The titular young lady in The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer (published 1950; reissued 2009, 2023 by Sourcebooks Casablanca) is a spunky female main character who effortlessly brings life to the dreary Rivenhall home. This is an ideal historical fiction Rom Com put into a book!
Note: I read a lightly edited version reissued two decades ago that removed some antisemitic language.
Sophy Staton-Lacey has been overseas with her father for most of her life, raised in a military environment without her mother. When her aunt, Lady Ombersley, learns that her brother will be leaving Sophy under her care for the next few months, she prepares the family to help a lonely girl acclimate to life in England. To everyone’s surprise, Sophy is confident, friendly, and even more connected to London society than the Rivenhalls are. Charles Rivenhall, the heir to the family fortune and the Ombersley title, has taken charge of the family as they recover from Lord Ombersley’s debts. Now Charles and his fiancé Miss Wraxton do not approve of Sophy’s free manner and find her pace to have disturbed the family’s plans. This contrast between life Before Sophy and that After Sophy drives a humorous story as Sophy herself takes charge, determined to improve the defeated aspect to the Rivenhall’s life with one of hope.
Sophy is neraly a perfect heroine. In many ways, she is ideal because of how she able to read other people. Her oldest female cousin desires to marry a penniless poet with little sensibility. Cousin Alfred is deeply in debt due to gaming and subsequently visiting a money lender. And, of courrse, Charles Rivenhall himself is affianced to a dreary and stern woman who brings that aura of doom to the entire family. Sophy can sense the best solutions to these issue. She anticipates reactions. She encourages Cecilia’s suit with the poet, deals with Alfred’s money-lender, and challenges Charles with her humor and wit. By the end, everyone (even Sophy’s own suitors) have found the right partner and/or purpose to their lives. Sophy’s scandalous actions have only brought about a satisfying ending.
The Grand Sophy is a truly funny book. Sophy’s antics bring a smile to my face each time I read it. I love tidy resolutions and this is just the book to do so. I’ve read it a few times now and I enjoy it each time.
Others have claimed that this would be a favorite Heyer novel except for the anti-semitic scene. I hadn’t realized that I’d read an “edited” version of this book. I haven’t seen the original version, but I can imagine. In the book, in one scene, the spunky Sophy goes to a money lender to repay her cousin’s debt. She demands the collateral back. The money lender is described as dirty and smelly, and we can picture a sleezy man. In the version I read, there was no mention to Jew in any way. He was always referred to as the money lender or Goldhanger. I can see how inserting comments to his Jewish-ness would have completely ruined this section of the book. I imagine I would not be able to recommend it so whole heartedly! So I am extremely grateful for Sourcebooks for reissuing this edition, which has been “lightly edited,” with permission from the Georgette Heyer estate. It is beautifully done, and it rescues this lovely book with these fantastic characters from the dung heap. Sophy is worth getting to know. I’m glad I can recommend her story (in this edited version) without reservations!
