“Who the devil wrote that?”: Intertextuality and Authorial Reputation in Georgette Heyer’s Venetia

Here's the abstract:

This paper examines Georgette Heyer’s 1958 novel Venetia, a work notable for its frequent use of quotation and other forms of intertextuality. I describe the different purposes for which characters within the text refer to and quote from various literary works for a number of different purposes. Additionally, I argue that Heyer herself utilizes quotation to the degree that she does in order to elevate the perceived “quality” of her writing. Because Heyer’s writing was frequently dismissed by her contemporaries, she was forced to rely upon inclusion of respected, canonical writers in order to lend her work gravitas.