Georgette Heyer False Colours 1963

“If ever a grig was spent out of the way he always behaved as if we should all of us go home by beggar’s bush!”

False Colours is set in 1817. The remark is made by the spendthrift dowager mother of the central character, explaining why she did not admit all her borrowing to the family lawyer during her husband’s lifetime. The usage is in the correct historical literary sense. A grig is a farthing.

Author

Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) supported her family by writing on average one crime novel and one historical romance every year from about 1931 until the early 1970s. She is best known for a series of romances set in the Regency period. Although not appreciated, or even reviewed, by critics, for many years she sold more than 100,000 hardbacks annually and her paperbacks were issued in print runs of 500,000.

Her historical novels are sometimes criticised for the amount of incidental detail and colour she included, but not accuracy of it. She had her own reference library and collected period material.

Source

Heyer, G., False Colours, The Bodley Head, London, 1963 (p.21)

Posted: April 25th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Georgette Heyer, Literary | No Comments »