Georgette Heyer

I was turned on to Georgette Heyer, iirc, by a comment thread over on Making Light. I love romance novels, both modern and ancient (took a class on the topic once, so part of my degree is given for reading a Harlequin Presents novel), so I immediately went to the library and read every book of hers I could find.

She is so awesome.

My favorites:

1) The Grand Sophy

2) Devil's Cub (and it's prequel, These Old Shades)

3) Venetia

4) Sylvester, or, the Wicked Uncle

5) All the rest of them.

There's a good review of Devil's Cub at the Smart Bitches that makes a compelling argument for more heroines shooting people in romance novels.

talk sexy to me, wystan hugh

". . . that always rare and now almost extinct creature, the Intellectual Dandy. The generic name is paradoxical for, by definition, no dandy is like another; what they have in common is their unlikeness to anybody else. The Dandy is neaither a conformist nor a rebel, for both those terms imply a concern for Public Opinion and the Dandy has none: on one occasion his views may coincide with those of the majority, on another with those of the minority, but in both cases the coincidence is accidental. The same is true of his interests. One of the ways in which an Intellectual Dandy can be recognized is by the unpredictability of his work; no knowledge of his previous books offers any clue as to what he will write next. . . . By definition, a Dandy can have no followers: the only influence he can have on others is as an example of what it means to be oneself."

W. H. Auden, in "On Edmund Wilson's Apologies to the Iroquois"