Presented by Dr. Jennifer Kloester at East Melbourne library
On Tuesday evening, around 75 people attended “More Than Romance: The Witty World of Georgette Heyer” which was presented by Dr. Jennifer Kloester at East Melbourne library. Jennifer spoke about how Heyer’s family background and early life shaped her as a writer, and how she had her first book, “The Black Moth”, published on the UK and the USA in 1920, while she was still a teenager. The book is still in print today. Jennifer explained how Heyer explored a range of both historical and contemporary settings for her first 18 novels, before she wrote her first “Regency” novel, “Regency Buck” which was published in 1935. She went on to write a total of 27 books set in the true Regency period (1811-1820), which Jennifer contrasted with the much more elastic definition of Regency that has been used by other authors. Jennifer also commented on Heyer’s 12 crime fiction novels, where she collaborated with her husband Ronald Rougier, who provided the “who dunnit” and “how dunnit” elements which Georgette set in a narrative framework filled with realistic and well-drawn characters. The talk was illustrated by many slides of Jennifer’s impressive personal collection of Heyer books, together with a display of Heyer books from Chris Browne’s collection.
Have a look at the Prahran Mechanic’s Institute event “Shaping Stories”