Terrific and enlightening lecture. Thank you. I have been reading Heyer for 65 years and I think she write beautifully. You address aspects of her work which absolutely jar as well and make it difficult to swallow! Thank you so much!
I find the Goldhanger subplot in the Grand Sophie really distressing, and the only way I can enjoy this novel is because a/ I first read it as a child and didn't notice the obvious and grotesque antisemitism, and b/ because I know that Georgette Heyer's Dad who she loved and idealized was jewish, which is the only reason I can forgive her for it. I'm not saying that it's defendable, it's not, it's indefensible.
As far as neurodivergent characters go, she obviously didn't have as many as Jane Austen, who had tons of them especially in pride and prejudice (Lydia and Mrs Bennett are both very obviously ADHD, and a lot of people have made the case for Mr Darcy's aspergers. Unfortunately, from the perspective of someone with aspergers, people also make a case for the aspergers of the much less appealing Mr Collins and Lady Catherine DeBough). But she does have some, some of my favourite Heyer Heroines are not neurotypical. Leonie (these old Shades) and Hetty (the Convenient marriage) are not either of them quite aspergers, but they are both at least slightly on the spectrum, maybe more ADHD for Leonie, and Lord Rupert is also prominently and obviously ADHD, as is the older twin brother in False colours, and Sir Roland Pommery in The convenient marriage just off the top of my head. And Lord Vidal may not be neurodivergent per sae, but he is an absolutely spot on portrait of a certain type of young man who I unfortunately (for Mary Challoner) recoignise from my time working as an alcohol and drug counsellor. Guy's like Lord Vidal were sent to us all the time, sometimes by the court (after about their 6th Drunk in charge of a car charge) and sometimes by the stopping domestic violence program the court had sent the to. I have to say that re-reading these novels as a mature adult, and loving them just as much as I did when I was a child, the psychological realism she somehow miraculously manages is really part of what I love about them now.
