoir, The Last Act of Love About the Death of a Brother, was published to great acclaim last year.

It's a wonderful book, we have to say. It is a wonderful book. It is a wonderful book. Of recent publishing. And we're very, very pleased to have both of you here. The book Kathy and Una have come in to talk about is historic in several ways. It's historic because it is a period romance. Regency.

Venetia by Georgette Hayer. But it's also historic because only three men in history have ever read this book. Stephen Fry, John Mitchison and myself. I must say it's the achievement of my life that I have made you both read George at Hayer. I think that is spectacular. I'm done. I'm giving up. No matter what else happens in the whole rest of my life.

On the gravestone. The thought of Andy reading Venetia over the last few weeks has sustained me. It was one of the things that slightly kept me going, I have to say, imagining Andy reading it going pfff. I'm going to say, I'm showing my hand already. I really enjoyed it. The other part of our deal was that Andy was going to read

Venetia and I was going to read Anita Bruckner's first novel, which I now can't remember what it is. And also, I haven't read it yet! For the start in life and backlisted listeners will be heartily sick of me banging on about Anita Bruckner. But anyway... And I do feel a bit ashamed I haven't read it yet, but I also think, well, there's probably not many arenas

in which Georgia Hayer beats over Anita Bruckner, so we're giving one for her. I'll give you that, yes. But before we talk about that yes andy yes what have you been reading this week well coincidentally and it is a coincidence i've been reading a book by our former guest on backlisted samantha ellis she was on here talking about lolly willows and sylvia townsend warner she was great one of the great discoveries of last year for me me, anyway.

Her last book was called How to Be a Hero, and we talked a little bit about that when she was on. That is a biblio-memoir, terrific book. Anyway, she's got a new book out, which is the book I've been reading. It's called Take Courage, Anne Bronte and the Art of Life. And the combination of reading this and watching To Walk Invisible, Sally Wainwright's film over Christmas, I've sort of had a crash course in the Brontes.

I don't think I've ever really had. And the thing about the Brontes is it's so... Their lives are so incident-packed. I'm just going to read you out this one little... There's a story. Before we talk about Samantha's book, there's a story on page 67 of this book, which, if it were an event that happened to you in your life or the life of

someone you knew would be the defining event in their life but here it is just this is in passing anne was at school when patrick was shouted down at the 1837 haworth election hustings and 20 year old branwell tried to intervene the village made an effigy of branwell with a potato in one hand and a herring in the other and carried it through Main Street before burning it. I mean, if you had been burnt in effigy

by the age of 21, that would be enough to fuel an entire book, wouldn't it? But that's just a passing detail in this. What Samantha does in this book, which is so good, is she manages to make it about Anne Bronte Is she the eldest?

She is the youngest. She is the author of Agnes Grey and the Tenant of Wife. So it goes Charlotte, Emily Anne. Yeah, that's right. So although the book is about Anne, it's about the history of the Brontes. It's like a compendium of stories about all members of the family.

A Brontesaurus, if you will. Very nice. You've been polishing that all week. It gets up from table, walks out the door. They were really called Bronte, weren't they? Do you know that? They were really called all sorts of different things

before Patrick Bronte fixed upon It was to do with Nelson had a some wasn't it some to mark some medal that Nelson had been given

I can't remember I thought he just thought it sounded too Irish in Cambridge That's odd maybe I don't know It's that as well isn't it? Bronte

I think they had an Irish father Cornish mother like me which is why that's why I've retained that piece of information. But it's also a quite passionate book about

Anne Bronte and the extent to which Anne Bronte has been marginalised traditionally in the way the Brontes are written about but also Samantha does a really good thing which I think is quite risky because the extent to which it might not work is quite high,

of putting herself into the book in such a way as to personalise the story that she's telling you while she does it. And it's making those three elements balance out, which is, I think, what's so good about the book. It really moved... I found it very moving. Cathy, you've read it, haven't you? Yeah, I have, and I just loved it.

And it was such a treat. It was a treat. I read it... I was on the road doing was a it was a treat I read it I was on the road doing various festivals and of course having to you know I'd read all the books already but then having to sort of like revise three books for a panel that afternoon another three and that was the book I was reading when I was just reading for my own pleasure that was was no job and it was just beautiful it was like it palate cleansed me and intrigued and amused me all at the same time i

did think um charlotte doesn't come out of it tremendously well i didn't feel she doesn't i yeah i don't think she's terribly keen on charlotte while acknowledging her as a great writer because she the portrait she paints of charlotte in this book is of somebody who was sort of that famous phrase about paul mccartney and george harrison that uh paul mccartney was always uh two years older than george harrison and never let george harrison forget it in fact sam has a brilliant comparison this but you remember she has a brilliant comparison this but where she says like it's it's and been and bronte's sad loss in life to be the george harrison the broncos right there she's got you You've got Emily as the Lennon figure

and Charlotte as the controlling McCartney figure. I thought you were going to polish off. Bramwell is Stuart Suckley. Victor Lewis Smith's great line, you know, the Beatles are dying in the wrong order. But no, I really love the book and I recommend it just as a really fresh way. And is it just coincidence?

It's not connected to the TV show at all? No, not at all. But, I mean, the Brontes are always with us, aren't they? And her book, How To Be A Heroine, is also excellent. Like the Paul. Yes. And I really like that style of sort of literary criticism with some personal memoir threaded through.

Very readable, very enjoyable. Feels like a conversation. So I would just read her on anything, I think. She could say, I've got a book out next year. It's about X. And I'd say, yes, please. I'm always a bit nervous when people do the putting yourself in a book. But memories of the ghastliness of Peter Ackroyd's

fictional interpolations in his Dickens biography. Apologies, Mr Ackroyd, if you're listening. They were howling. I mean, it was a bad idea. It didn't work. But it sounds great. I mean, I think, like you say, they are always with us, but their lives were just remarkable, weren't they?

