The real queen of Bridgerton

Regency women would have a ball if they were transported from 'the Ton' to the present day, author Julia Quinn says.

- DIONNE CHRISTIAN

What would the women of Bridgerton make of modern love if they suddenly found themselves transported from Regency England to postBrexit Britain? Julia Quinn - real name Julia Pottinger - is the American author who wrote the Bridgerton books on which Shonda Rhimes based the phenomenally popular Netflix series. The third season has just arrived on the platform. She's at home in Seattle when the Listener connects via Zoom. Ask her what the Bridgerton sisters, their friend Penelope Featherington - who is at the heart of this season's big romance - and their ever-watchful mothers and chaperones might make of today's online dating, hook-up culture, gender-bending and more casual attitudes to attachment, and she hesitates for a heartbeat.

"I don't even know that they'd even be focused, at first, on dating if they arrived in the here and now," she says, wry smile flickering across her face. "I think they'd be in shock. Different characters would react differently, of course, so I think Eloise especially might be like, 'Oh my gosh, I can vote!' and, 'I can own things.' I think they'd all be pleased that they could scratch themselves and if it got infected, they wouldn't die."

Once recovered, technology such as dating apps might appeal to them. "Penelope, for example, I think she would enjoy the ability to send messages back and forth before you actually have to meet a person. That opportunity to communicate with a prospective suitor or boyfriend or whatever you want to call it in writing first could be welcomed - especially for someone like me who, you know, often feels I can be wittier written than spoken." 

One can only imagine how much use the eagle-eyed and acute-of-hearing Lady Whistledown might make of social media, and the type of posts she'd tease "the Ton" with. But Quinn admits, when it comes to online dating, she wouldn't know where to start.