Lady of Quality / Charity Girl

by Georgette Heyer

Lady of Quality is the story of Miss Annis Wychwood, a proud and independent young woman living on her own in Bath in the early nineteenth century. Bored by the few suitors who have called on her, Annis is resigned to a future of serene solitude until adventure enters her life in the person of Miss Lucilla Carleton, an heiress seeking to escape an arranged marriage. Opportunity follows in the person of Mr. Oliver Carleton, Lucilla's guardian. Oliver is the rudest man Annis has ever met—and the only one who has ever provoked strong feelings from her. Sparks fly from the friction between them, and neither is prepared for the romance they ignite.

Charity Girl is the tale of another runaway, Miss Charity Steane, who is in flight from her aunt's household when the Viscount Desford encounters her on the road to London. Chivalry dictates that Desford help the naïve Charity, and propriety demands that he lodge her with his dear friend Henrietta Silverdale. With Charity in the picture, Henrietta's feelings toward Desford warm, and the Viscount soon finds himself torn between two women in a gentle comedy of manners and mishaps.

Full of charm and delight, Lady of Quality and Charity Girl are two jewels in the crown of the writer regarded as the Queen of Regency romance.

Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) wrote her first novel when she was fifteen and saw it published when she was nineteen. In a career that spanned more than half a century, she wrote more than fifty novels, including historical and modern romances and detective fiction. She was highly respected for her research, historical accuracy, and extraordinary plots andcharacters.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fiction, Regency, Historical Romance, Classics, British Literature

575 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Georgette Heyer was a prolific historical romance and detective fiction novelist. Her writing career began in 1921, when she turned a story for her younger brother into the novel The Black Moth.

In 1925 she married George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer. Rougier later became a barrister and he often provided basic plot outlines for her thrillers. Beginning in 1932, Heyer released one romance novel and one thriller each year.

Heyer was an intensely private person who remained a best selling author all her life without the aid of publicity. She made no appearances, never gave an interview and only answered fan letters herself if they made an interesting historical point. She wrote one novel using the pseudonym Stella Martin.

Her Georgian and Regencies romances were inspired by Jane Austen. While some critics thought her novels were too detailed, others considered the level of detail to be Heyer's greatest asset.

Heyer remains a popular and much-loved author, known for essentially establishing the historical romance genre and its subgenre Regency romance.

Reviews

[Nell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting twofer scored at local used book store for three bucks! Noticing similarities to Heyer’s other historical romances, particularly in Charity Girl to The Foundling, I saw that these two were almost the last novels she wrote. So instead of precursors of characters that were refined later, these are fainter echoes. We have the unaccompanied, innocent girl of whom the hero must take charge lest a terrible fate befall her; the well-meaning hero who almost gets in over his head; the fiancée or future fiancée who gets saddled with the oversight of said innocent while the hero goes on his quest through the countryside; the scoundrelly rapscallion who seeks to make his fortune off said innocent.

Lady of Quality reminds me of the earlier Black Sheep. Miss Abigail Wendover and Miles Calverleigh have counterparts in Miss Annis Wychwood and Oliver Carleton. Each woman has a girl in her charge whom she must protect from fortune hunters. While the earlier books are clearly better, especially The Foundling, it speaks to Heyer’s talent that she can rework and reuse plots and characters and still tell a pretty good story.

May 2024
I felt a bit more critical of A Lady of Quality than on first read. Annis and Carleton are wearing and their repartee hardly worthy of the name. Completely lacking in the sparkle for which Heyer is revered by her fans.

[Geoffreyjen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this final book in the suiteof Heyer's romances and am sad there are no more. This was asolid outing by a mature writer. Lots of spark and crackle between the main characters, more even than usual in Heyer's books, and decidedly satisfying as it winds towards its conclusion

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite. Neither story held my attention. As always I enjoyed the dialog. Charity Girl was slow. It seems like I've read this story line somewhere else.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a compendium of two of Georgette Heyer's novels, each dealing with a "runaway" girl, both set in the Regency period. In Lady of Quality, Annis is from a wealthy family, and at 29, is "on the shelf". She is tired of living with her brother and his family and decides to set up a household for herself in Bath, bringing along a poor, distant relation to act as her companion and chaperon. On their way, they come upon a couple whose carriage has broken. They find out that the young woman, Lucilla, is running away from an arranged marriage, complicated by the fact that the young man helping her is her intended fiance. Annis rashly offers that Lucilla can stay with her until her situation can be sorted out. Complications ensue when the "villain" absentee uncle appears and Annis finds herself attracted to him, in spite of, or perhaps because of his brash behavior. Annis must find her way as chaperon while juggling her own feelings and future. The story is filled with moments of humor and Annis is a delightful main character.
The second story is Charity Girl. Charity is running away from her placed situation to her grandfather in London. Vicount Ashley Desford had met her at a party the night before and rescues her from the road. When they find that the grandfather is not in London, the Viscount places the girl with his dear friend, Henrietta. As he tries to find out where her grandfather is and beg his help, things get complicated with some potential suitors for the young girl and the Viscount's own relationship with Henrietta. This was the less strong story of the two.

[SarahC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nice edition of two Georgette Heyer novels in one volume. I have read only the second story, Charity Girl, at this point.

Charity Girl offers up the best of Heyer and the best of Regency Romance. If you haven't read Heyer novels before, consider that her books aren't what you might think of as romance as termed in recent years. Leave out the sensual and sensational and replace it with witty, cleaver, classy, and heartfelt and you will have the right idea.

Within the pages of Charity Girl, you'll find kind young Viscount Desford (Des to his friends) and his lifelong friend Hetta Silverdale called to the assistance of friendless Charity Steane, in need of a home and suffering from a missing father. Will their quest uncover the missing father or simply a mix of questionable relatives and inappropriate suitors for Charity and Hetta alike? It is well worth the read to find out.

[Judith Hale Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neither of these was my favorite of GH's historical romances, but they were fun to read.

Lady of Quality has a lovely heroine and a likeable black sheep whose rough exterior hides a jewel of a soul. Of course you love how he systematically undoes the damage caused by the slights of his family and restores the family fortunes, and how Annis falls under his spell despite herself and her well-meaning but horrible relations. She's a damsel who refuses to be in distress, but who at last is rescued by an unlikely but perfect hero. Four stars.

Charity Girl was pretty meh, just because it was so much like Sprig Muslin, so it felt like I had already read it. I hated Cherry's father and how much he got away with, and her horrid grandfather too, but I'm glad she got her happy ending, and Dev too. Three stars here.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The question? Did the publisher pair these two books together because Lady of Quality was more favorably received than Chariy Girl? I might well have given the first title 4 starts; the second was a little slow for my liking, but entertaining nonetheless.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book n I just started today ...

[Karen Darling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some funny moments, but it dragged in certain areas.

[Sharon Couch · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treat to have two books in one. I wish I had discovered Georgette Heyer sooner, she was a master at this style of book. Love historical novels and these are so well written it makes me wish I was born in the 19th century!