Want to defeat dictators? Read Regency romance.
It worked once. Maybe it'll work again.
Word on the street is that the historical romance genre is dead. Not great news for an aspiring historical romance author. I don’t think historical romance is dead. I think it’s evolved and still evolving into something incredible and important.
Today’s historical romance is not your mother’s 1970s bodice ripper, where the helpless damsel falls for brooding, toxic masculinity incarnate.
In fact, historical romance does things that no other genre can do:
Historical romance (when done well) is uniquely feminist. It shows women with few legal rights and scant societal power claiming their futures, their agency, and, yes, their happily ever afters by being scrappy and bold and brave.
It shows consent and intimacy in deeply meaningful, unique ways.
It immerses readers in history.
Authors like Joanna Lowell, Alexis Hall, Cat Sebastian, and KJ Charles are using historical romance to share beautiful, realistic portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in times past.
Historical romance, specifically Regency romance, is a genre for when the world is burning down.
That’s what I want to talk about today. Because it feels like the world is burning down. Every morning, I read the daily report from Heather Cox Richardson, and my heart shatters a little more. I find myself making contingency plans for my family, making room in my schedule for acts of resistance, and using my privilege as a cisgender, straight, white woman in every good way I can.
If you’re as overwhelmed as I am, a good Regency-era historical romance novel might be the balm your soul needs. I’d argue that the Regency romance genre was created for that very purpose.
But first…a quick history lesson.
Here’s what you need to know about England’s Regency Era
Thing 1: Mad King George
King George III, a.k.a Mad King George, reigned in England from 1760 - 1820. No one is certain what made the King mad, though there are many theories: mental illness, metabolic disorder, arsenic poisoning. His symptoms were both physical and mental, and they persisted for years, growing worse with age.
Thing 2: The Napoleonic Wars were long
The Napoleonic Wars started after Napoleon hijacked France’s societal upheaval during the French Revolution and used it to elevate himself to a dictator. (Sound familiar?)
Most people don’t realize just how LONG the Napoleonic Wars were. Here’s a quick, very incomplete, slightly editorialized timeline:
November 1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte returns to Paris from Egypt, stages a coup, and ends the French Revolution by becoming First Consul of the French Republic.
1800 – 1803 – Napoleon tries taking over Austria, sort of fails. Gets himself elected as the president of the Italian Republic, which was super not allowed. (Sound familiar?) Then he supports a coup in the Batavian Republic.
1803 – England declares war on France.
1806 – By now, Napoleon has crowned himself emperor, has control over much of central Europe, and has overthrown the Holy Roman Empire.
England is constantly anticipating invasion, and it’s a very real fear. The coast is largely unprotected because the Navy is fighting in all the battles on all the fronts. Every seaside town has a militia of farmers and blacksmiths ready to defend the coastline. From Edinburgh Castle to Dover Castle, centuries-old palaces and castles are fortified to protect the country from invasion.
1807 - 1808 – Napoleon’s forces occupy Portugal and then Spain.
1809 - 1813 – If you read any fiction during this time, you’ll hear about the battles on the Peninsula. This is referring to the Iberian Peninsula…aka Portugal and Spain. 1809 saw the bloody Battle of Talavera. The Peninsula War continues until the middle of 1813.
1812 – Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia leads to massive losses. Fighting moves toward modern-day Germany.
1814 – Forces finally converge on France from the west (Spain) and the east (Germany). After the Battle of Paris, Napoleon abdicates and is exiled on Elba. Everyone breathes a giant sigh of relief. It is over.
Spoiler alert: It is not over.February 1815 – Napoleon escapes Elba, goes to Paris, and amasses an army.
June 18, 1815 – The Battle of Waterloo. This is it. The final chance and last hope to stop Napoleon for good. Britain and all her allies meet Napoleon's army in one of the bloodiest battles in history and are victorious.
To put the loss of life into perspective, consider this: Until the 1860s, dentures were called Waterloo Teeth because there were enough teeth from dead soldiers from this one battle to make dentures for the next 45 years.
This was not a short war nor a small war. The Napoleonic Wars shaped every area of society in England and the rest of Europe for sixteen years.
Thing 3: Life was hard during the Napoleonic Wars
There were embargoes on everything from French brandy to medicinal ingredients to ultramarine blue pigment. That last one may sound frivolous, but lapis was an essential part of laundering white clothes and linens. (You know the blue pigment in your laundry detergent? Same idea.)
The embargoes created a thriving smuggling economy. It’s why you’ll find so many smuggling plots in Regency romance.
Even the fashions during this time were impacted by war. Take a look at women’s fashion in the decades before the Napoleonic Wars and the decades after. You’ll find 4-foot wide panniers and giant petticoats and puffy sleeves. While women’s fashion in the early part of the 19th-century was undoubtedly influenced by neoclassicism, this simpler way of dressing was also pragmatic. Clothes were simpler because they had to be.
Every person – upper class, lower class, titled lord, or village tinkerer – knew someone who’d lost someone in the wars.
This line from Kelly Faircloth’s Jezebel article British Life During the Napoleonic Wars (Yes, Including Jane Austen) really hit home: “Say you’re a woman…whose husband is a common soldier…What’s your life like as the war is unfolding? Because of course it goes on for 20 years…your husband goes off [to war], and then you see your sons grow up and go off [to war], too.”
