From the Bookshelf of Reading the 20th Century…

The Grand Sophy

Georgette Heyer

Start date: October 1, 2025

Finish date: October 31, 2025

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Aug 27, 2021 Roman Clodia rated it really liked it

Hilarious! Sophy is one of Heyer's sparky, outrageous heroines with a cheeky sense of humour, and runs rings around everyone, not least her handsome cousin, Charles. And those final scenes are just pure enjoyable farce! ...more

27 likes · Like · see review

Oct 13, 2018 Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Somehow a serious review of Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy is to miss the point. This is a confectioner’s book. The goal is to entertain the reader and leave them smiling. The goal is achieved. There is no violence, bad language or much of anything else to keep this from a family library.

Lady Sophy Staton-Lacy arrives before us a young lady in need of a husband. She was raised to be an independent, resourceful thinking woman of her class. Raised I hasten to add by her diplomate playboy father Somehow a serious review of Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy is to miss the point. This is a confectioner’s book. The goal is to entertain the reader and leave them smiling. The goal is achieved. There is no violence, bad language or much of anything else to keep this from a family library.

Lady Sophy Staton-Lacy arrives before us a young lady in need of a husband. She was raised to be an independent, resourceful thinking woman of her class. Raised I hasten to add by her diplomate playboy father in a house with no mother nor siblings. She is quickly proven to be a very accomplished horse woman and even more spectacularly a problem solver.

Her not entirely respectable father is off on diplomatic business to Brazil and hopes her sister’s family Lord and Lady Ombersley and their assorted younger and older children can accommodate her and help her into proper London Society and a suitable match. The household is at sixes and sevens over its own needs. There is appending match between eldest son Charles with a dour, prissy and entirely too proper, if well to do Miss Eugenia Wraxton. Or as Lord Stanton-Lacy summarizes her: “ a dead Bore”. Also threatened is a potentially non-suitable marriage between eldest daughter Cecilia and a penniless, younger son who is worse yet poetically bent: Augustus Fawnhope.

In other words Sophy arrives in a household filled with people addressing the usual upstairs problems of marrying the right kind of people. Fortunately the Grand Sophy is at hand.

All of this reads much like a variation of the Wooster and Jeeves novels by P. G. Wodehouse. Between the two I prefer the sprightly silliness in the staid halls of Wodehouse. Less intimidating than the redoubtable Jeeves, Sophy always manages her way with nothing but lightness of spirit and when needed iron in her hands. Where Wodehouse gets it right is that once he establishes the formula, he keeps his stories short allowing you to space them out.

Ms Heyer begins by setting a number of challenges to be met and met at once. Once we know just who is really in charge we know most of the story and all that is left are the particulars of each solution. To Ms Heyer’s credit there is entertainment in each solution. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review