She basically invented the genre, out of her extensive knowledge of and research into the period, and her books are an object lesson in how historical research can be whipped into a fantasia of literary delight, without betraying and besmirching the source material. Heyer is not your run-of-the-mill writer of Regency romance. Frontispiece from Venetia © 2021 by Sally Dunn But you would be doing her a severe injustice, as Stephen Fry explains in his excellent introduction to the new Folio edition of Heyer’s Venetia.

If you are like me, you might also have disdained Heyer for years as a writer of silly, fluffy Regency romances with bodice-ripping cover images.

The matter at hand is the publication of another prolific author who until now has been ignored by Folio: Georgette Heyer. I devoutly hope that more and better books by this author will be on the way as well.īut I digress. House is one of my least favorite Jones books, but it is nice for completists to have the three books set in the same world as Howl’s Moving Castletogether on their shelf, in absolutely splendid guise. One of these is Diana Wynne Jones, whose “Castle trilogy” ( not really a trilogy, folks!) is now complete with the publication of House of Many Ways. One of these good things is that the Folio Society, imprimatur of beautiful books, has finally started to publish some authors I’ve been saying for years they should add to their list. The world may be in a chaotic mess in many ways, but some good things are also happening.

Venetia heyer