Some of you may know that I am in the process of writing my first novel, which is a historical romance set in the Regency era (hence all the romance-novel focused posts of late; making that research do double duty). In my researches I have noticed that historical fiction tends to either be extremely specific about when it is set or extremely vague; Georgette Heyer could probably tell you not only what day, month, and year her novels begin but could also tell you who the Prince Regent had taken to mistress, the current fashion in men’s cravat tying, what trouble Boney was getting up to, which dogs were considered fashionable pets for young rich ladies, and many other things besides. Most of Heyer’s progeny keep it significantly looser. Some writers gives us dates even though they really shouldn’t. Most other authors keep it vague, as I am, and merely set their story sometime between 1811 and 1820 (the official period of the Regency). Others have even decided to count the entire first 30-ish years of the 19th century as the Regency, only allowing the rather strict branding of Victoria’s reign (which began in 1837) to limit them.
It’s an interesting dilemma to find oneself in when writing historical fiction. How important are the specifics of your time period to your characters’ arcs, relationships, and worldview? How much do you want to make your characters people of their time and how much do you want to morph them, make them hold more modern opinions on gender, race, sexuality, and class? If you choose to go the strict, high research route you may create a novel that has the ability to transport readers more effectively than any academic text could. But this route is time-consuming and difficult, requiring years of research and access to primary sources that may be beyond many writers. You also have to accept that some readers will be alienated by characters who may espouse views we find abhorrent now. After all, not every historical heroine could possibly have been an abolitionist or proto-suffragette with progressive views on whether homosexuality should be a hanging offense. A certain air of vagueness as to both specific historical placement and adherence to historical fact lends a great deal of cover.
Most writers who self-select the historical romance genre thus elect to recreate a historical period based on vibes rather than facts. The Regency period of Jane Austen’s novels is not the Regency period of Lisa Kleypas or Eloise James’ novels; that comparison is probably giving Miss Austen too much credit for high realism anyway. Especially in recent years, most novelists writing in this and many other subgenres write in conversation with their peers. The Regency of a Sarah MacLean novel is basically the same time and place as that of a Tessa Dare novel or a Julia Quinn novel; indeed many of these novelists now co-write short crossover stories or share minor characters across their books. And as both a reader and a writer in this world, I am thrilled to see them do so. Their version of the Regency is something like Disney World’s version of the American Frontier: far cleaner, nicer, more amusing, and safer than the actual thing by a long mile. Not for nothing, this is something the in-universe creators of Westworld struggled with; if you could actually immerse yourself in a historical period, would you want it to be more accurate to the reality of that time or to our filtered fiction about that time? I bet you can guess the answer.
The Bridgerton novels by Julia Quinn were always pretty straightforward Regency romances, no different in tone, content, or quality than any of the other novelists’ work I’ve mentioned. To see those novels adapted into a series that not only leans but fully cannonballs into the vibes has been extraordinary. In a recent review of the series Dead Ringers, NYT critic James Poniewozik made the case that adaptations and remakes have a grand opportunity to do something transformative with their source material, but too many leave that opportunity on the table, instead creating stale beat-for-beat adaptations that are too faithful. He writes,
More “faithful,” here, means more exhaustive — more committed to reproducing, at a healthy budget, the images already inside the reader’s head. And here’s the problem with faith: The aesthetic version, like the religious one, can lead you to higher insight and inspiration, or it can shackle you to the unforgiving literal interpretation of a text. Adaptations are a devil’s bargain. They are made for a reason, to gain the advantages of brand recognition and a pre-existing audience. But that comes with the burden of expectations: fans of the original checking it against the source, some looking for a fresh take, others looking for a completist video illustration.
Or worse, they use “faithfulness” as a cover for small-mindedness.
Although Poniewozik likely has more exalted prestige bait in mind here, the Bridgerton adaptation fits his bill to a tee. Bridgerton takes Quinn’s novels and spins them into a frothy, glittery, gorgeous confection. The aesthetics of the series perfectly match the overall tone of the genre as it is currently constituted. Does it matter that sequins weren’t used in women’s clothing until the 1920s? Or that every character has perfect, white teeth? Does it take us out of it that no one is ever wearing a hat or becoming sick with anything that isn’t strictly plot-related and thus easily curable? Bridgerton is a well-wrought aestheticization of our fantasy vision of the Regency. And were it merely that, I would praise it for the accomplishment. But the series is playing an interesting game with history in less overt ways, and it is in that I find even more to praise, as well as a few things to give me pause.
The most straightforward change that goes beyond the aesthetic is the series’ treatment of race. When the series premiered it was at first somewhat unclear whether the casting was meant to be color-blind or not. There were Black and brown actors playing characters that were written as white in the novels, something which was at first portrayed as unremarkable in-universe. A few episodes in, the series acknowledged that this was not merely color-blind casting, but a deliberate plot choice. Especially in its first season, the series always seemed a bit hesitant to lay out for us what this meant; Lady Danbury is the only character to directly address the fact that half of London society is comprised of people of color, telling the audience that when King George III married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, it opened the door for people of color to be elevated to high positions in society. In the series, Queen Charlotte is Black, as are many other nobles and royals who have flourished in the time since her marriage to the king. In season two, the role of Kate Sheffield was changed to Kate Sharma, an Indian woman who ultimately marries Viscount Bridgerton. There is a thread running through both seasons that the elevation of people of color to high positions in society is both recent and tremulous. Lady Danbury especially seems aware of what an opportunity she and other people of color have been given to lead society and how important it is to hold themselves to high standards so as to maintain that place.
