The aim of such a form of fiction or adaptation is to shine a light on this present more than on that past.

None of this is to criticise that style – it is a category in which we could place Shakespeare’s great history and Roman plays, after all. In many period dramas today there is the added element of deliberate Blackaddery anachronisms and plain historical nonsenses that we find in comedies and romps like Bridgerton, The Favourite, The Great, etc. Watch Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 version of the same story and it is the styles of the earlyish 21st century that you see laid out before you. Watch, to take a more or less random example, Robert Redford in Jack Clayton’s 1974 The Great Gatsby and all you will be able to see is early 1970s style, cinematography and manner. In the matter of period dramas it is a truth universally acknowledged that a period film or TV show tells you more about the period in which it is made than the period in which it is set. Her stories satisfy all the requirements of romantic fiction, but the language she uses, the dialogue, the ironic awareness, the satire and insight – these rise far above the genre. The surprise in store for you, if you have not encountered her before, is that once you tear off, burn or ignore those disgusting covers you will discover her to be one of the wittiest, most insightful and rewarding prose writers imaginable. F rom the absolutely appalling cover art that has defaced her books since she was first published, you would think Georgette Heyer the most gooey, ghastly, cutesy, sentimental and trashy author who ever dared put pen to paper.

Venetia heyer