In short, everything was hard. Everything was hard for a very long time.
What you need to know, Thing 4: The Worst Nepo Baby
The Regency Era technically refers to the years 1811–1820, when the Regent ruled England, but historians often expand the definition to include the broader period from 1795 to 1837.
Here’s what defines the Regency Era: Remember Mad King George, whose mental health was declining year by year? The Regency Era is named after the king’s eldest son, who ruled as Regent when the king was too incapacitated to rule, but also still…you know…alive.
The Regent in question was the Prince of Wales. AKA the Prince Regent. AKA “Prinny.” After King George III died, Prinny was elevated to the throne as King George IV.
Here’s what you need to know about the Regent: he was a total wastrel. A rake. He was notorious for his extravagant parties, his illegitimate children, and his debt. He was often drunk, rarely serious, and likely poisoned his wife. A life of indulgence made him so obese that his appearance alone became symbolic of his failure as a leader.
During the Regency Era, no one was in charge.
*Note: King George IV died in 1830 and was succeeded by William IV, who ruled for just 7 years. William’s reign is tacked onto the Regency Era.
Why all this matters: they defeated a dictator
Okay, here’s what we’ve learned: The Napoleonic Wars were like a million years long, everything was hard, and no one was in charge. And then finally, war was over.
Throughout the war, domestic life for the English elite who remained stateside was relatively stable. After Waterloo, it was positively delightful. I can’t find the exact quote, but I once read a description of the Regency Era that went something like: it was a tiny window of time when the smallest group of people had the greatest amount of fun.
After two decades of sacrifice, fear, and loss, society breathed a collective sigh of relief.
For a brief moment, everything was okay.
To put it in a modern context, the Regency was basically the 1990s. The biggest political news was the president’s sex scandal. Everyone was running around buying houses without down payments. 9/11 hadn’t yet changed our lives. TGIF was sacrosanct every Friday night.
This, I propose, is why Regency-Era romance contains little external conflict. That’s not to say the stakes of our individual lives — our own happiness — are insubstantial. Still, there’s a certain luxury in only having to worry about our own small, personal worlds, even if only for a little while.
The birth of the modern Regency romance genre
You might be asking: how does all this fit together? And how will reading Regency romance help fight dictators? To answer that, I need to introduce you to Georgette Heyer.
English novelist Georgette Heyer is the mother of the Regency romance genre. First published in 1921, Heyer’s great cadre of work encompassed mysteries as well as romances set in the upper classes of Georgian and Regency England. Her work was escapist and meticulously researched. It was romantic but never melodramatic.
It was so well researched that, according to the Wall Street Journal, “The Infamous Army (1937), her retelling of the Battle of Waterloo, became recommended reading at Sandhurst, the British military academy.”
Heyer was already a well-known mystery writer when, in 1935, she published Regency Buck and launched the Regency romance genre. When England marched into World War II, the popularity of Heyer’s romances soared.
Of the wartime popularity of her books, Heyer wrote this: “I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it’s unquestionably good escapist literature; & I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu.”
Historical romance author Sophie Irwin asserts in her Oxford University dissertation that the escapism provided by Georgette Heyer helped England win World War II. Read this interview with her. It is phenomenal!
Why you should read Regency romance when the world is burning down
You should read Regency romance because it’s about a group of people who, after defeating their generation’s greatest threat, enjoyed the hell out of life. Between their wealth and privilege and absurd customs, they could do it, too. They’d walked through fire and come out on the other side. They endured decades of backbreaking hardship, soul-rending sacrifice, and enough fear for five lifetimes.
You should read Regency romance because it was canonized as a genre by men in foxholes and women at the homefront, and people hiding during the Blitz. It was written for people whose world was burning down, people who grabbed onto scant moments when they could mentally escape and gather the strength to fight another day.
I’m not advocating that we escape fully. No good will come from burying our heads in the sand. We should resist. But perhaps we should also rest.
There are many tools for defeating dictators and fighting fascists. Regency romance helped the Greatest Generation do it. Maybe it will help us, too.
Want some low-stakes Regency romance to see you through? Even though my writing takes place in the early Victorian era (I love the external conflict that arises from a society in the middle of a great cultural and technological shift), I can’t say no to a good Regency romance escape.
Here are some recommendations from yours truly.
If you want to laugh out loud: Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare
If you want to see those coastal militias in action: A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare
If you want to learn about Waterloo: Slightly Tempted by Mary Balogh
If you want a delicious enemies-to-lovers story: A Reckless Match by Kate Bateman (She follows my Substack!)
If you want a spin on Jane Austen’s Persuasion: A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin
If you want a beautiful gay romance about a smuggler and a newly titled lord: The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles
If you want to read about a smart spinster with a naughty list: Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
If you want a little murder mystery thrown in: Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens
If you want vivid historical details, whip-smart dialogue, and a Parisian dressmaker with a theatrical curtsey: Silk is for Seduction by Loretta Chase
If you want to see a thief meet her match: To Love a Thief by Julie Anne Long
If you want to go back to the beginning: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
Thank you so much for writing this wonderful piece. Definitely need a bit of well researched but escapist romance right now. To my Libby app I go right after leaving some scathing political comments on substack.
CLASS IS IN SESSION! I'm not even a historical romance reader, and I'm OBSESSED with this. Can you make us newbies a recommended reading list??