There's always something. That's the point. I mean, one of the reasons why they're always with us is because there are always new ways to talk about them and new ways to interpret them. Have you ever read The Tenants of Wildfell Hall? No, I have not. Is it good?

I read it last year. I absolutely loved it. And actually, it's very difficult. I think if you read this book about Anne Bronte and you haven't read The Tenants of Wildfell Hall, you sort of can't... I always wanted to. You'll want to read it so much. She lived in Scarborough for quite a long time, where my mum lived

for a while, or my dad and mum lived for a while. She died in Scarborough. She died in Scarborough. There were five errors on her gravestone. Really? Yeah. Anne without an E? Yeah. Got the age wrong. Brilliant.

She was the author of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. All sorts of stuff. Poor old Anne. The master storyteller. And yeah, where was the respect? Sorry, this is... Una, you... Was it you? I think you're one of the people who made me read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Yeah, I think you're one of the people who made me read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Yeah, I read, when I was on maternity leave, I went a bit mad and part of the contributory to that was I reread the whole of the Brontës. The whole of them, everything? Yeah, just the fiction. I read a load of Ancillary. Not the journals. Not the...

Sorry. The bus tickets and shopping lists. And Welfare Hall, I thought, was... That's a great summer project, isn't it, to do the Brontes? Yeah. Was that one of the ones that you felt came up? I'd read it before a long time ago. Probably I think most people read these as teenagers, don't they? I've never re-read Wuthering Heights.

The opening of it is exactly like Rising Dump it's extraordinary it really really is I absolutely loved it when I read it when I was 17 you were hanged dogs I re-read it a few years ago

and felt I'm now too old for it but actually I must say that is happening to me an awful lot now felt I'm now too old for it. Did you? Yeah, I found it a bit... But actually, I must say, that is happening to me an awful lot. Now that I'm the grand old age of 44, and I find I'm just not interested in people's romantic mutterings. It's boring. But also, that thing with the Bronsies books that seems it will never settle, which is good, is that different books seem to speak to different audiences

in different eras. And so The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which was... Is it gothic, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? No, it's social realist. And was very controversial when it was published, and was suppressed, effectively, by Charlotte after Anne's death. Anyway, what we do... Hey, John!

Oh, yeah, what have I been reading? So, now, for something completely different... What have you been reading this week? I've been reading a book called Mad Shepherds. This book was given to me by the novelist and general all-round good guy, Ben Myers, because he knew that I, in the winter, I get very, I find it difficult getting up in the dark. And the only thing that can coax me out of bed is to read books about nature. This is brilliant.

L.P. Jax is a sort of one of those figures that we don't really have. He's a Unitarian minister, wrote Between the Wars. This book was written in 1910. It's called Mad Shepherds. He knew and lived in the Cotswolds. He was, I think, one of the professors at Manchester College in Oxford and a writer and a sort of, you know, minor, kind of Shavian figure,

sort of philosopher, religious. But this is just bloody brilliant, this book. It's just, if you like, tales. The main character is a shepherd called Snarly Bob. And it's... I'm just... You know, I'm not going to try and sell it to you. I'm just going to read you a passage.

It's the fun. When Snarly Bob met Shepherd Toller at Valley Head, he found him accoutred in a manner which verified his private theory as to the levitation of the kettle. Coiled round Toller's left arm were three slings made from strips of raw ox hide with pouches, large and small, for hurling stones of various size.

Slung over his back was a big bag, also of leather, which contained his ammunition, smooth pebbles gathered from the torrent bed, the largest being the size of a man's fist. Strapped round his waist was a flint axe, the head being a beautiful celt which Toller had discovered long ago on clundowns and skillfully fixed in a handle with thongs this is the sentence that i love in the days of toller's first madness it had been his habit to wander over clundowns equipped in this manner he had lived in some fastness fastness of his own devising and supplied his larder by the occasional slaughter of a stolen sheep whose skull he would split with a blow

from the flint axe. The slings were rather for amusement than hunting, though his marksmanship was excellent and he was said to be able at any time to bring down a rabbit or even a bird. All day long he would wander in unfrequented uplands, slinging stones at every object that tempted his eye, and roaring and dancing

with delight whenever he hit the mark. He was inoffensive enough and had never been known to deliberately aim at a human being, though more than one shooting party had been considerably alarmed by the crash of Toller's stones among the branches or by his long-range sniping of the white-clothed luncheon table. On one occasion, Toller had landed a huge pebble the size of an eight-pound shot into the very bullseye of the feast, to wit, a basket containing six bottles of high-tech special reserve. On occasion, Toller had landed a huge pebble the size of an eight-pound shot into the very bullseye of the feast,

to wit, a basket containing six bottles of high-tech special reserve. It was this performance which led Sir George to report the case to the authorities and insist on Toller being put under restraint. It's just... What? Sorry, I'm unclear. Is this fiction or non-fiction? You know what? I'm still at the end of it. I think it's non-fiction, but I think it's fictionalised non-fiction.

It says literature. I mean, it's in a list. It's published by Oxford University Press. The stories are just... I mean, if you like rural stories of mad shepherds, and Snarly Bob is, of course, the font of all wisdom about these things. And the thing about shepherds is they don't really live in towns. They don't live in anything.

