The Corinthian (Regency Romances)

Arguably the funniest of GH's stories but with no less heart.

The girl in disguise as boy has been done many times. This time, the hero already knows she is a girl since he is aiding the heroine after a chance meeting while he is very drunk and she is running away. They are both escaping marriage: her as a middle class heiress running from a greedy Aunt forcing her to marry her cousin and him from the family pressure to marry a cold woman suitable to his title and wealth.

The heroine's plan is to find her old childhood friend so she can marry and escape the greedy Aunt's clutches but once they are in her hometown, they become embroiled in a case of stolen diamonds and murder. The plot moves smoothly between seriousness and hilarity as the pair try to maintain their story but help out others along the way.

To this day, reading how the hero accompanies her to meet her childhood friend and gently lets her come to the realization that she has outgrown the young idiot and has feelings for her sophisticated partner in adventure --- as he hopes she will --- never fails to charm.

The beginning makes it quite certain how the ending will be. But it's the in between that keep you entertained. The trip they took. The stories they had to come up with. And Ricky was so willing to help Pen.

"Oh my reputation."

"Briefly, Pen, when I met you I was about to contract a marriage of convenience. Within twelve hours of making your acquaintance, I knew that no matter what might happen, I would not contract that marriage. Within twenty-four hours, my dear, I knew that I had found what I had come to believe did not exist."
"What is that?"
" A woman - no, a chit of a girl! An impertinent, atrocious brat - whom I am very sure I cannot live without."

Both hero and heroine were so easy to love. The story was short, light (though it included some murders) and easy to read.

I like the way this author uses sooo much dialogue. It’s good.

The audiobook narrator Georgina Sutton was good - even though she had some weirdness in some of the voices.

DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Swearing language: none. Sexual content: none. Setting: England. Book copyright: 1940. Genre: historical romance.

"The Corinthian" is a Regency romance with a grand adventure. A diamond necklace has been stolen, and the police are searching suspicious-looking people. Pen is worried they'll uncover her disguise and send her home to her relatives. After several twists and turns, one of thieves end up dead, and it's up to our hero (and heroine) to set everything straight.

The characters were all enjoyable, and the main romantic couple was well suited to each other. The story was very funny with the many scrapes that the various characters got into. As is fairly typical for Heyer, the novel ended abruptly. However, it was still clear how everything would resolve itself. This is one of my favorite Heyer romantic adventures.

There were no sex scenes. There was some bad language (mostly swearing using "God"). Overall, I'd highly recommend this hilarious romp.

Georgette Heyer's "The Corinthian" starts off deceptively simply. One of London's foremost Corinthians [fashionable sportsmen], Sir Richard Wyndham, is walking home drunk, and brooding despondently on his forthcoming betrothal. Suddenly, from an upper window, a young stripling drops into his arms. He quickly discovers that the young stripling is a actually girl dressed as a boy who is escaping from her Aunt's house and determined to return to find her childhood sweetheart.
Pen Creed, the cross-dressing heroine of the piece can't dissuade Sir Richard from coming along with her and she happily leads him into a labyrinth of problems. From that point Sir Richard is thrown into a series of increasingly twisted, confusing and hilarious events. In between stolen diamond necklaces, suspect looking pick-pocketing coves, an eloping couple and a pursuing Aunt this has to rate as one of Heyer's more complex plots. Numerous stories converge and overlap - and to try to explain it would be a bit like trying to explain the plot of the Marriage of Figaro - impossible.
Needless to say Sir Richard's wit and good humour along with Pen's sense of the ridiculous coupled with her solemnly-uttered naievetes makes this one of Heyer's funniest and most enjoyable books
Its an easy read and make be a good introduction to Heyer for first time readers.

This is a funny story with peculiar characters and with lots of creative twists. Sometimes you read/listen to a story and you think this is really brilliant. In particular places you think “that was good” admiring the way the author put something unexpected into the story. You will enjoy this.

Whenever I want to escape to a kinder, gentler, funnier place that never existed, I open a Georgette Heyer romance. Whether it's a Regency or Georgian, I'm sure to be happier for just a little while.

Heyer writes with such wit and keeps her touch so light that I forget that those times weren't nearly as lovely as she protrays them, that women were basically property, and that the class system was so strict and unyielding that upward mobility was pretty much unheard of. What's worse, for the amount of time that I'm lost in her world, I don't really care.

