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I think most people have had chance to play the Heyer/Austen game now, so I'll announce the result. The second was Austen (from Sanditon), the first was Heyer (from The Grand Sophy). 17 of you got it right, 12 picked Heyer, 2 didn't know, 3 said both were Austen.
Which, I think, proves that Heyer writes good stuff. I'm sure if I were still a student I could get an essay out of this with many footnotes but I'll settle for that summation instead and move on to one,
...gay, high-gambling beau, a man typical of his day. Wandering home a trifle fuddled in the cool of a London dawn, he ponders distastefully his forthcoming betrothal - Suddenly from an upstairs window, a vivacious young girl, dressed as a boy, falls into his arms - and the beautiful fugitive's plight offers his own escape
That's from the blurb on the back of my 1964 paperback edition of 'The Corinthian'. I'm saying nothing about the 'gay beau', nothing, because in '64, it meant nothing. I'm glancing sideways though at the fact that the cover has this quotation,
'I have not the slightest intention of making love to you...'
which is what Sir Richard, the eponymous hero, tells the stripling who fell into his arms as she climbed from the window and whom he clasped strongly to his chest before realising he was a she.
I am pondering over what Richard's sister might have guessed about him when she tells her husband,
'It quite shocks me to see him so impervious to every feminine charm! It is a great piece of nonsense for him to dislike the opposite sex, but one thing is certain; dislike females he may, but he owes a duty to the name, and marry he must!'
His name...and what would that be exactly? Well, it explains why I've always felt vaguely unhappy with the canonical spelling of a certain character; obviously at some point, the 'h' was dropped and an alliance forged with another house...because Sir Richard is in fact
Sir Richard Wyndham, Wesley's many times removed grandfather.
So many similarities: Elegant (Wes in tux; say no more), handy with his fives and a pistol (Wes with guns and fists; poetry in motion), atracted to young, skinny females in men's clothing... (well, fred's skinny...), disenchanted with the females he knows who are only after one thing; his well lined breeches (any female who knows Wes would only be after one thing if they had a brain cell and yes, it's in his breeches so that fits too). Adventurous (Wes goes to other dimensions at the drop of a hat; a stage coach journey from London to Somerset would pose no problems) resourceful (Richard outwits a plot and solves a murder; right up Wes' alley.)
So there you have it. ::runs away before I'm flamed to a crisp::
Which, I think, proves that Heyer writes good stuff. I'm sure if I were still a student I could get an essay out of this with many footnotes but I'll settle for that summation instead and move on to one,
...gay, high-gambling beau, a man typical of his day. Wandering home a trifle fuddled in the cool of a London dawn, he ponders distastefully his forthcoming betrothal - Suddenly from an upstairs window, a vivacious young girl, dressed as a boy, falls into his arms - and the beautiful fugitive's plight offers his own escape
That's from the blurb on the back of my 1964 paperback edition of 'The Corinthian'. I'm saying nothing about the 'gay beau', nothing, because in '64, it meant nothing. I'm glancing sideways though at the fact that the cover has this quotation,
'I have not the slightest intention of making love to you...'
which is what Sir Richard, the eponymous hero, tells the stripling who fell into his arms as she climbed from the window and whom he clasped strongly to his chest before realising he was a she.
I am pondering over what Richard's sister might have guessed about him when she tells her husband,
'It quite shocks me to see him so impervious to every feminine charm! It is a great piece of nonsense for him to dislike the opposite sex, but one thing is certain; dislike females he may, but he owes a duty to the name, and marry he must!'
His name...and what would that be exactly? Well, it explains why I've always felt vaguely unhappy with the canonical spelling of a certain character; obviously at some point, the 'h' was dropped and an alliance forged with another house...because Sir Richard is in fact
Sir Richard Wyndham, Wesley's many times removed grandfather.
So many similarities: Elegant (Wes in tux; say no more), handy with his fives and a pistol (Wes with guns and fists; poetry in motion), atracted to young, skinny females in men's clothing... (well, fred's skinny...), disenchanted with the females he knows who are only after one thing; his well lined breeches (any female who knows Wes would only be after one thing if they had a brain cell and yes, it's in his breeches so that fits too). Adventurous (Wes goes to other dimensions at the drop of a hat; a stage coach journey from London to Somerset would pose no problems) resourceful (Richard outwits a plot and solves a murder; right up Wes' alley.)
So there you have it. ::runs away before I'm flamed to a crisp::