They live up on the downs with the sheep. So it's a kind of, yeah, it's a record of a lost world. It's got lots and lots and lots of funny. I must say, I'm looking at the blurb while you're talking to each other. There's some terrific stuff on the blurb. Other characters are Shoemaker Hankin. The Parson's wife who used to be an actress. A continuous vein of dry humour

runs throughout the book which manages to be absorbing and charming without being over-sentimental. I have had many, on a week of indifferent weather, I have to say, and dark mornings. I mean, I opened the, last Monday, I opened the curtains of that thing

and nothing happens when you open the curtains. The darkness is so absolute. It's been a joy. L.P. Jack's Mad Shepherds, published by... This isn't in print at the moment, is it? I don't think it is, but if you can find it, I think you might be able to, you know, eight books. If you like, you know, tales of eccentric

characters from rural life, this is the one for you. Also, the title, I like the title. What should we call this book? It's about mad shepherds. Oh, yeah. Let's call it Mad Shepherds. I bought this book hoping for it. We'll pick this up again after some adverts.

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First of several corrections that will be occurring. Or Dame Georgette. Or Dame Georgette. So Cathy, you chose this book, Venetia. When did you first encounter this book or Georgette Heyer's novels? Not when I was very young, which a lot of people that I know love Georgette Heyer sort of read them off their mother's bookshelves when they were 12, etc. My mother thinks this sort of thing is a pile of massive tripe, so I never got a sniff when I was growing up. of massive tripe, so I never got a sniff when I was growing up. And somehow, I didn't...

I'd go to the library and get out all the sort of Jean Prady, all that kind of thing, historical novels. But again, Georgia Hare wasn't in Snaith Library, so I sort of missed out. And I think it was when I lived in America for a bit, and in the... And I started reading, actually, American writers writing historical novels

set in England, which there is a big... Because they all love them, so there's vast amounts of, and they're all in very funny formats, like very small pocketbook paperbacks. Oh, I see, okay, yeah. So there's this, I can't remember her name now, there's this American writer who wrote books set in kind of 15th century York, so for some reason it was one of my quirks while I was living in New York, I would sort of eat these historical novels, and I think by that I accidentally started reading Georgia Hayer

and did very quickly realise this is a completely different, I think she's a completely different case from the rest, you know, the rest of the Regency romances. Yeah, the phrase Regency romance, I've just... So Regency romance is not... I didn't even know that was a genre until we started reading this and doing a bit of homework.

And clearly, it's not only is it a genre, it's a huge genre which still sells and Heyer still sells. It's like one of the best selling authors in the world still. It sells half a million copies or something

in the last... So you found these, so you would go out to Central Park, say, it's sort of like half a million copies or something in the last... So you found these... So you would go out to Central Park, say, or Times Square... There was a Barnes & Noble at the end of my... West 21st Street. Barnes & Noble, West 21st... It was 24 hour. Yeah, yeah. I was needing a slightly...

I was writing... This novel never came to anything. I was writing in the night and then sort of finishing at kind of five o'clock in the morning with nowhere to go. I would go down to the shop and bulk buy these. He's Georgia Hay, I know. I mean, utter pleasure, really, once you get there, once you kind of get into the swing of it.

I bloody loved it. Yeah, before we get to the... Let's continue with the enthusiastic, informed part of the show rather than the bemused men. Una, when did you, can you remember the first Georgia Hayer that you read? I think it might have been

Venetia, actually. It was Venetia or Friday's Child, which I think is her best one. And I also didn't read them as a teenager. My mum was too busy watching child Bronson films, so there's no Georgia Hayer. I came to her because I've got a writer that I love a lot, a science fiction writer called Lois Bujold. And in front of one of her books, she has a little epigram, and it's to Georgette, Jane, Dorothy and Charlotte.

And it's Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte. It's Dorothy Dunnett, who's a historical writer. Yeah, fantastic. And Georgette Heyer. And so my friends who were sort of pressing books on me and I was doing a PhD which meant I needed a lot of things to be doing that weren't that so I kind of started

to read her books but I think Venetia was the first one, yeah my 20s I've been really aware that when we've told people that we were going to be doing this that actually it's really encouraging when you see loads of people responding and saying, oh, I love Georgette Heyer, and oh, I can't wait to hear this.

And the enthusiasm for it. From Sarah Churchill. Yes, Sarah Churchill. American literature to India Night. Yeah. Harriet Evans is a big fan. Quite often there's a little Georgia Hay joke buried in one of her novels.

A.S. Byatt. John, did you enjoy reading this? I did really enjoy it. With a slight... I guess you have that thing of a slightly surprise that I'd never really thought about reading a Georgette Hare before because I love

historical fiction and I do like Dorothy Dunnett is somebody who I've read and enjoyed in the past but I just think she's very very good at what she does. I can't say that it made me reassess the function of fiction in my life but

a pure kind of chicken soup. I was saying earlier, maybe that fantasy you always have of just locking yourself away in a room and reading the whole of P.G. Woodhouse. I can imagine sitting there and serially... I think of her like Woodhouse. I don't think of her as the

leader of the Regency romance genre. For me, she sits on my kind of comfort comic novel shelves so Georgette Heyer, Woodhouse Map and Lucia, I Catcher the Castle for me she's in that space I'd rock it though with War actually

I think she's at least as good as War When you read a lot of them, do they become predictable? The outcome of Venetia is pretty well told. There's an awful lot of subverts. She subverts the form a lot as well. I think she's a comic novelist. She continually

jokes about the form. So quite often the heroine turns out to be not the heroine you're expecting. So for example, the talisman ring, which is another really great one. There's a sort of an obvious young couple. And then there's this kind of other romance that's happening very much off stage that's sort of

done with a wink to the older reader. Black Sheep does that as well doesn't it? I love Black Sheep. I must say I've told you exactly what I knew about Georgia Hayer before we did this and it was classic sorry Waterstones but it was a classic Waterstones thing

so I ran the fiction section in Waterstones, Kenton High Street, for a couple of years. And all I knew about Georgia Hayer, apart from the fact that they were then published as A-formats by Mandarin in the early 1990s, that's why I remember right, all I knew about her was that she'd written a book called These Old Shades.

