Regencyland

 

October! Goodness!

Regencyland

I’m seeing the word appear in more and more places these days. As the inventor of the word, allow me to tell you its history.

I’m a historian and I write historical fiction, primarily romance. I work really hard to make my books as accurate as I can, while delivering a good story. Finding the gaps between the lines, writing the untold stories, things that could have happened. I was mostly inspired by reading old newspapers, journals, and the like. One book was about one of my ancestors, the silversmith Hester Bateman, but because I was writing fiction, I could end her story the way I want it to be.

The originator of the genre, Georgette Heyer, who died in 1972, was the originator of the Regency romance, but she kept her books as accurate as she could, and prided herself on it. So, I confess, when the first inaccurate “historical” appeared, I was a bit fed up. Especially considering how much work I did to get mine right! The new brand of “historicals” were romances (a genre that has always been under attack), and almost all of them were written in a version of the Regency era.

But...

Of course I picked one up. And then another one. Some of them were really good. But they weren’t historical. Writers of historical writers labelled them “wallpaper” and derided them. Sure, the history was terrible, but the characters were often engaging and the books were a good, if light, read. There are some really well written books that were getting overlooked. There has always been a disconnect between historical fiction and historical romance. This new era only emphasised that.

The main problem is that they are labelled “historical.” They just aren’t. Dukes and earls (but mostly dukes) who choose their heirs, books where illegitimate sons inherited peerages, young, wealthy, well-born women sneaking out of the house at midnight, sleeping with whoever they wanted to, and still ending up marrying the duke. I’m not even going to talk about how many dukes, all young, wealthy and handsome, stalk the pages of these books. They were set in London, a little bit of Bath and a lot of Scotland, for the most part.

There’s not much history in these books, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t engaging and well-written.

So there’s the problem. Calling them “historical romance” or “Regency romance” doesn’t describe these books properly. They aren’t historical, and they do not reflect the Regency era. Perhaps better to say that those descriptions don’t describe the new genre that has sprung up.

Calling them “wallpaper,” and other derogatory terms won’t work, and it doesn’t do these books justice. They do have aspects of the Regency era in them, the same way that The Lord of the Rings has medieval and Norse echoes. They do have lively stories, well told. So why not describe them in a way that would attract readers more? Give them their own identity?

I made a list of possibles. Something that wasn’t derogatory, something that would lift the genre into something that described itself and would attract readers. I came up with Regencyland.

Regencyland has dukes by the dozen in every London square, and heroines who are feisty, attractive and take their own path in life. Which, these being romances, end up with the two main characters getting married and living happily ever after. Even though both have had other partners before!

I haven’t even mentioned the B word, but there’s no avoiding it. Bridgerton showed how clever and amusing a Regencyland series could be. It was open about its deviation from events, and the wild imagination of the writers took it further from reality than anyone could have imagined. But it worked. It’s a hugely popular series, and about as true to the historical Regency era as Gray’s Anatomy is to life working in a busy hospital.

I still write historical romance (not Regency, but Georgian) and make them as accurate as I can. But that doesn’t mean that everybody has to. So viva Regencyland!

Which do you prefer? Or you like both?

Love to hear your opinions on this!