Georgette Heyer Fans discussion
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Checking in earlier editions/printing of Unfinished Clue
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Big Fan
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Jan 01, 2025 09:50AM
Relatively early in the book, when Lola de Silva had finished "dressing for dinner", the description of her entry is "swam" into the room. Has anyone noticed whether earlier versions actually had "swanned" into the room? Is it possible some odd editing happened in the course of reprints?
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I have a lot of old Pan editions of the romances but most of my mysteries are Sourcebooks and my edition does say swam. It does seem an odd choice of words.
The Sourcebook version is 2009; the Kindle version has it. Both are well into the "autocorrect"/"spellcheck" era [error] ... There are multiple reports of "Heyer" getting changed to "Heyerdahl", though it's hard to imagine that old Thor has been getting as much references than Georgette. Probably old dictionaries never get updated.
There's an old story about a publisher/printer getting threats of dire consequences if "windrow" in submitted text got "corrected" to "window" ,..
I think I've seen "swam" used this way in other books so assumed it was just another way of saying it.
" ... Lord Bromford, who swam suddenly into the Rivenhalls' ken, ... " , which seems to fit somewhat better (being more abstract) than in The Unfinished Clue. In TGS there's also "rule the roast" referenced to Charles, and used in Frederica about that being likely to impair Harry's matrimonial prospects.