Oh, yes. Because my floor manager, Andrew Vickery, would go, have you got These Old Shades? I can't find These Old Shades. And it floor manager, Andrew Vickery, would go, have you got These Old Shades? I can't find These Old Shades. It was a running joke between us. This is how we pass the time on lates until nine o'clock at night. We're making jokes about These Old Shades. But that's all I knew about her.

Well, it's no surprise that was the book that you'd heard of. That's the one I mentioned to you, wasn't it? It's a Gateway one, I think. It's her first big book, wasn't it? These Old Shades. I can't say that enough. That's not one of my favourites, actually. It's an early one.

It's a little bit cross. It's arch and camp. Not that those are necessarily bad things to be. It's phenomenal fun. It is lots of fun. Some cross-dressing. So, shall we... Blurb.

Shall we do the blurb first, or shall we have a flavour of it first? I am going to read the two blurbs, because they're both short. I've got a blurb from a 1970s edition of Venetia, and then I've got the blurb on the current edition. And there is a really fascinating... For once, there is a fascinating difference between these two. For once. Yeah, for once, exactly.

So, this is the 70s blurb. Here we go. Lord Dameril found Venetia to be the most truly engaging and wittily perverse female he had encountered in all his 38 years. Venetia knew her neighbour for a gamester, a shocking rake and a man of sadly unsteady character. It was therefore particularly provoking to find that, on a given occasion, Damerel could make up his mind to be quite idiotically noble,

mark of ellipsis. So that's the 70s one. Yeah, which doesn't actually make a great deal of sense. Here is the contemporary one, and we can spot the difference. There's a very significant difference. In all her 25 years, lovely Venetia Lanyon has never been further than Harrogate,

nor enjoyed the attentions of any but her two wearisomely persistent suitors. Then, in one extraordinary encounter, she meets a neighbour she only knows by reputation, the infamous Lord Dameral, and before she realises it, finds herself egging on a libertine whose way of life has scandalised the North riding for years. What is the difference between those two blurbs, everybody? Well, I would say that Venetia took more of a centre stage on the second one,

and that Dameral is the focus of the first. I would also say that in the later one, the blurb is catching up with the intent of the book. Yeah, absolutely right. And that is why I think George O'Hare is amazing. And also, I'm not surprised A.S. Byatt likes her that is why I think George O'Hare is amazing. And also, I'm not surprised A.S. Byatt likes her because one of my other

favourite novels of all time, if I can go a bit off topic, is Possession. Yeah. And a lot of Possession is about people, particularly Ellen Ash, giving a false idea of herself

through her journals. Yes. And I think that is so much of what George O'Hare is doing in her novels. She's sort of, yeah, yeah, I'm the Queen of Regency romances, whatever. But she's also continually joking

and telling jokes and doing something completely other. I found it very witty, I must say, which I wasn't expecting. So when it started, when I started reading it, I thought, oh, well, okay, this is quite Jane Austen, isn't it? But it's easier than Jane Austen.

I wonder what else it's going to do. And actually, you're right, Cathy, she assumes the reader will be familiar with that, and then she starts doing subtle but interesting things with it to keep you reading and keep you... And assumes that the reader knows her books as well, I think. You know, this later on in her career, you've read a lot of Hale.

What's she going to come up with this time? I'm three quarters of the way through. How's she going to get them together? So each time she's having to think up a new trick. And I think on the whole she does do it. One of the things I really liked about this book as it went on is you've definitely got... It's a story about Venetia,

the rake Lord Dameral, and Venetia's brother, Aubrey, who is lame, right? And she presents to you your sympathies are with these three outsiders. You're constantly being shown how they can't be free

in this very restricted society in which they've been born. And they almost form like a separate family group. You've got, like, Venetia as the mother, Dameril as the father, and Aubrey as the son. And I was also thinking, only once does she use the word libertine in relation to Dameril. But libertine is the right word.

It's liberty, it's freedom. He wants to be free to do what he wants to do, Venetia wants to be free to marry who she wants or not marry and the arrival of the marriage is what disrupts the household, the arrival of Conway's bride is what completely

kicks that into touch it breaks that up, it disestablishes what's going on and it means they have to move away from the house where they're living in this fantasy into some sort of different settlement I think. Conway is one of my absolute favourite characters in many, many books.

This is Venetia's elder brother. Because it was very, very close to the end of reading it the first time that I went, he's not going to turn up, is he? He's the god out of it. He's not going to turn up, is he? He's the god of it. He's not in this book, and yet, oh, you know him. You know this dreadful man.

You completely capture him. I agree. You see him punting on the cam. Very funny as well, keeping him off stage. Again, as I say, a very witty thing to do. Cathy, can you give us a flavour of the... Yes, I'll read a bit. One of the other things I think she just does spectacularly

is she's so good at terrible characters. She's really brilliant at mansplaining, actually. Loads of mansplaining throughout all her books. There's actually a great... Yardley. Yeah, Edward Yardley is a massive mansplainer. And I think she's really good on jealous and annoying troublemakers. And it's another theme across her books.

So in this case, Venetia has been looking after the household for her brother, who's away at the wars, and without telling them, his wife, his new wife, they don't know that he's got married, he's married, and he has this horrible, awful mother-in-law, and they arrive, they just arrive one day, and so she's talking to Damarel, and by this time, again, they have this really quite amazing friendship.

