This was the beginning of her lifelong refusal to market herself or her books through interviews, book signings or public appearances. It was from this time that Georgette Heyer began eschewing publicity. Her father’s tragic passing had been a cataclysm in her life and it marked a distinct change in his daughter. The exuberance with which she had written the bulk of the book four years earlier would never fully return.

Georgette inscribed her advance copy to her new husband with an affectionate message and a hint of her old humour. On 21 October 1921, Heinemann published These Old Shades. In the first half of 1926, several months after her father’s death, she finished the book and sent the manuscript to her publisher. Georgette eventually returned to the manuscript she had begun in 1922 and for which she had so enthusiastically made plans in her 1923 letter to her agent. Georgette married Ronald at St Mary’s Church, Wimbledon on 18 August 1925 (used with permission) Georgette Heyer’s marriage certificate with the line through the box marked ‘Rank or Profession’ It would be some time before she wrote again. It would take more than a year for Georgette to begin writing an entirely new book but completing These Old Shades would help her find her way back to the literary world she loved. Georgette had still not been able to return to her writing and must have doubted her ability to do so, for instead of writing “author” she put a line through the box on her marriage certificate marked “Rank or Profession”. It was just two months after her father’s death and so the wedding was just a small, simple one. Two days later on 18 August 1925 she married George Ronald Rougier at St Mary’s Church, Wimbledon. The announcement of Georgette and Ronald’s engagement, The Times, 20 July 1925.

On 20 July 1925, only one month after her father’s death, an announcement appeared in The Times. Caring deeply for Georgette and only recently returned from Africa, her old beau, Ronald Rougier asked her to marry him. Georgette’s brothers were only 13 and 17 when their father died and it soon became clear that their older sister would need to help the family financially – no easy task.

Her mother, Sylvia, had lost her husband and the family breadwinner and for the rest of her life she would live in hotels and rented rooms, never fully adjusting to the life of a genteel, middle-class widow. Georgette never fully recovered from the loss and her father’s death changed everything for her family. On 15 June 1925 George Heyer had a heart attack and died in front of his 22-year-old daughter.

These old shades heyer