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Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle is a 1957 historical romance novel by Georgette Heyer. It's an Affectionate Parody of Gothic novels.

Phoebe Marlow runs away from home because she's afraid her father will force her to marry Sylvester Rayne, Duke of Salford. She writes a book that parodies Sylvester a little too obviously, leading to a scandal and a series of misunderstandings.

Contains examples of:

  • Age-Gap Romance: Phoebe is nineteen and Sylvester is twenty-eight. Truth in Television for the setting.
  • Angsty Surviving Twin: Sylvester is one.
  • Arranged Marriage: Played with. Sylvester wants one, but his mother is reluctant to arrange anything for him. When he presses she confesses that she had at one point thought to maybe match him with her deceased friend's daughter. She doesn't actually arrange the thing still, Sylvester merely decides that he will see Phoebe for himself, without knowing that he had, unwittingly, insulted her when he had been introduced to her during the Season. Hilarity ensues.
  • Brainless Beauty: Both Ianthe and Sir Nugent.
  • Break the Haughty: Sylvester, though a mild example.
  • Dark Secret: Phoebe wrote the society novel of the year, featuring an Expy of Sylvester as the villain.
  • Defrosting Ice King: Sylvester.
  • Evil Eyebrows: The thing that makes Sylvester so easily identifiable as the villain in Phoebe's novel.
  • Evil Uncle: Subverted: Sylvester is perceived to be this by everyone, but he's actually a far better Parental Figure than the boy's mother.
  • It's All About Me: Ianthe is convinced that The Lost Heir was written for the express purpose of warning her about Sylvester.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Phoebe and Tom.
  • Mouthy Kid: Edmund.
  • Not So Great Escape: Phoebe's attempt to run away from having to submit to Sylvester's courtship. She is found by him, when she and Tom meet an with an accident on the way and are trapped by the snow at an inn on the way to London.
  • The Proud Elite: Sylvester, especially at the beginning.
  • Regency England: The book is set in 1817-1818.
  • Roman à Clef: Phoebe writes one. See Dark Secret above.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Phoebe, once away from her Wicked Stepmother.
  • Spirited Young Lady: Phoebe.
  • The Un-Favourite: Phoebe is this to her stepmother.
  • Wardrobe Wound: Sir Nugent goes into fits when a dog bites the tassels off his boots. Earlier, he is deeply pained at having to cut a button off his coat (thinking it will placate Edmund, who is actually crying for Button, his nurse).

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