The Grand Sophy

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Once again, my goodreads friends and in groups have gotten me to read a book that I thought I would never like - and guess what? She gets her way, and everyone around her is probably better off for her involvement, and they’re all happy, but Sophy doesn’t develop. I admire Sarah for being able to articulate what she liked and found good about a book that deeply offended her. It does seem ridiculous to condemn a wonderful author like Heyer for an attitude that was common at the time.

I love “Sophy,” but I’ve known it most of my life, and I’ve learned to live with her idiosyncrasies. He made a gallant but belated attempt to catch the curricle, but it swept round a corner just as the wind blew his hat off, and sent it blowing down the street. Sophy is a devious, meddlesome schemer, who manages to win our hearts, and the hero's, without ever submersing her personality.Lord Bromford (who was a male version of Miss Wraxton) and his cold and mustard-bath were simply hilarious!

It is spring in the year 1815, when the battle of Waterloo has been safely won, and Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy has persuaded his sister Lady Ombersley to introduce his only child, the 19-year-old Sophy, to London Society. I then read Heyer’s These Old Shades, which has some terrible classism, and no reviewers mentioned THAT either. But this is my favorite scene, because Sophy is so hilariously awful about the awful Miss Wraxton, and everyone can see (including the reader) how bad she really is, except for Charles, her fiance.

Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, who made the Regency period her own. For instance, many people find Mark Twain’s works offensive and want to “sanitize” his works to comply with modern sensibilities. 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. And there was plenty of opportunity as her uncle - Lord Ombersley - had gambled away the family fortune while his eldest son Charles tried to curb his father for the sake of the six siblings who resided with the parents.