The Black Moth

Georgette Heyer was born in Wimbledon on 16th August 1902, the eldest daughter of George and Sylvia Heyer. Her mother, a gifted musician and father, following his serving as a soldier and receiving an MBE during the World War I taught at King’s College.

While holidaying with her family in December 1920, Heyer met George Ronald Rougier, a mining engineer.

The young Heyer was a very talented writer. Her first book ‘The Black Moth’ was written and published whilst she was still a teenager to amuse her convalescing brother. From thereafter she was prolific and an international best-selling author and publishing phenomenon.

Heyer and Rougier became engaged in the spring of 1925. A month later her father died and Heyer assumed financial responsibility for her brothers, aged 19 and 14. Two months later on 18th August, Heyer and Rougier married in a simple ceremony.

Rougier was sent to work in the Caucasus Mountains in October, 1925 but Heyer remained at home to write. In 1926, she released ‘These Old Shades’ in the midst of the unrest of the general strike. The book received no coverage, reviews, or advertising. Such was her reputation that the book still sold 190,000 copies. The lack of publicity had not harmed the novel's sales. Heyer, shy and reclusive, now forsook promoting her books for the rest of her life.

Rougier returned home in 1926 but was then sent to Tanganyika. Heyer joined him the following year.

In 1928, Heyer also went with Rougier to his work in Macedonia but insisted on a return to England before starting a family. She continued to write and every book further cemented her sales and reputation.

During the next few years Heyer broke with her existing publishers, who she felt patronized her and were unable, or unwilling, to give her the status she felt her sales and reputation demanded.

To minimize her tax liability, Heyer formed a company; Heron Enterprises. Royalties on new titles would now be paid to the company, which would pay Heyer a salary and directors' fees to her family. She would continue to receive all royalties from her earlier titles, except from the United States, which would go to her mother. Several years later, a tax inspector found that Heyer was withdrawing too much money and marked the extra funds as undisclosed dividends and declared she owed a further £3,000 in taxes. To pay the tax bill, Heyer wrote two articles for Punch, ‘Books about the Brontës’ and ‘How to be a Literary Writer’.

In 1950, Heyer began working on her magnum opus, a medieval trilogy that covered the House of Lancaster between 1393 and 1435 that would take five years to complete. Her readers however begged for new books and writing them would also solve further tax liabilities.

By 1966 she now owed £20,000. She fired her accountants. The rights to her next book, ‘Black Sheep’, were issued to her personally.

Heyer now sold Heron Enterprises to Booker-McConnell, which already owned the estates of Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie. She was paid £85,000 for the rights to the 17 Heyer titles. This amount was taxed at the lower capital transfer rate, rather than the higher income tax rate.

In July 1973 she suffered a slight stroke and spent three weeks in a nursing home. Her brother Boris died later that year but by now Heyer’s own deteriorating health meant she was too ill to attend his funeral. She suffered another stroke in February 1974 and three months later was diagnosed with lung cancer, a result of smoking 60–80 cork-tipped cigarettes a day.

Georgette Heyer died on 4th July 1974.

Her fans learned her married name for the first time from her obituaries.