Their initial quite obvious clichéd courtship has mellowed into this friendship where he advises her on what to do and she listens to him. And Venetia just doesn't understand why Mrs Scoria is so horrible. And this is what Damarel says to her. One of the advantages of having led a sequestered life is that you've not until now encountered the sort of woman who can't refrain from quarrelling with all who cross her path. She is forever suffering slights and is so unfortunate as to make friends only with such ill-natured persons as soon or late

treat her abominably. No quarrel is ever of her seeking. She is the most amiable of created beings and the most long-suffering. It is her confiding disposition which renders her a prey to the malevolent, who from no cause whatsoever invariably impose upon her or offer her such intolerable insult that she is obliged to cut the connection. Have I hit the mark? Pretty well, said Aubrey, grinning wryly. I always think of Mrs Scoria as a version of the best villain in English literature, which is Mrs Norris from Mansfield Park.

The evil, evil aunt. But Scoria's just like her and has power, little power over people and wields it for evil. And always is sowing the seeds of her own destruction all the time because she just can't let well alone and will eventually be rooted by whoever. You were talking, Cathy, about Edward Yardley's Yardley-splaining. I've got a really

brilliant little bit here that Matt and I were discussing this, but we both spotted and made us both laugh out loud. So they're in London. He's visiting Venetia in London, isn't he? Yeah, he's particularly annoying on that visit, isn't he? Kind of smart. Yardley laughed heartily, saying how well he knew Venetia's literal mind

and promising to show her some places of interest which he ventured to think she might not yet have discovered. He himself had twice visited London and although on the occasion of his first visit he had been too much amazed and bemused to do more than stare about him, when he came for the second time he provided himself with an excellent guidebook the only which he sees no there's no i've got i've been twice and i've got a guidebook let me let me let me squire you around you're merely living yeah there's

another brilliant bit where he says to her allow me to know that i know you better than you know yourself so she does another thing. I was very grateful. I promised I would mention this. My friend Catherine Musket, a.k.a. Complete Reader on Twitter, sent me an essay that she'd written for her degree about Georgette Heyer and intertextuality.

And she had, as luck would have it, Venetia was the book that katherine focused on this essay is really good and it's full of interesting bits and pieces and i just want to read this listen to this she spots that haya has a thing that she likes doing in her novels of having characters quote shakespeare to one another without ever acknowledging to the reader that that's what they're doing presupposing that the reader will understand what the reference is and she says but but in Venetia she says it reaches a peak in addition to the Shakespearean references the novel features quotations from the Bible, Byron, Ben Johnson, Aubrey, Congreve, Campion,

Ben Johnson, Aubrey, Congreve, Campion, Marlowe, Drayton, Pope and Samuel Johnson, many of them italicised but unidentified. Nevertheless, Heyer's protagonists respond to Shakespearean quotations with perfect comprehension, apparently enjoying a remarkable familiarity with the complete works of Shakespeare and behaving as though quotation was an entirely natural feature of conversation. No matter how obscure the play, Shakespeare is so well known to the person she is writing for, Heyer implies, that he needs no introduction or explanation. Yes, and it's a mark of taste and a mark of quality, I think.

But also, though, it doesn't matter if you didn't know, it wouldn't alter your enjoyment of it, which is what I think, that's the thing. On the one hand, you could just want to read a Regency romance and you would read this and really enjoy it. But then on the other hand, there's all these other levels. And I think that rather than, I always used to, I like them actually, but you know when you read, I think P.D. James

has always got that Adam Dalgleish annoyingly quoting Shakespeare at characters who then annoyingly quote Shakespeare back. And Wimsey and Harriet Fane do it all the time. And they don't half hit you over the head with it because they're always having to explain to you how clever they are. But there's none of that here. It's seeded gently through so that the knowledgeable

reader can think, oh, Cherry Ripe, how nice. But if you don't get that, it doesn't matter and you're not excluded as a reader. I think it's so I think there's a bit of it as well that I really like. As a side note to this, one of her detective novels, Envious Casca, which I think is, I don't know where it's from, is it from Julius Caesar?

It's been reissued, but they've changed the title and taken off the Shakespeare quotation. Christmas Party or something. They just reissued it without that. So no longer do we assume that her readers will be familiar with Shakespeare. Though I think in that case, they just wanted to bring it out as a Christmas detective novel.

Yeah, that's true. To be fair. What I have to say, amongst many things that I loved about the book, the 18th century slang that she uses is fabulous. So just a little bit here of, this is Dameril. The banter between Dameril and Venetia is kind of the heart of the book, really. They get on extremely well from the get-go, apart from the unfortunate kiss,, apart from the unfortunate, you know, kiss,

which is not that unfortunate. Anyway, I love this. He's talking about some aunts. They're bent on re-establishing me. There are three of them, and they're all antidotes. Two are unmarried and live together, one's fobsy-faced and Toth is a squeeze crab, and the eldest is a widow,

and the most intimidating female you ever beheld. She lives in a mausoleum in Grosvenor Square, rarely stirs out of it but holds the receptions, very like the Queen's drawing rooms. She's clutch-fisted, dressed like a quiz, has neither wit nor amiability, and yet by means unknown to me, unless it be by force of character, and I'll allow she has that,

has persuaded the ton that she is a second Lady Cork to whose salons it is an honour to be invited. She sounds very disagreeable. She sounds very disagreeable. She is very disagreeable. A veritable dragon. But there's a lot in a short space. The tonne. I'm going to say a bit about the

little potted biography of Georgia Hayer because we should talk a little bit about the things that she was famous for in her writing lifetime as well because they are very relevant to what we're talking about in terms of that detail john you know so georgia here is born in 1902 and she dies in 1974 and she's the eldest of three children her first novel the black moth based on her younger brother's haemophilia was published in 1921 when she was 19 and her father died in 1925,

