Thought Bonkerton was brilliant?
Wait until you try the audiobook, FREE with tomorrow’s Mail... as this bodice-ripping author reveals just why the TV hit has seduced us all in lockdown
LUSTFUL glances, heaving bosoms, skulduggery and sex — lots of the latter in particular, often depicted in eyewatering detail: Bridgerton has given us all this and more since it burst on to our television screens last year, cementing itself as one of lockdown’s pre-eminent hits.
Indeed, unless you have been tucked away on a remote island, you’ve likely either watched it or are at least aware of it and its dashing leading man, Regé-Jean Page, who plays Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings and love interest of London’s most eligible debutante, Daphne Bridgerton.
At the last count, the series had garnered 82 million viewers worldwide — 40 per cent of the 200 million subscribers to streaming service Netflix — all glued to the fortunes of the beautiful and privileged Daphne (winningly played by actress Phoebe Dynevor), eldest daughter of the powerful Bridgerton family, as she makes her debut on to Regency London’s competitive marriage market.
From the glittering ballrooms of Mayfair to the aristocratic palaces of Park Lane and beyond, this is a seductive, sumptuous world replete with intricate rules and dramatic power struggles. It was brought beautifully to life in the first instance by Julia Quinn, on whose novel, The Duke And I, the eight-part series is based.
Fans of the TV version will doubtless be delighted to know that she has penned seven more, following the fortunes of the other Bridgerton siblings, although it is The Duke And I which the Daily Mail is bringing to its readers tomorrow in the form of a free audiobook.
Whether or not you have watched the series, I can testify that allowing yourself to be absorbed into Quinn’s sensually created world is a veritable treat, for as we labour on through this lockdown, who does not long for a slice of escapism?
And escapism is what The Duke And I offers in spades, filled as it is with lascivious lords and lustful ladies in the cut-throat world of London’s gossipy elite.
It is a world that Quinn realised was ripe with potential long before the coronavirus pandemic. A fan of historical romance novels, she began writing them while in her final year at Harvard University.
That was 30 years ago, and she’s since published 38 historical romance novels that have reached the New York Times Best Sellers list 19 times, been translated into 29 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Those numbers certainly cock a snook at the literary snobs who have long viewed historical romance as what Julia herself has called the ‘ugly stepchild’ of the publishing industry. They have been judged as formulaic, derivative and unimaginative. Yet the reading public continues to devour them: today, Mills & Boon, that pre-eminent publisher of largely historical romance, still produces an astonishing 150 titles a month. One of its books sells every four seconds; about 200million a year in all.
While her sales may not hit those dizzying heights, Julia Quinn’s writing has long sold in vast volumes, even before the major sales boost she has undoubtedly enjoyed courtesy of The Duke And I’s adaptation for television.
PO-FAceD purists of the period may not like it, but despite — or perhaps even because of — all the advancements of the modern era, there is still a yearning for some good old bodiceripping action between handsome but flawed aristocrats and lively but stubborn heiresses.
Is there anything wrong with that? Not in the least! It’s pure escapism, a romantic template which is attractive precisely because, for most of the time at least, the plots bear little resemblance to real life. They are a contrast, a counterbalance — and never more so than during the long dark days of the latest lockdown — although underpinning them all are the perennial themes of falling passionately in love and having mind-blowing sex. Who among us doesn’t want some of that?
Sex always sells, of course. As a British historian and author, I know this at first hand, having had the fascinating experience of seeing a world I conjured in my books brought vividly to life on the small screen.
I’ve written two works of historical fiction, but also non-fiction, including The covent Garden Ladies, which tells the story behind Harris’s List, an infamous guidebook of prostitutes which detailed addresses, physical characteristics and ‘specialities’ of London’s 18thcentury sex workers.
I took the readers down the dark alleys of London’s underworld in those days, a realm populated by tavern owners, pimps, punters, card sharps and, of course, prostitutes and brothel-keepers, where prostitution was integrated into the fabric of everyday life and it was not unusual for an ordinary respectable greengrocer or a carpenter to rent out a room in their home to a sex worker.
That book became Harlots, a hit series on BBc2 starring Downton Abbey actress Jessica Brown Findlay — she played Lady Sybil crawley — and Samantha Morton. It quickly gained its own legion of devoted fans.
Like Bridgerton, there was no shortage of heaving corset-clad bosoms. But aside from the noholds-barred depiction of sometimes lustful, sometimes transactional sex, I like to think that what attracted viewers was that it told us something we didn’t already know, subverting our understanding of the past.
In many ways that is what Julia Quinn has done with Bridgerton, too: taking what we know about the past and playing with it, perfectly sketching a world of passions, snobbery and familial dynamics in an era which, as Julia herself has said, offers the perfect setting for writers — far enough in the past to be imbued with a sense of romantic drama, but close enough to feel recognisable to the modern viewer and reader.
Modern women may not wear corsets any more, but the memory of those times are not that distant. As Bridgerton shows us, if you were a woman in Regency england, marrying well was pretty much the only ‘career option’ available, while if you were a man of wealth you could do just about what you liked.
For all that, Bridgerton is a creative drama, not historical documentary. While it is set in a period we think we know, in reality it’s about as historically accurate as the fantasy epic Game Of Thrones. Quinn takes all kinds of liberties, as she herself has acknowledged, laughingly admitting in an interview that she’s been ‘dinged by the historical accuracy police’.
Just like Game Of Thrones however, she has also managed to create her own wholly plausible world governed by its own rules — rules its characters must play by to survive.
Once you understand the invented universe of the Regency Romance you will become invested in the characters and relationships and let the drama and the intrigue whisk you away. It may not be historically accurate, but it is certainly great fun.