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OK, even after ALL these years I STILL love Georgette Heyer. I'm so happy that they're re-issuing her novels in trade paperback form because most of my copies are at least 20 years old (some closer to 30 years old) and in sore need of replacement.
I'm re-reading The Unknown Ajax after finally purchasing a new copy -- the copy I bought in Paris in 1985 has officially died...chunks falling out, etc. This book contains a classic Heyer observation -- one of the reasons she's still one of my fave authors. In describing Claude, an aspirant to dandyism, she says...
But he was not without ambition. It was his ardent desire to become just such a leader of Fashion, such an arbiter of Taste, as Mr. Brummel had been, until so short a time ago. He grudged Vincent none of his fame as a member of the Corinthian set; it would not have gratified him in the least to have been hailed as an out-and-outer, a regular dash or a right cool fish: his heart was set on becoming the chief Pink of the Ton.
This ambition found no favor at all in the eyes of his parents, and would, indeed, have been impossible to realize had not a stroke of amazing good fortune befallen Claude. Hardly had he reached his majority when the maternal uncle for whom he had been named died, and left him the heir to a comfortable independence. Nothing then stood between him and the achievement of his goal but a want of genius.
Now THAT'S writing. :)
I'm re-reading The Unknown Ajax after finally purchasing a new copy -- the copy I bought in Paris in 1985 has officially died...chunks falling out, etc. This book contains a classic Heyer observation -- one of the reasons she's still one of my fave authors. In describing Claude, an aspirant to dandyism, she says...
But he was not without ambition. It was his ardent desire to become just such a leader of Fashion, such an arbiter of Taste, as Mr. Brummel had been, until so short a time ago. He grudged Vincent none of his fame as a member of the Corinthian set; it would not have gratified him in the least to have been hailed as an out-and-outer, a regular dash or a right cool fish: his heart was set on becoming the chief Pink of the Ton.
This ambition found no favor at all in the eyes of his parents, and would, indeed, have been impossible to realize had not a stroke of amazing good fortune befallen Claude. Hardly had he reached his majority when the maternal uncle for whom he had been named died, and left him the heir to a comfortable independence. Nothing then stood between him and the achievement of his goal but a want of genius.
Now THAT'S writing. :)