Jennifer Kloester is an Australian-born writer, particularly known for her work on Georgette Heyer.
Jennifer Kloester was born in the Australian city of Melbourne. After marrying her husband Barry, with whom she was to have three children, she moved with him to the mining town of Tabubil in Papua New Guinea and later to Bahrain. During this time she studied off-campus for a degree from Deakin University and then undertook her PhD degree at the University of Melbourne, with a thesis on which her first book was based. [1] This was Georgette Heyer's Regency World, an exploration of the historical, social and cultural setting of Heyer's regency romances, published by Heinemann in 2005. [2] Further research led to the publication of Kloester's 2011 Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller. [3] [4]
Later Kloester proposed to English Heritage the blue plaque for Heyer's birthplace in Wimbledon, which was unveiled in 2015. [5] Further fruits of her research were two short story collections. Having discovered three 'lost' Regency stories published by Heyer in the later 1930s, she added these to the eleven short stories collected in her previous Pistols for Two (1960) and republished them all in the composite Snowdrift and Other Stories (Heinemann, 2016). [6] [7] A further collection of Heyer's 'contemporary' stories was published as Acting on Impulse (Overlord Publishing, 2019), edited by Kloester with Rachel Hyland.
Kloester has also written fiction in her own right. Her books include two Young Adult novels, The Cinderella Moment and The Rapunzel Dilemma, published by Penguin Australia in 2013 and 2014, followed by the supernatural Jane Austen's Ghost (Overlord Publishing, 2019). Her latest work is the study The Novels of Georgette Heyer – A Celebration (Overlord Publishing, 2023).
Georgette Heyer was an English novelist and short-story writer, in both the Regency romance and detective fiction genres. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story conceived for her ailing younger brother into the novel The Black Moth. In 1925 Heyer married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer. The couple spent several years living in Tanganyika Territory and Macedonia before returning to England in 1929. After her novel These Old Shades became popular despite its release during the General Strike, Heyer determined that publicity was not necessary for good sales. For the rest of her life she refused to grant interviews, telling a friend: "My private life concerns no one but myself and my family."
Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland, was an English writer, known as the Queen of Romance, who published both contemporary and historical romance novels, the latter set primarily during the Victorian or Edwardian period. Cartland is one of the best-selling authors worldwide of the 20th century.
Regency romances are a subgenre of romance novels set during the period of the British Regency (1811–1820) or early 19th century. Rather than simply being versions of contemporary romance stories transported to a historical setting, Regency romances are a distinct genre with their own plot and stylistic conventions. These derive not so much from the 19th-century contemporary works of Jane Austen, but rather from Georgette Heyer, who wrote over two dozen novels set in the Regency starting in 1935 until her death in 1974, and from the fiction genre known as the novel of manners. In particular, the more traditional Regencies feature a great deal of intelligent, fast-paced dialogue between the protagonists and very little explicit sex or discussion of sex.
These Old Shades (1926) is a historical romance written by British novelist Georgette Heyer. The novel is set around 1755: Heyer refers to the Duke of Avon's participation in the 1745 uprising as ten years previous; in addition the Prince of Condé is said to be about 20 years old. However, she also refers to Madame de Pompadour as actively involved with Louis XV, whereas her relationship with the King ended at about 1750.
The Grand Sophy is a Regency romance novel by Georgette Heyer. It was first published in 1950 by Heinemann in the UK and Putnam in the U.S. Sales were brisk. Heinemann reported that in Australia it sold forty thousand copies in its first five months. There was also a Book Club edition in 1951.
The Foundling is a Regency romance novel written by Georgette Heyer and published by William Heinemann Ltd in 1948. It was also serialised in the Woman's Journal as "His Grace, the Duke of Sale", followed by a Book Club edition in 1949.
Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is a Regency romance novel by Georgette Heyer. First published by Heinemann, London and Putnam, New York in 1957, it is the story of intelligent and desperate Phoebe who ends up marrying the man she has run away from home to avoid, and whom she has caricatured as the villain in her novel. The book features gentle mockery of the Gothic novel genre and also features Heyer's characteristic strong heroine, with a desire for independence, who marries on her own terms. The story is set in 1817-1818.
Beauvallet is an adventure novel by Georgette Heyer, published in the UK in 1929 by Heinemann and by Longmans, Green & Co. in 1930 in the US.
April Lady is a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer, published in 1957 by Heinemann in the UK and by Putnam in the US. Previously serialised in the Woman's Journal as “My Lady Cardross”, the new novel was Heyer’s forty-fourth book and her fifteenth Regency novel.
The Unknown Ajax is a Regency romance by Georgette Heyer, published in 1959 by Heinemann in the UK and in 1960 by Putnam in the US. It was her forty-seventh novel and the eighteenth set in Regency times.
The Black Moth (1921) is a Georgian era romance novel by the British author Georgette Heyer, set around 1751. The Black Moth was Heyer's debut novel, published when Heyer was nineteen. It was a commercial success.
Penelope Halsall was a best-selling and prolific English writer of over 200 romance novels. She started writing regency romances as Caroline Courtney, and wrote contemporary romances as Penny Jordan and historical romances as Annie Groves. She also wrote novels as Melinda Wright and Lydia Hitchcock. Her books have sold over 70 million copies worldwide and been translated into many languages.
The Convenient Marriage is a Georgian romance novel by Georgette Heyer published in 1934. The novel is set in 1776 and concerns the relationship between Horatia Winwood and Lord Marcus Drelincourt. It is the first of several Heyer romances where the hero and heroine are married early in the novel, and the plot follows their path to mutual love and understanding. Later examples include Friday's Child and April Lady.
Faro's Daughter is a Georgian romance novel by Georgette Heyer that was first published in 1941 by Heinemann in the UK and in the US by Doubleday in 1942. The story's focus is on the misfortunes of an aunt and niece trying to run a gambling house for the upper classes.
Lady of Quality is the last Regency romance novel written by Georgette Heyer. It was first published in 1972 and was the last of her novels to be published during her lifetime.
Kathleen Mary Lindsay (1903-1973), was an English writer of historical romance novels. For some years she held the record as the most prolific novelist in history. According to Guinness World Records, she wrote 904 books under eleven pen names. This record has since been surpassed.
The Lady's Monthly Museum; Or, Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction was an English monthly women's magazine published between 1798 and 1832.
Originally used in the context of upper class English society, ton meant a fashionable manner or style, or something for the moment in vogue. It could also mean people of fashion, or fashionable society generally. A variant of the French bon-ton, a now-archaic expression designating good style or breeding, polite or fashionable society, or the fashionable world, ton's first recorded use in English was according to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1769. In British English, the word is pronounced as in French /tɒ̃/, with American English favouring the Anglicised pronunciation /tɔn/ or /tɑn/.
Diane Farr is an American historical romance novelist. She is best known for her Regency romance, published with Signet Regency romances.