25-580: The Grand Sophy is a Regency romance novel by Georgette Heyer . It was first published in 1950 by Heinemann in the UK and Putnam in the U.S. Sales were brisk. Heinemann reported that in Australia it sold forty thousand copies in its first five months. There was also a Book Club edition in 1951. For the past several years, Sophia Stanton-Lacy (known as Sophy to everyone) has lived away from England, following her diplomat father Sir Horace around Europe while
50-414: A changing reader base. While some long-time readers balked, publishers viewed the inclusion of sex scenes as a means of keeping the subgenre afloat. The goal was to appeal to a new generation of readers while still delivering the witty and clever plotlines loyal readers love. Regency romance authors such as Sandra Heath, Anita Mills, and Mary Balogh were the first to write about sexual relationships between
75-419: A cold and huddles by the fireside with his feet in a mustard bath , tended by Eugenia, who furiously renounces Charles when he ventures to criticize her conduct. This leaves Charles free to embrace Sophy roughly and drag her off into the night, leaving Sancia and her new husband Sir Vincent to cope with the invalids, the abstracted poet and a boxful of escaping ducklings. The Grand Sophy , set in 1816, puts out
100-657: A dangerous fever. Sophy and Cecilia nurse her through this crisis while Charlbury constantly visits to ask after Amabel’s health. Bromford and Eugenia, by the cautious advice of their respective mothers, stay well clear of the house. As for Sir Vincent, having been refused by Sophy he transfers his attention to Sancia, the Marquesa de Villacañas, Sir Horace’s intended bride, who lives out of town in Merton . The dénouement comes one tempestuous evening when Sophy prevails on Lord Charlbury to drive her to an isolated house of her father’s,
125-570: A distinction between "Traditional Regency Romance" and "Regency Historical". Many authors have started by writing Traditionals and subsequently written Historicals, including Mary Balogh , Jo Beverley , Loretta Chase , and Mary Jo Putney . The distinction rests on the genre definition of Regency Romance: works in the tradition of Georgette Heyer, with an emphasis on the primary romance plot, are considered traditional. Traditional Regency Romance writers usually pay close attention to historical detail, as their readers are notorious for noting errors, and
150-498: A lifetime of Continental liberty. Outgoing, chic, and quite independent, she takes London by storm with her unconventional manner. Though most of the Ombersley household take to Sophy, her autocratic cousin, Charles Rivenhall, is wary of the change she represents. Having been raised with a passive, sickly mother and an intemperate, gambling addict father, Charles, now 26 and in receipt of a large inheritance from an uncle, has assumed
175-452: A socially mixed message. Its heroine is quick to punish the snobbish Miss Wraxton by scandalously driving her unescorted on an open phaeton past the male haunts of Pall Mall . But while snobbery was "inherent in the social hierarchy" of the periods depicted in Heyer's novels, the author's own prejudices do occasionally surface in her writing too. One particularly maladroit example occurs in
200-472: A special imprint, Fawcett Coventry , which published Regencies and romances from other historical periods. The Regency-set books written by authors such as Christina Dodd , Eloisa James , and Amanda Quick are generally considered to be Regency Historical works. Regency romances which may include more social realism, or, conversely, anachronistically modern characterization, might be classed by some as "Regency Historical", signifying that their general setting
225-592: Is in Regency England , but the plot, characterization, or prose style of the work extends beyond the genre formula of the Regency romances published by Heyer and her successors. Characters may behave according to modern values, rather than Regency values. The sensual Regency historical romance has been made popular in recent years by Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley, Loretta Chase, as well as Lisa Kleypas , and Stephanie Laurens . These novels are much more explicit than
250-574: Is not well in the Rivenhall household and proceeds to solve the various problems of the family with her trademark flair, saving her cousin Hubert from a rapacious moneylender, arranging through an involved scheme her cousin Cecilia's extraction from her infatuation with (and later engagement to) the handsome but talentless poet, Augustus Fawnhope, and promoting her marriage to the eligible Lord Charlbury,
275-418: Is regretting his betrothal to Sancia but declines to leave the Ombersley fireside, convinced as he is that Sophy is perfectly capable of solving all complications. By dint of shooting Charlbury and giving him a flesh wound, the romantic sight of his lordship with his arm in a sling brings Cecilia to acknowledge her love for him, whereupon Fawnhope magnanimously relinquishes her into his care. Brompton has caught
SECTION 10
#1732782877295300-485: The "Traditional Regency" works and include many more love scenes. Many Regency romance novels include the following: Like other fiction genres and subgenres, Regencies experience cyclic popularity swings. The readership waned during the 1990s with the rise of historical romances (and the switch of many Regency writers to the historical genre). In the early 2000s, both Regencies and other historical romances lost popularity in favor of contemporary settings. The market in
