Resumo de The Grand Sophy - GEORGETTE HEYER

My favorites among Georgette Heyer''s thirty-odd Regency
romances, The Grand Sophy has the most outrageously assertive heroine
of them all. Twenty year old Sophy is the daughter of a widely-traveled
diplomat, whom she calls "Sir Horace" and whose household she has
managed since her mother died. When he is sent to Brazil
in the spring of 1816, Sophy comes to London
to stay with her aunt and cousins. She finds Cecilia infatuated with an
unexceptionable but impractical poet, Hubert with money problems, and eldest
cousin Charles, in charge of the household finances on account of an
inheritance and his father''s gambling debts, engaged to the strait-laced and
ultra-respectable Miss Wraxton. Setting about her like a general, Sophy undertakes
to fix all their problems, marshalling her resources but letting nothing stand
in her way when she strikes.

With careful attention to historical detail, Heyer offers us the comfort of
an insular, closed world with clear-cut conventions and rules ? London''s high society
during the Regency. Though much of the entertainment in The Grand Sophy
comes from the heroine''s pushing at the limits of the acceptable ? buying
horses and setting up her own stable, dealing in person with bankers and
money-lenders, using coarse language (even boxing cant), and engaging in many behaviors
then considered masculine ? Sophy remains safely within all the important
boundaries. Her respectability and essential femininity are never in doubt,
except to her ill-wishers, and the foundations of her status in society are
never questioned. (Her independence rests on the support of an indulgent father
who is conveniently absent except at the beginning and end of the novel.)

What sets Heyer apart from most of her epigones is that she is genuinely
clever and funny. In addition to social comedy, she gives us lively repartee,
especially when the sparks fly between the heroine and the hero, and splendid
caricatures. The Grand Sophy has a memorable supporting cast: the
absent-minded poet Augustus Fawnhope, for example, who forgets everything else
when the muse seizes him, and Sir Horace''s relaxed Spanish fiancée, capable of
suggesting to a visitor that they take a siesta together. Plot, historical
detail, characters, and dialogue come together to make The Grand Sophy
a grand entertainment.

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