Georgette Heyer Fans discussion
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The Reluctant Widow
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Random thing in The Reluctant Widow
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Julia wrote: "So I've decided to compile a large spreadsheet of places in Heyer's books, and I've started with The Reluctant Widow since I've just finished it.My first entry is Billingshurst, where her coach s..."
Julia--we've known for a while that GH borrowed location names and turned them into family names. I didn't realized she went this deep in her borrowing. Good research! Thank you!!
She was so very thorough! I can't imagine how long it took her to research the hard way! You just popped it into Google and voila! Of course I'm sure there were more old resources available in her day than there are now as they age and get worn out or not seen as interesting. Thank goodness for Google in this case.
that's pretty cool, Julia, thank you for sharing it. what else have you found?
Her research went wrong in The Corinthian - my home village is mentioned in it and oh dear! completely wrong (appearance, names of the inns, ability to hire a vehicle etc). They wanted to get a carriage? Move onto the next village - it was a major stop after Bath on that road... But it's huge fun anyway to have so many place names that I know well!
The perils of research in pre-Internet days! She would have had to visit the village and spend time in its archives.
Abigail wrote: "The perils of research in pre-Internet days! She would have had to visit the village and spend time in its archives."I believe she also relied on guidebooks which may have been out of date or just plain wrong. I have one for Victorian Bath. I'll have to find it and see if it is correct.
My first entry is Billingshurst, where her coach stops.
My 2nd - on page 2, Elinor thinks back to her interview which was at Fenton's Hotel in London. I google mapped Fenton St, London, and guess what is on the corner! Cheviot House! A coincidence? I think not!
You can find it by pasting this into Google maps: GW7R+XF London, United Kingdom