325-475: The 19th-century contemporary works of Jane Austen , but rather from Georgette Heyer , who wrote over two dozen novels set in the Regency starting in 1935 until her death in 1974, and from the fiction genre known as the novel of manners . In particular, the more traditional Regencies feature a great deal of intelligent, fast-paced dialogue between the protagonists and very little explicit sex or discussion of sex. Many readers and writers of Regency romance make
350-664: The Napoleonic Wars raged on. Now that the Battle of Waterloo is won and Napoleon has once again been exiled, her father receives a temporary post in Brazil . Instead of taking his twenty-year-old daughter with him on this occasion, he asks his sister, Lady Ombersley, to watch over his "little Sophy" and help find her a husband. However, "little Sophy" is nothing like anyone expected: 5'9" in her stockings and quite used to getting her own way, with no mother and no governess and after
375-475: The United States was hurt by changes in distributing and retailing romances. The last two major U.S. publishers to produce the shorter "traditional" Regencies regularly were Zebra and Signet . This ended in 2005, when Zebra stopped their traditional Regency line, and early 2006, when Signet ended its Regencies. There are some new "traditional" Regencies still published in the United States; some of
400-414: The criminal consequences of Nazi racism. In extenuation, Jennifer Kloester points out that the portrayal of Goldhanger is more of "a literary caricature…whose antecedents were undoubtedly Dickens's Fagin and Shakespeare's Shylock ". In reality Georgette Heyer readily admitted that one of her own grandfathers was Jewish. Contemporary reviews of the novel commented mainly on its historical faithfulness to
425-449: The decayed Lacy Manor. Eugenia calls on the Ombersley household to announce that Sophy has eloped, unaware that Sophy has summoned Sancia to Lacy Manor in order to guard her reputation. The supposed lovers are pursued through the rain by Eugenia and Cecilia, with Lord Bromford on horseback as escort. When Charles, away from home at the time, hears of this, he sets out for Lacy Manor himself, shortly after his uncle has returned home. Sir Horace
450-515: The episode where Sophy confronts the Jewish moneylender Goldhanger, as a result of which some editions have been redacted to omit the passages of racial stereotyping. In this case it cannot be argued that its antisemitic overtones are "just a product of her time" (as they certainly were in the period depicted), since at the time Heyer's novel was written, the Nurenberg trials had just been exposing
475-427: The few publishers that still do so are Avalon Books , Five Star Books , and Cerridwen Press (Cotillion). Previously published Regencies are also available through the second-hand book market, via Belgrave House (which publishes out-of-print books), and as e-book reprints. The Regency subgenre changed somewhat during the 1990s and 2000s, when authors began incorporating more sex into their novels, under pressure from
500-507: The former is "more successful and enterprising". Regency romance Regency romances are a subgenre of romance novels set during the period of the British Regency (1811–1820) or early 19th century. Rather than simply being versions of contemporary romance stories transported to a historical setting, Regency romances are a distinct genre with their own plot and stylistic conventions. These derive not so much from
525-450: The hero and heroine (or more rarely, between the hero and his mistress). Not all Regency romance novels are frothy period pieces. Such authors as Balogh, Carla Kelly , Sheila Bishop , Anna Harrington, and Mary Jo Putney all depict the underbelly of Regency society, exploring a variety of social ills in their novels. Some authors feature seriously troubled heroes and heroines, who suffer from post-battle trauma, alcoholism, depression, and
SECTION 20
#1732782877295550-476: The man favoured by her brother and parents and, ultimately, the man Cecilia discovers she loves. During the period that her father is away in South America, Sophy attracts to herself several would-be suitors: the fortune-hunting Sir Vincent Talgarth, the mollycoddled Lord Bromford and, seemingly, Lord Charlbury himself. Insight into their characters is given when Amabel, the youngest Ombersley girl, catches
575-573: The period. For the Chicago Sunday Tribune , "It is no small feat to make Regency London come to life, and to make its characters speak and act as did the people of that time and place, without too much quaintness or strangeness of manner." Patrick Thursfield, in The Times Literary Supplement , goes to the contemporary model of Jane Austen and compares Sophy to Emma Woodhouse for her match-making, although
600-449: The role of the adult in the household. Forced by his father's debt to shoulder the family finances, he resents the disruption by his lively and confident cousin of what has become, in all but name, his household. With Charles encouraged in domestic tyranny by his narrow-minded and spiteful fiancée Eugenia Wraxton and her tale-bearing brother Alfred, Sophy and her cousin begin a battle of wills. Soon after her arrival, Sophy realizes that all
625-422: The writers often do extensive research so they can clearly understand and replicate the voice of the genre. After Heyer's novels became popular in the United States in the 1960s, many publishers began publishing other Regency-set books by new authors, including Clare Darcy and Elizabeth Mansfield . Signet, Dell, and Fawcett were among those publishing Traditional Regencies in paperback; the latter eventually began
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