“If Austen was the first queen of the contemporary romance . . . Heyer is the first of the historical romance.”—From the foreword by Sarah MacLean, New York Times bestselling author of Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake “One of the wittiest, most insightful and rewarding prose writers imaginable.”—Stephen Fry, The Guardian   Philip Jettan is unruly. Unrefined. Unfashionable. But is that what she loves about him? Previously published as Powder and Patch, this edition of The Transformation of Philip Jettan features the restored final chapter.   Cleone Charteris never had to look far to find an eligible bachelor. Her neighbor and best friend since childhood has made no secret of his intentions to marry her. Now that he’s a full-grown man, there’s only one small problem: He disdains art, fashion, and etiquette—all the things that Cleone cherishes most. If only it were possible to improve a man. . . .   Philip Jettan doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with a man preferring manly things, but he’ll do whatever it takes to win Cleone’s heart. So Philip travels to Paris, where, under the tutelage of the Marquis de Château-Banvau, he learns to duel, to write poetry, to find the perfect accessory for any outfit. But when the country bumpkin returns home a stylish dandy, he faces an unexpected challenge: convincing Cleone that he’s still the same boy who’s always loved her. The Transformation of Philip Jettan is part of the Modern Library Torchbearers series, featuring women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance: AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES • THE AWAKENING • THE HEADS OF CERBERUS • LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET • PASSING • THE TRANSFORMATION OF PHILIP JETTAN • VILLETTE “One of the wittiest, most insightful and rewarding prose writers imaginable. Her stories satisfy all the requirements of romantic fiction, but the language she uses, the dialogue, the ironic awareness, the satire and insight—these rise far above the genre. . . . Georgette Heyer stands as first among equals. . . . An attentive reader of Georgette Heyer will often be more familiar with the day-to-day details of Regency life than many an academic or cultural historian.” —Stephen Fry, The Guardian Georgette Heyer (1902–74) is considered the founder of historical romance. Heyer’s first novel, The Black Moth, was published when she was nineteen, and she became a bestselling novelist at twenty-four with the publication of These Old Shades. Inspired by Jane Austen, she published Regency Buck in 1935, creating the Regency romance subgenre in the process. Despite her popularity, Heyer never gave an interview or made a public appearance (though she once accepted an invitation to lunch with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace). Over the course of her career, Heyer wrote more than fifty books. Chapter One The House of Jettan If you searched among the Downs in Sussex, somewhere between Midhurst and Brighthelmstone, inland a little, and nestling in modest seclusion between two waves of hills, you would find Little Fittledean, a village round which three gentlemen had built their homes. One chose the north side, half a mile away, and on the slope of the Downs. He was Mr. Winton, a dull man with no wife, but two children, James and Jennifer. The second built his house west of the village, not far from the London Road and Great Fittledean. He was one Sir Thomas Jettan. He chose his site carefully, beside a wood, and laid out gardens after the Dutch style. That was way back in the last century when Charles the Second was King, and what had then been a glaring white erection, stark naked and blatant in its sylvan setting, was now, some seventy years later, a fair place, creeper-hung, and made kindly by the passing of the years. The Jettan who built it became inordinately proud of the house. Never a day passed but he would strut round the grounds, looking at the nude structure from a hundred different points of vantage. It was to be the country seat of the Jettans in their old age; they were to think of it almost as they would think of their children. It was never to be sold; it was to pass from father to son and from son to grandson through countless ages. Nor must it accrue to a female heir, be she never so direct, for old Tom determined that the name of Jettan should always be associated with the house. Old Tom propounded these notions to the whole countryside. All his friends and his acquaintances were shown the white house and told the tale of its owner’s past misdemeanours and his present virtue—a virtue due, he assured them, to the possession of so fair an estate. No more would he pursue the butterfly existence that all his ancestors had pursued before him. This house was his anchor and his interest; he would rear his two sons to reverence it, and it might even be that the tradition which held every Jettan to be a wild fellow at heart should be broken at last. The neighbours l