{"id":181,"date":"2016-06-25T14:37:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T14:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=181"},"modified":"2021-09-01T10:06:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T10:06:41","slug":"regency-review-the-corinthian-by-georgette-heyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2016\/06\/25\/regency-review-the-corinthian-by-georgette-heyer\/","title":{"rendered":"Regency review: ‘The Corinthian’ by Georgette Heyer [Trad]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"After the history-fest of An Infamous Army<\/em><\/strong>, written in 1937, which I couldn\u2019t even attempt, this one couldn\u2019t be more different. It\u2019s the most frivolous, silly, light-hearted confection imaginable, but then it was written in 1940, so perhaps frivolity was what was most needed.<\/p>\n

The plot begins with Sir Richard Wyndham, the Corinthian (dandy) of the title, accepting that at the age of twenty nine, he must make a loveless marriage to please his family. Neither the icily practical lady, nor her debt-riddled family, appeal much, but he feels he must do his duty. But on the evening before making the offer which will tie him, he gets very drunk and on his way home he spots someone climbing out of an upstairs window. This is seventeen-year-old Penelope (Pen) Creed, an heiress escaping the prospect of an unwanted marriage to a cousin, by dressing as a boy and running away. Richard agrees to help her escape, and thereby sets in train a glorious set of ever-more-unlikely events, involving stolen diamonds, an elopement, a Bow Street Runner, even a murder, and a whole array of wonderfully eccentric characters.<\/p>\n

The story is delightfully silly, but the real charm is in the two main characters. Pen is a complete innocent, always coming up with outlandish schemes which go horribly wrong, and then require even more outlandish schemes to set things right. Richard is the world-weary cynic, trying very hard to protect her from the worst consequences of her actions. The writing is as light as a feather, with humour in almost every line.<\/p>\n

This book was a delight from start to finish. The romance isn\u2019t totally convincing, not least because Pen is so young and innocent, it\u2019s hard to believe that she really knows her own mind. But that\u2019s a very minor quibble. A very enjoyable five stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the history-fest of An Infamous Army, written in 1937, which I couldn\u2019t even attempt, this one couldn\u2019t be more different. It\u2019s the most frivolous, silly, light-hearted confection imaginable, but then it was written in 1940, so perhaps frivolity was what was most needed. The plot begins with Sir Richard Wyndham, the Corinthian (dandy) of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3955,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/3955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}