Many historical adaptations have opted to complicate the concept of color-blind casting in recent years. The 2023 adaptation of Great Expectations, for instance, is on its surface a product of color-blind casting. However, it is clear that much thought went into which characters are being played by people of color, namely Estella and Jaggers. It changes our experience of the story to see them as people of color, casting light into dark corners and bringing new insights to light. Similarly, the Dev Patel-led David Copperfield has stated that its casting process was color-blind, but has also acknowledged the valences placed upon the story by casting a British actor of Indian descent. Bridgerton is doing something far more radical than these, though, due to the extent of its universe. There are many Bridgerton and non-Bridgerton novels that the series can pull from to continue its run; as one of the most popular shows to ever premiere on Netflix, it is likely it will continue to do so. With the addition of a prequel series that focuses on the marriage of Charlotte and King George, that universe has expanded considerably. That series’ focus on historical figures, as well as its expanded time horizon (Charlotte and George were married for six decades, meaning the series technically runs from around 1761 to the 1817 death of Princess Charlotte, the heir apparent) makes it long past time to lay out the exact terms of this alt-history.
For alt-history it now most certainly is. Although the series has never explicitly stated so, this cannot be a world in which, for instance, slavery existed. In the British Empire, the slave trade officially ended in 1807, and slavery was officially abolished in 1833. The first season of Bridgerton focuses on the 1813 social season and even in Queen Charlotte’s 1761 timeframe people of color are certainly not enslaved in-universe. The decision to have George marry a woman of color and thus integrate people of color fully into British society is spoken of as just that, a purely social one. Impactful, but hardly the same project as integrating formerly enslaved people into the upper echelons of society. Instead, people of color are mostly referred to as being products of colonialism; people whose families immigrated to England from British colonies but were never under the thumb of the empire or enslaved by it. In Queen Charlotte it is clear there are still racial tensions, but more along the lines of current immigrant-focused tensions. People of color are seen as Other, yes, and inferior, but in a different way than real history would present. The series is willing to provide a cheeky disclaimer at the top to make sure you’re hip to all this, but it ultimately seems unwilling to own the whole realm of implications its narrative choices indicate.
A more subtle change from historical fact is the lack of focus the Bridgerton Cinematic Universe places on the role of the Prince Regent. It is, after all, called the Regency period for a reason; the Regent was a seminal figure in the first 30-ish years of the 19th century. How he dressed, the morality (or lack thereof) he affected, his profligacy and penchant for gambling, his many mistresses, his tastes in architecture, music, art, and literature are what shaped the Regency period. In Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte always dresses in a style some fifty years out of date; whether she actually did so or not, the aesthetic message here is the right one: it wasn’t Queen Charlotte that shaped the way the ton dressed or acted, it was “Prinny.” For some reason, many novels set in this period erase Prinny from the picture, perhaps because he wasn’t a very nice or attractive man. His versions of debauchery were far from sexy and he ate and drank his way into an early grave. I don’t believe Quinn ever even mentions him; his first appearance in the BCU is in Queen Charlotte, where he plays an extremely minor role and is virtually indistinguishable from Charlotte’s other wastrel sons. And so I think it is fair to say that the BCU is also an alt-history in a feminist sense, placing all the focus on Charlotte’s influence on society while eliding Prinny’s. I have to say this choice does make for a better story. Charlotte is a transfixing character; Prinny always had a weak one.
I applaud Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte for embracing such a vibrant vision of this time period. I have long thought that treating this period in novels as a wishful construction was the key to escapist joy; that isn’t to say that the realities of the period aren’t fascinating, or the real people not worth reading about, but real history is not escapist and it is often far from romantic. We are all allowed our fantasies, our stroll around Epcot, our heroic pirates and lusty Scottish lairds. To escape into a world that can joyfully present the love lives of people of color in a setting and genre they have traditionally been excluded from is a gift. But alt-history is also laden with responsibility. It is no small thing to imagine a world that never knew the original sin of slavery. Spurious rumors have long persisted among historians that Queen Charlotte might have been Black; although this has been disproved time and again it still shows up as fact in articles about Meghan Markle. A series like this uses that rumor as a springboard, but never has to confront the sexist and racist roots of the rumor or pay the price for furthering it. Other marginalized groups, especially gay and bisexual men, do not enjoy a similar flourishing of possibilities. Homosexuality is clearly still not only taboo but criminalized in the BCU, making one wonder why they didn’t resolve that historical atrocity too while they were running the red pen of fiction through time. Women’s sexuality is still constrained, their purity monitored hawkishly and their choices extremely limited. Poverty is mostly left out of the picture because our eyes are directed firmly upwards. Although the Peninsular Wars feature heavily in romance novels, they don’t seem to exist in the BCU, so I suppose that’s a nice 375,000 casualty edit to history too. One risks sounding like a spoilsport in pointing these things out, and I’m sure many (including often me) can enjoy these properties without these thoughts intruding on their mind. But sometimes, intrude they do.