leaving Georgette Heyer with financial responsibility for the whole family. And in 1926 she's already... So how old is she? She's like 24. She releases her sixth novel, the aforementioned These Old Shades. And it's a Georgian romance and it's the making of her. It sells 190,000 copies despite no reviews or advertising because of the general strike which is occurring at the same time with the result that because it sold so many copies

we don't have any audio of Georgette Heyer to play into the show today because she gave almost no interviews or did any publicity for the rest of her life. She absolutely refused, didn't she? And she basically, she invents, as we discussed, the Regency romance. And she was a ferocious researcher. So the books are full of very specific primary research that she found not just in books. She had like a library of a thousand books,

but also private letters that she would buy at auction to try and squirrel out particular details about costume or language and she was active in the courts pursuing other writers who had ripped her off and she could often prove that they were using language which she had uncovered specifically in a private letter but she also she didn't always get very good reviews. I have a reference to her here as mistress of the sheerest kind of romantic fluff. And she wrote an essay for Punch,

I don't know if you've read this, called How to Be a Literary Critic. This is her response to some of those reviews. If when you are first-handed the latest work of one whom you suspect to be your literary superior, you feel that it would be effrontery for you to criticise, do not decline to do so. Remember that no qualifications are necessary for a literary critic.

And that furthermore, this is the day of the little man. When the more insignificant you are and the more valueless your opinions, the greater will be your chance of obtaining a hearing. So I think she sort of cared and didn't care, didn't she? She sold these vast quantities. She really harboured ambitions. She writes five or six literary novels really at the start and then she suppresses them later. harboured ambitions to be lit. I mean, she writes five or six literary novels, really, at the start,

and then she suppresses them later. And then she... Yeah, yeah, you can't get them. You're probably tracking them through the library or something. But these don't... You know, you can't get them. They're not reissued. And then she does a book called Penhalo. Yeah. Yeah, which she sort of... Clearly, in her mind, she thinks that this is going to be

the thing that establishes her as a literary writer. And the problem with Penhalo is it's shit. It's a really bad book. I read somewhere, and I don't remember where, I thought Penhalo, it was purposefully bad because she wanted to break her contract with that publisher. No, she, oh, my impression was she, well, no, no.

She's really put her heart into it. I don't know where I have that information from. I think she's going to be... You know, she thinks it's going to be... But it's a terrible, terrible book. It's an awful novel, yeah. But then what she does... And it's not badly reviewed,

but what she... It's tepidly reviewed, and I think it's not the breakout book. And then after that, it's just Regencies. But the next book is Friday's Child, and that's brilliant. Is that the breakout Regency book for her, then? No, These Old Shades is the breakout.

But after Penhalo, the crime drops off, there's no more literary, it's just the Regencies. But she's not a very likeable person. You're right, she doesn't come across as terribly likeable. There's brilliant quotes here about how annoyed she was. She's constantly being harassed for tax. She's constantly having tax problems. She writes Venetia to pay a tax bill.

Does she? She says here, she said, oh, these tax bills, she says. This is in a letter to her lawyer. I'm getting so tired of writing books for the benefit of the Treasury. And I can't tell you how utterly I resent the squandering of my money, underlined, on such fatuous things as education. And making life easy and luxurious for so-called workers. I mean, I think we can guess.

It's time it's come again, Andy. She took back control. She hated the modern age. She would often inveigh against the wretched time to be alive. age, she would often invade against the wretched time to be alive and she despised the whole industry of publicity and

authors talking about their work She was very concerned about doing a good job and obviously very concerned about sales. John was talking about the use of slang. She's so I must try and work

into my everyday use of slang. Her euphemisms for drunk are brilliant. She's obviously found a list somewhere. He released her, pressing his hands over his eyes.

Hell and the devil, I'm jug-bitten. I'm drunk as a wheelbarrow. And his valet says, look out Miss Venetia, he's eaten whole cheese. I discovered that Bambury's story, I'd never heard

a Bambury story before. And a Bambury story was the original cock and bull story. A sort of Bambury story of a cock and bull. So without suggesting that it remotely smells of the lamp,

because she does make it work, I don't know, it's quite... What I was most reminded of was sort of Jane Austen. In fact, Rachel, my wife, who's a big fan, she said they're a bit like straight-to-DVD sequels to Jane Austen. She happily identified her two types of male hero. Do you know this? As the Mark I and the Mark II.

And the Mark I is a sort of Rochester-stroke Heathcliff figure, and the Mark II is more of a Darcy. And she wrote... And Oswald and Yardley think that they're Mark I and Mark II. But the thing is, she knew that. And she wrote another essay called Books About the Brontes, funnily enough, given in Sam Ellis' book that we were talking about.

And she said this about Charlotte Bronte. She said, Charlotte Bronte knew, perhaps instinctively, how to create a hero who would appeal to women throughout the ages. And to her must all succeeding romantic novelists acknowledge their indebtedness, for Mr. Rochester was the first, and the non-pareil of his type. Very hey-er word, that, the non-pareil of his type. He is the rugged and dominant male who can yet be handled by quite ordinary a female, as it might be oneself! He is rude, overbearing, and and often a bounder but these blemishes however repulsive

they may be in real life can be made in the hands of a skilled novelist extremely attractive Charlotte Bronte immensely skilled knew just where

to draw the line and actually I think that's the brilliant thing Cathy about Haya that she as you were saying

she takes things that you sort of feel familiar and then makes them much better than they need to be and funnier. Heroes not turning out how they're supposed to be. The rakes are always very ready to be reformed as well, which is... Or not quite as rake-ish as reputation has. Not quite as rake-ish, yes, exactly.

There's a lot of... Daniel turns out to be a thoroughly decent human being, doesn't he? Yes. I mean, it is to some extent predictable. You can see what's going to happen. We were talking earlier about them being unpopular. You were saying Germaine Greer didn't like them. And I can sort of see it.

