A thought about The Toll-Gate

[Marissa]

I'm rereading The Toll-Gate (I've always loved the use to which GH put the historical fact of (view spoiler)[the change in the currency from guineas to pounds/sovereigns (hide spoiler)] in this book) and had a thought: the story opens with the big get-together of the hero, John's, family...but once he leaves it, the family is never on stage again. I have to wonder, though--might GH have introduced the weak, excessively slender and stoop-shouldered earl and had in mind that even though he was marrying, he would one day die childless and the earldom would pass to the much more "noble" John?

I dunno. Just a thought--anyone else?

[Jackie]

I think more than one person has posted that the first chapter reads like the author is going to get back to at least some of those people and include them in the book but then she changed her mind and never did.
I like your idea!

[Susan in Perthshire]

In JK’s Heyer biography, it’s made quite clear that Heyer started the book with one idea and then changed tack to the one we all know and love. But she left the first chapter as it was. Hence the characters who are introduced, and never heard of again!

[Critterbee❇]

Marissa wrote: "I'm rereading The Toll-Gate (I've always loved the use to which GH put the historical fact of [spoilers removed] in this book) and had a thought: the story opens with the big get-together of the he..."

I agree, that is an interesting point in this book.

[Marissa]

Oh, yes, I'm aware of that...but I wonder if she went back and tweaked the opening chapter to set up for the idea I mentioned. There's an awful lot of emphasis of the Earl's incompetence and unfitness versus John's decisive manliness. ;)

[Kathleen]

I got the impression that John/Jack doesn’t need it or even really want it. He has an independence and seems content with that, which makes for a less exalted hero than typical. I did wonder if (view spoiler)[Nell will inherit Kellands Manor, or who else will. This isn’t clear to me at end of book. (hide spoiler)]

[sabagrey]

Susan in Perthshire wrote: "In JK’s Heyer biography, it’s made quite clear that Heyer started the book with one idea and then changed tack to the one we all know and love. But she left the first chapter as it was. Hence the c..."

Maybe she left it in because it makes such a nice contrast in backdrop. She begins with the usual, expected 'Polite world' and then lets the hero, and the story, wander out of it ... it's the same path she took herself when writing the book.

[Jackie]

I really like that idea, sabagrey.

[Teresa]

Reading it now again I think it's a pity some of the early chapter characters didn't appear again. I think Albinia would have been interesting and I liked Jack's mother. A woman of sense who understood her 'unusual' son. I'd like to see what she would have made of the situation.