Tuesday, January 18, 2022

The Looooong Regency

Every so often, I have a reader ask me when the Regency period was. When I tell them February 5, 1811, to January 29, 1820, I frequently get wide eyes and the response, “That’s it?”

Yes, technically, the Regency period encompasses the time when Prince George was Regent for his father, King George III. He was made Regency by an Act of Parliament in 1811, and he ascended to the throne on his father’s death in 1820 (although he would not be crowned until a year and a half later). It is one of the most popular periods for setting historical romances and historical mysteries. But the same aspects of the beloved Regency lasted longer than that short 9-year period.


The high-waisted women’s fashions and dapper men’s fashions that typify the Regency came into style around 1794, following the French Revolution, and women’s waistlines didn’t start to fall until the 1820s and then only gradually. The Gothic Revival movement in architecture started in the 1740s. The ideas of freedom for all from tyranny flourished from the 1750s onward.

Regency Fiction Writers, the professional organization for those who write books set in the Regency period, recognizes the years 1780 to 1840 as the extended Regency period. The organization celebrates the publication of new works set during those years through its monthly Regency Reader newsletter. If you love the Regency, you can subscribe here.

Because who doesn’t want a little more Regency?

No comments: