Georgette Heyer's Regency World

Georgette Heyer's Regency World
by Jennifer Kloester

This is a handy reference book for fans of Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen and the Regency era. Each chapter covers an aspect of Regency society: clothing, transportation, etiquette, health care and more. She uses examples from Heyer's novels and appendices provide a list of slang words, biographies of Regency people and a timeline. The book is illustrated with small line drawings done from 19th century illustrations. The book could have benefited from full-color or at least larger illustrations. Though I knew most of the information included in the book from reading the novels and reading blogs, I found it useful and learned a few new things. I especially liked the glossary, biographies and timeline.

Despite a few historical inaccuracies, Jennifer Kloester nicely compiles all the information from Heyer's novels into one book. I plan to keep this book on my night stand next time I read Heyer so I can look up what a tilbury looks like or the dates of events mentioned in the book, etc.

I recommend this book primarily to first-time Regency readers and not so much to the long-time reader.