Is that terrible? Oh well, it makes me feel better for a few hours. Her books are my personal laudanum without the after effects. Addiction is questionable :)

This book has everything for a Heyer devotee: a sprightly handful of a heroine, an amused grey-eyed hero and a colorful and diverse group of supporting characters. Throw in a road trip, a murder over stolen jewels and a mystery and there's a little something for everyone. Miss Penelope Creed is as delightful a heroine as you will find. She meets the jaded Sir Richard "Beau" Wyndham while climbing out of a window. "Cursed with a huge fortune", she is running away from a proposed marriage to a cousin "with a face like a fish". The wealthy Sir Richard is in the same boat, having just decided to propose to a well-born but impovershed lady he has been expected to marry for years but whom he doesn't like. Sir Richard decides to escort Miss Creed on her journey to the country home of her childhood sweetheart---in a public coach, no less. You can imagine the travelers they meet! (A woman who smells of onions and a small boy with adenoids among them.) She dresses as a boy to avoid comment, a device used in other Heyer novels, but not with such amusing consequences. Penelope is actually accused of "trifling with the affections of an innocent female" and is almost called out. As it turns out, this "innocent female" is the new, and rather weepy and tiresome, innamorata of her childhood sweetheart. There seems to be nothing poor Miss Creed can do to win back his affections, so she plots their elopement. This is one of several sub-plots, including the theft of Sir Richard's almost-fiance's family jewels. (Of course, the thief was one of the people our heroine befriended on the coach journey.) This theft leads to the murder of Sir Richard's would-be brother-in-law, who is deep in debt and behind the theft. The scoundrel also attemps to blackmail Sir Richard when he discovers "Penn" ("after the great Quaker") Creed isn't really a boy. With both their families right on their heels, Penelope's friendship with the hired jewel thief, who at one point plants the jewels on her makes for a smartly paced read. Also one of her more complex in terms of plot. The final coming together of the several sub-plots is nice and tight and done as only Heyer could. Heyer's characters are always real people and we come to care for them and take an interest in what happens to them. The slang of the day, including a liberal helping of thieves' cant from a pickpocket in a catskin waistcoat, her usual fine attention to the minutia of fashion and the accurate use of titles is superb. Many other Regncy writers don't understand the correct use of titles or forms of address, one thing that makes Heyer's books superior in quality. Heyer is the first----and she is the best.

'The Corinthian' was the first Georgette Heyer book I read - I picked up a 1966 edition and, boy, am I glad I did - and it still remains my favorite. Sir Richard Wyndham, about to make a marriage proposal to a woman he doesn't love due to family pressures, comes across Penelope Creed (Pen, if you will) dropping out of the second-floor window of her aunt's house, and life is never the same for this very proper, fashionable gentleman. Pen is so delightfully cheerful and innocent, and we can see Sir Richard, despite his proper and stern manners, falling for her. Witty and charming with quite a few funny moments, 'The Corinthian' is just delightful, and Pen and Sir Richard remain my favorite Heyer couple.

Sir Richard Wyndham is a Man of Fashion, a dandy, but he prefers the term Corinthian, if you please. He is somewhat bored with his life as a trendsetter of the haut ton, and is being forced to seriously consider a somewhat irksome marriage of convenience when he is waylaid by circumstance to aid Miss Penelope Creed, an heiress not yet out in society, on a quest to elope with her childhood sweetheart in an effort of avoid a match with her fish-faced cousin.
The plot of the story is light-hearted and fun, full of adventure and misadventure. But it is Heyer's style, much reminiscent of Jane Austen's yet more colorful and engaging, that makes this book truly delightful. It is a must read for her description of a proper dandy alone. There were many places where I could not help but chuckle aloud.
I know you will find it more than worth your effort to hunt down and read this book!

Not my favorite Heyer book, but frothy fun.

Teenager Pen Creed climbs out of her window to escape the threat of marriage to a fish-faced cousin. Our hero stumbles upon her and, eager to escape pressure to propose a marriage of convenience himself, takes it upon himself to escort her safely to her destination.

Needless to say, they have an adventure! Stolen diamonds, disreputable characters, a murder, etc. contribute to one of Heyer's more light-hearted farces.

A better Heyer book with a very young heroine is Friday's Child. Wonderful Heyers with older heroines include Frederica, Venetia, Faro's Daughter, and A Civil Contract.

THE CORINTHIAN by Georgette Heyer is a fun introduction to the work of the queen of regency romance. Penelope Creed is determined to escape her aunt and find her childhood sweetheart.
Sir Richard Wyndham is returning home a bit worse from wear when a young lad drops from a window into his arms, but the lad is a lassie. This begins a delightful romp across the landscape with the aunt in pursuit for the unlikely pair. Several stories intertwine to make this one of the best of the comedy romances.
Nash Black, author of TRAVELERS and HAINTS.

I thoroughly enjoyed this Heyer. It's a delightful story about a jaded, older H on the brink of making a dreadful marriage of convenience when the h quite literally drops out of a window into his life. They set off on a madcap adventure across England so that the h can escape an unwanted marriage. I loved it.

