Literary scholar Diana Wallace explained that Georgette's popular novels helped “centralize female subjectivity, desires, and apprehensions to an unusual extent.”

More current "Regency-set" works, like the seductive Bridgerton novels, see a sensationalized shift, however. According to librarians and authors Neal Wyatt, Georgine Olson, Kristin Ramsdell, Joyce Saricks, and Lynne Welch, this fresh approach to Regency romance is "bolder, sexier, more adventurous, and less restricted."

"These lively tales kept the trappings of the period but often forfeited much of the traditional sub-genre’s core appeal in order to fit the broader historical mold,” they wrote.

Perhaps Daphne and the Duke of Hastings would neither be scheming nor graphically jumping each other's bones every other scene in a traditional Regency romance. But it's much more fun this way.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Bridgerton are currently streaming on Netflix.