They're either strong feminist kind of heroines or they're slightly the kind of feminist heroines that aren't that feminist really because in the end... I doubt they stand up to feminist reading, or they're slightly, you know, the kind of feminist heroines that aren't that feminist, really, because in the end... I doubt they stand up to feminist reading, do they? Which, personally, I don't care about. But they've been somewhat reclaimed, haven't they? That's what's interesting about these things.

Like we were saying about the Brontes earlier, Germaine Greer is very dismissive of them. Carmen Khalil, very dismissive of them. Carmen Khalil says she basically just rejigged the plot of Jane Eyre 57 times. But did she read 57 books? I bet she bloody didn't. I bet she didn't. You know, that's the thing when... That generation were around when she was alive,

and there might well be a case, I think, you know, that it takes... This is a very Welbeckian idea. But what happens is critics never change their mind, they just die, and then another generation of critics comes up never change their mind. They just die, and then another generation of critics comes up and takes their place. This is the first time Welbeck and George O'Hara have been bookended in a podcast.

Probably never when Miller and I are on the chat. It's true. Very true. Very true. I mean, I do think you would have to have a sort of, you know, as they say, a heart of stone not to, I mean, to just cheer pleasure of, you know, she's a very good storyteller. A master storyteller. She is, though.

I really enjoy it. I mean, the moment where the wife arrives, Conway's wife, she kind of puts an appearance in. You pull back from the book and you go, that is bang on halfway. And now we've turned the motor and we're off again and then I think you said something about three quarters of the way through, she's not messing about this is a fine tuned thing So why this one, Cathy?

Yes, good question They're not all good, some of them are peculiar so I have a handful of favourites and actually, it was just this was the one I fancied re-reading most because I read them again and again I read them all the time I've got a shelf of them

because I can't read new things before going to sleep because if it's any good I don't go to sleep I stay up all night reading it which is obviously nice on a one-off but it's not actually achievable in general I love these readings like me having to read Consoling Tales of Rural Life to get me out of bed. It's like me having to read consoling tales of rural life

to get me out of bed in the morning and you having to read books you've already read. I do, yeah. The secret story of this podcast is always the secret anguish of reading. Yeah, that's entirely true. I like to think I measure in that, that Cathy, you're so good on this topic.

You know, we don't want anyone to feel sorry for us, but when it comes down to it, you know, I was really... I'm just... It's not my to feel sorry for us, but when it comes down to it, I was really... I hate the phrase, but it's not my comfort zone at all. So I'm trying to... Regency Remotes is not your bag. When I started reading it,

obviously with the eyes of, I've given Andy and John this to read, I started reading it thinking, oh God, it's awful, and why did I choose this one, and I should have chosen something else, and then I just got into it and thought, oh, fuck it. It's okay,

you know? Or gammon. I'm so pleased as well, I must add, and this is true, I'm so pleased to have read it. Not to have finished it, but I mean to be someone who's read it. I feel a little bit, I mean, I'm interested that

we, it's not even it would never have occurred to us to read a George at Hair and why that is the fact that there are boys books and girls books at all seems to me to be curious and that these I'm absolutely struck by how many

really really smart women who've gone on to be writers or academics. Absolutely. You know, when you say Georgia Hare, they go, yes, I love her. I think she's right on that list of books that loads of people will slag off without never having been anywhere near. Which, let's face it, is a long list. And I think she was read by men during her lifetime.

I think she was read as a historical novelist. I always just have this idea that she researches so well. I mean, I don't know whether she gets the stuff right about the steel foundries or Stevenson's rocket or whatever it is, and I'm sure it's not Stevenson's rocket because, again, that's not the sort of detail I noticed. So I wouldn't remember it. But there's loads of stuff in that and also

there's quite often, I think it's in that one where you've got a lazy aristo and the eager young man who is his secretary is trying to make him take an interest in parliamentary matters and he won't. All those sorts of things. So there's always this very nicely done background.

We were talking about her on Twitter and maybe it was Complete Reader. She said she was a man's woman. She liked the company of men. There's a lovely quote, A.S. Byatt quotes, Paya knows the ways

in which men of birth used up their energy when they weren't fighting wars. She knows all about, and this is apparently what men do, sheep breeding, the new crops of turnips, swedes and mangelwurzels,

about Coke of Norfolk, tolls drilled, manures and rotation of crops. And about Coke of Norfolk, tolls drilled, manures and rotation of crops. And this is what men do, apparently. Yeah, it's true. That's very interesting that idea that she was published that what was interesting about her

books in publishing terms and presumably therefore was a big part of her success was this conspicuous sorry, all these words are was this conspicuous... Sorry, all these words are loaded. Conspicuous, it sounds pejorative in some way. I don't mean it to be.

This conspicuous research. She did the research and she puts it on the page for the reader. And that's part of the pleasure of reading them. I wonder if the equivalent in male terms, to some extent, and I'm sure people who listen to this will disagree but I'm I wonder if it's rather like Patrick O'Brien

that the presentation of both research and seeming authenticity is part of the appeal. No I don't think that. Let me clarify what I mean. I just think that's part of the appeal of Patrick O'Brien's books. I think you're right don't think that. I don't think that. Let me clarify what I mean. I just think that's part of the appeal of Patrick O'Brien's books. I think you're right.

I think that there's a cumulative... I can see why you would want to read more than one. Because I think there's a sort of... You want to get a new thing in. Like O'Brien, that's a really good comparison. There's a sort of cumulative effect that there's a whole... I mean, you know, she's mistress of this world. I think the wives bought them

and the husbands read them. I would also say I think she's when she's, you know, she's a good writer. There's just a little paragraph here which I noticed, I thought anyone would be pleased to write a paragraph like this. Aubrey remained for ten days at the priory

and even the weather conspired to make them halcyon days for his sister. There was only one wet and chilly day in all the ten and then the gold of the mellowing landscape crept into the house for Damrel had a fire kindled in the library and its light flickering over the tool backs of the volumes that lined the room from wainscot to cornice made them glow like turning leaves. That's pretty good.

