Diana Wynne Jones was born on August 16th 1934.
There is nothing in Georgette Heyer’s novels relevant to the themes of this blog, although she has been featured here because of some similarities in her and Stella Gibbons’s lives.
Diana Wynne Jones is very different: her life and her books have been mentioned in several articles and there is still more material to come.
While Georgette Heyer never wrote about magic, witches or anything occult, Diana Wynne Jones wrote about little else. I wonder whether Georgette’ Heyer’s happy childhood and Diana Wynne Jones’s awful one had anything to do with this.
These two writers have only a few things in common.
They were both born in London and both moved around a lot - at least for a while. They were both heavy smokers, and both died from lung cancer.
While both were very tall, they were very different in appearance. Georgette Heyer was elegant, stylish and kept up with the fashions; Diana Wynne Jones was wild-haired and rather witch-like.
One of the biggest differences is their attitude to publicity.
Georgette Heyer kept herself from the world for most of her life. She is described as ‘ferociously reticent’.
Diana Wynne Jones gave interviews and talks; she visited schools; she wrote articles and spoke about the creative process and her life.
The two authors were usually treated very differently by people they met, as these two amusing anecdotes show:
