[LMB] OT: When Favourite Authors Screw Up

[Margaret Dean]

Raye Johnsen wrote:
> 
> I was rereading one of my favourite Georgette Heyers,
> 'The Grand Sophy', this weekend, and one of the minor
> characters - in fact, the male half of the secondary
> pairing - has just recovered from mumps when he enters
> the action, after an absence of about six weeks.
> 
> So I spent the entire weekend sitting there, telling
> myself, /German measles!  Not mumps, German measles!/
> Because mumps in an adult body isn't the same as mumps
> in a juvenile body.  It's a longer, more debilitating
> illness and one of the consequences is permanent
> impotence - NOT something a male romance hero, even in
> a comedy of manners where everyone's clothes stay
> firmly on, should have.
> 
> It's clearly a case of, Heyer gave him an illness she
> thought would be silly and harmless, and didn't
> realise that it isn't.  It still jars me to read.

I noticed that, but was under the impression that mumps in the
adult male led to sterility rather than impotence.  Not quite the
same thing.

...so Charlbury and Cecilia are fated to have no kids.  Oh
well...


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>