It's pretty nice. I must say, my editor would have been very cross with her pen about the fact that there are three days or day in quite quick succession. Which I never used to notice that sort of thing until the brilliant Francesca Mayne has made me hyper aware of it. It's true. The repetition of words.

There's another really nice passage here about this very short description of London at It's true. The repetition of words. There's another really nice passage here about, it's a very short description of London at night. Yes. It seemed as though no one ever went to bed in London. Yeah. And whenever during a lull in the apparently endless flow of traffic she dropped off to sleep, she was very soon jerked

awake by the voice of the watchman, proclaiming the hour and the state of the weather. She could only suppose that the ears of Londoners had been bludgeoned into insensitivity and trust that her own would soon grow accustomed to the ceaseless racket. And being a well-mannered girl, presently assured her aunt that she had passed

an excellent night and was feeling perfectly restored from the effects of her journey. Isn't that good? Cathy and Una, if we were minded to press ahead with Georgette Heyer, should we read other of her Regency romances? Should we read her crime?

Should we read her novels set in other periods of history? Her journals? Her journals, yeah. The handful of letters. I think the Regency, the best Regency romances are the best ones. I'd say Frederica is very good. Also, False Colours, which is very interesting, has identical twins who change places.

Identical twin boys who are both 24. And again, there's all sorts of manly stuff. What's that called? Did you say False Colours? False Colours, yeah. And one of them is very much in the petticoat line until he has to marry a girl called Cressida Stavely to save his mother. His mother is a terrible, she's terribly

in debt so he has to save the scandal of his mother. He has to get married so that he can release the trust and he has to marry this girl but he goes off to finish with the ladybird in Tunbridge Wells that he's been shacked up with and then he has an accident and his brother who's a diplomat has to step in and pretend to be him

for a bit and then of course they all start falling in love with different people it's very funny I have to say that, you've made that sound fantastic I'll see you out here in a fortnight and the talisman ring as well that's a favourite of mine that involves smugglers Luna have you got a favourite?

My favourite is Friday's Child which is about a bunch of very young very rich airheads who get married sort of by accident on the first page, pretty much, and then have to sort of make it work. Money helps. And that's hilarious. That is so funny.

Again, just really well crafted and it just bounces along. And again, that's a very good one. The heroine is not, because there is a beauty called Isabella Milbourne and people are always fighting jewels over her, but she's not the heroine. The heroine is the small, scruffy, poor girl. And then there's a fabulous sort of abortive elopement that, again, just takes the piss out of the whole genre magnificently.

And the circle of friends. Brings it all around beautifully. The circle of friends, Ferdy and Gil and all that lot, it's so funny. I have to tell our listeners that Mitch is sitting here reading Georgia Hayes to himself. That's it now, every single bath. She's a great one for the testy pup.

I love that. Obstinate whelp. There's also, just in case you don't read the others because of course this one is set very, the whole point about it is Venetia has never really gone further than Harrogate and although they go to London briefly you don't get much of it but actually the ones set in London where you have the

court and you have balls and all that sort of thing and the other ones where people go to the country and then they go to Bath to take the air. So all that stuff and I think it's one of the reasons why it is satisfying to obsessively re-read them again and again and again because of all sorts of personal peculiarities is because there is this interconnected world.

So you read something in one that will explain the reference you didn't quite get in the other one about watering holes or whatever. So it adds up and up and up and up. Dr McCormack, is there a Georgette Hayer fanfic? Oh, God, yes. Good heavens, yeah. There's Middlemarch fanfic.

Of course there is. Yeah, of course there is. I don't know, I'm just getting old, but I found Venetia quite alluring as a female. Did you? Yeah, I did. It's her laughing voice. Maybe.

She says a lot of things laughingly. Does she? A very lowering reflection. Do you know what it is? I think I'm older than Dam laughing voice. Maybe. She says a lot of things laughingly. Do you have a very lowering reflection? Do you know what it is? I think I'm older than Damerol. I'm definitely older than Damerol. I mean, a child. But of course, when I first read this book he was sort of a mid-age man.

And now the libertine John Mitchinson. Sign us out. I think we should all twirl our cravats. But I think we're all giving ourselves, we're all sort of, you know, throwing our hats in the air and saying gammon. We are throwing our hats in the air, I agree.

Yeah, because I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I honestly don't think we would have probably got to Georgia at Hair without your firm push, Cathy. I shall go to my grave a happy woman hopefully not too soon um i don't think it's in here but can i just share my favorite i use this for describing my own relationship with inebriation can i tell you my favorite heirism yes i'm three parts disguised obviously i'm not at the moment but who knows

yeah it's good it's good it it's good, it's lovely. I suppose that's probably a good point to pull the curtains, the Damask screens. Thanks to Una McCormick, to Cathy Rensenbrink, to our producer Matt Hall, and thanks once again to our sponsors Unbound. You can get in touch with us on Twitter, at BacklistedPod, on Facebook, BacklistedPod, and on the Unbound website, unbound.com forward slash backlisted. Thanks for listening.

We'll be back with another episode in a fortnight. Until then, farewell. You can choose to listen to Backlisted with or without adverts. If you prefer to listen to it without adverts, you can join us on our Patreon, patreon.com forward slash backlisted, where you also get bonus content of two episodes of Locklisted, the podcast where we talk about the books and films and music that we've been listening to over the last couple of weeks.