A queen of hearts: Poonam Saxena on Bridgerton, Regency romances and Georgette Heyer

My friends and I, and indeed much of our generation, couldn’t get enough of them in our growing-up years. I’ve read and re-read her books countless times. But it seems like few people buy her novels today. More’s the pity…

Bridgerton itself is based, of course, on the series of novels by American writer Julia Quinn, each dedicated to the life and loves of one of the family’s eight children. Quinn credits Jane Austen and Heyer with basically inventing the Regency romance (not that we needed her to tell us this).

This era stretched from about the 1790s to the 1830s, a period of wealth and strict social mores when the aristocracy flourished. The term itself is drawn from a short span, 1811 to 1820, during which George IV served as Prince Regent, stepping in for his ailing father, George III.

Austen (1775-1817) remains a powerhouse, with a small industry seemingly dedicated to retelling her stories for the screen. The appeal of Heyer’s work was different. She herself made self-deprecatory comments about her books. “I think… I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense. But it’s unquestionably good escapist literature,” she once said.

At the same time, she disliked critics who wrote her off as just another insubstantial romance writer. Because her books were also defined by solid hard work. Her background research was impeccable. Her library contained histories of everything from costumes to coaches. She left behind scores of files with notes on women, business, banking and evolving social norms.

Her homework included unearthing the delightful slang of the period. If you were being foolish, you were “making a cake of yourself”. If something was popular, it was “all the crack”.

Every Regency romance writer since has borrowed heavily from the exhaustive research in her books.

In her use of such details, she created an amusing and delectable world of the wealthy and titled who swanned about between their London and country homes.

Her heroes were intriguing. There was Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon and hero of These Old Shades (1926), who was tall and sardonic, with thin lips and heavy-lidded eyes, and who invariably dressed in gold-laced coats, silk waistcoats and jewelled cravats. His nickname was Satanas, because of his dissolute, wicked past.

There was Freddy, hero of one of her funniest books (my personal favourite), Cotillion (1953). He was a not-very-bright man, always surrounded by a posse of droll, idle young men, but possessed of exquisite taste and a good, kind heart.

Heyer’s heroines were spirited and dashing (Sophia in The Grand Sophy, 1950), shy and timid (Hero in Friday’s Child, 1944) or artless, charming ingenues (Horatia in The Convenient Marriage, 1934).

In their polished Hessian boots and long-tailed coats, the men gambled in discreet clubs, went riding and racing, or escorted women to social engagements. The women spent an inordinate amount of time shopping and sighing over gauzy gowns and silver ribbons. Love blossomed in drawing rooms, at card parties and balls.

The novels often had the most hilarious climaxes, featuring frantic carriage races, gunshots, and multiple characters tumbling into the same place, often a remote inn or isolated manor.

Through it all, Heyer’s wit and humour stood out. You have to be careful reading one of her romances in public, for fear of emitting supressed snorts of laughter from time to time. (In These Old Shades, the Duke of Avon asks his newly acquired page where he was born. The page says that it was not in Anjou, and the Duke responds languidly, “That is of course interesting. Spare me a list of the places where you were not born, I beg of you.”)

I wonder, when will filmmakers finally discover Heyer?

(To reach Poonam Saxena with feedback, email poonamsaxena3555@gmail.com)