This was the first Georgette Heyer I ever read and I have now read and re-read every single one of her Regency books. The Corinthian is one of the most charming. The hero is delightful, Pen is lovely and the story is so well put together. The details in GH's books are the best bits, the language, the sense of period, the descriptions of the inns, the Bow Street Runner, the costumes - everything is so well researched and authentic - you get a real feel for the time in which it was set but it all fits very naturally around the story.

Heyer takes on two of romance's cherished conventions: heiress Penelope Creed dresses as a boy to escape her guardian's matrimonial plots, and the rich but jaded Sir Richard Wyndham falls for the artless charms of a schoolgirl. The result is a charming adventure, but an unsuccessful romance. Richard is too gentlemanly to make advances while Pen is under his protection and Pen spends too much time in the role of a boy to develop as a romantic leading lady. However, the dialogue is delightful and Heyer juggles her plot elements with aplomb, so it's still a fun read. The conversations between Pen and silly little Lydia Daubenay are not to be missed. (The jaded rich man/innocent miss plotline is done with greater success in Arabella, where a more substantial plot allows better character development. For a marvelous girl-in-breeches story, hunt up The Masqueraders.)

Classic Heyer. She kept me chuckling. This story has some silliness but doesn't cross the line to annoying. Except perhaps for the end, which was WAY too abrupt and left story lines hanging. I kept thinking there must have been a mistake and they left out part of the story.

The Corinthian is one of my favorite Georgette Heyer books of all time! It includes mystery. . Who stole the diamonds? Comedy . . . Sir Richard Wyndam a nonpariel in fashion and wealth wandering aimlessly drunk in London's streets in the middle of the night stumbling on a maiden dressed like a ruffian needing assistance to get out of her window to escape a marriage of convience to her cousin. Wyndam being bored with life and his tireing relations assists her in running away to a childhood love, after reprimanding her for the sloppiness of her cravat. Romance. . .Well I'll leave that for you to find out.

This is a very engaging book, one of my favourites by Heyer, however, I agree with another reviewer who thought that it ended abruptly. This book could use a few more pages to wrap things up, I hate to say it but it was quite negligent of Heyer and her editors to publish this as it is - it has no real ending, we are left to pen it ourselves to tie up the many loose strings. Despite this, I very much enjoyed this book and I heartily recommend it.

I enjoyed this book; I think anyone who loves Jane Austen would love it. I loved the comedy as they two main characters start on their journey to save Pen from marrying the cousin she doesn't love. The mean characters were clearly mean and the good characters were clearly good. A good, clean fun read.

A deceptive start to this book leads one to first believe that it will be yet another book about females masquerading as men.
Georgette Heyer gives this old plot her own inimitable spin as she turns this into a wild romp through the countryside - with people after both the Hero and Heroine (often for the same reasons).
Lots of fun, and lots of romance make this a great read.

If you haven't read THE CORINTHIAN, wait no longer! This is one of Georgette Heyer's most charming regencies, sure to delight fans of the regency genre. It has a bit of everything: a love interest, a bit of skullduggery, and we get to see a bit of England as we follow along on a "road trip".

This was the very first Georgette Heyer book I ever read and probaly the best. I fell in love with her strong yet real characters. They can make you forget your ho-hum life and transport you to Regancy England with the turning of a few pages, where everything and everyoone is beautiful. This book made me go to all 9 libraries in my county looking for more. Thank you whomever decided to bring Georgette Heyer back to print. If you love a good romance and do not want to read a story filled with more sex then story I recommend this book you will be hooked too.

The Corinthian has always been one of my favorites. Penelope's conversation with Richard is often hilarious. The best dialogue has to be when she is discussing a friend's elopement. It had me laughing uncontrollably. Her stories are entertaining, as are the secondary characters. It is nice to have a heroine who is dressed in boy's attire and finds it fun, not necessary. One of the few Georgette Heyer's where you really,really want about ten more chapters.

If you like Regency novels that are well-written, Georgette Heyer is the author for you. I enjoy the detail of her stories. Sadly, many modern novels tend to leave out descriptions and details. This is one of my favorites.

The Corinthian is another very enjoyable Georgette Heyer masterpiece. She is the master storyteller, and her characters live well on her pages.
Sir Richard, bored, spolied, wealthy, depressed, on the brink of doom, about to offer for a woman he cannot possibly love--that all ends when a young miss tumbles out of her window in the dead of night and into his startled arms. She is naturally running away.
Naturally, being drunk from depression Sir Richard determines she shall not be without escort. Craziness ensues. She, determined to allude her awful aunt--poor, deluded woman wants her money--cuts her hair short and dresses as a boy and sets off, with Sir Richard as "his" tutor, on the common stage. Ripe for adventure. They get plenty.