TUESDAY 28 JULY 2026
7PM to 8PM
Open to all. Hosted online using Zoom Meetings.
TICKETS: Free, booking required.
ACCESSIBILITY: Live subtitles are available using Zoom's Live Transcript function.
Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer
Published in 1944, Friday's Child is one of Georgette Heyer's best-loved Regency romances. The novel follows the impetuous Viscount Sheringham after he proposes to his childhood friend Hero Wantage in a fit of pique (and to secure access to his trust fund). Expecting his ingenuous bride to fend for herself, the self-absorbed nobleman and his wayward circle of friends soon find themselves embroiled in a series of social scandals. Beneath Heyer’s trademark sparkling wit there is a perhaps surprisingly considered exploration of adult responsibility and the emergence of selfless love within a rigidly structured society.
We will be discussing the novel with Heyer superfan, Dr Emily Clarke, who won the Rose Book Collecting Prize in 2023-2024 for her collection, 'Georgette Heyer (1902-74) and the invention of the Regency'. Emily is currently an Honorary Research Associate at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic at the University of Cambridge.
To aide the conversation, we have prepared three 'thinking points' to consider when reading the book:
- The book’s title comes from the folk rhyme: ‘Friday’s Child is loving and giving’. How does the title shape our understanding of love, marriage, friendship, and society in the novel?
- Heyer famously said of her Regency novels: ‘I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense... But it's unquestionably good escapist literature, and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu’. Stephen Fry has pointed to the writerly qualities of Heyer. Should we see the novel as something more than a piece of escapism?
- Heyer is often considered to be the originator of Regency historical fiction. Is her version of Regency England a meticulous historical reconstruction, a piece of detailed fantasy, or something in between?
About The Really Popular Book Club
The Really Popular Book Club is Cambridge University Libraries' book group. Everyone is welcome to come and discuss a really popular book with the group, library staff, and an expert on the novel. Hosted on Zoom, the book club is completely free and open to everyone, people attend from all over the world. The Really Popular Book Club celebrates the huge range of books at Cambridge University Library. We have more than 8 million books and as a legal deposit library we keep a copy of every book published in the UK, and have done since 1710.
If you haven't attended one of our book club events before, you can find more information at www.lib.cam.ac.uk/bookclub.