"The Regency was a brief, elegant bubble in time sandwiched between three revolutions, the American and French on one side, the Industrial on the other.  It was a time stirred by the breath of change and a cast of incredible characters."
--Elisabeth Fairchild,   Regency Romance author

"It (the Regency) is another world than ours, disparate, strange, something back beyond the world we know and in which we live. It is a truly 'historical' era, properly so-called, and only to be experienced once it has been accepted as such."
--R. J. White, Historian/Author                    

"the greatest of all divisions in the history of the West is that which divides the present day from, say, the age of Jane Austen and Scott."
-- C. S. Lewis, Author/Theologian/Historian

"The people of the Regency were the children of a world of highwaymen, outlaws and old rebellion, of savage sports, horseplay and public riot; of a world where every child stood an even chance of dying before the age of five; where the scars of small-pox were accepted as a normal feature of the human countenance; where parents took their children to public executions for a homily on the wages of sin and to bedlam for amusement. Many a man of the Regency had heard the tale of the 'Forty-five' from an aged grandsire before he read Sir Walter Scott. Broadswords as instruments of public policy were still within living memory, and the guillotine a neighbouring rumour...The press-gang, the lash and the gallows were always round the corner."
--R. J. White, Historian/Author

A Regency romance is a story of love between a hero and heroine who lived during the period that the Prince of Wales (later George IV) ruled for his father George III, who suffered with the disease porphyria.  The Regency was a brief period--1811-1820--and sometimes Regency novels are set outside these narrow boundaries.  In architectural and design terms, the 'Regency' style is considered to have reigned between 1800 and 1837 thus causing considerable confusion about the time period.

Traditional Regency Romance
-- tends to be short-- 50,000 to 70,000 words.
-- is often light-hearted--a comedy of manners.
-- strives for historical accuracy in setting and detail.
-- aims for period accurate language and behaviour.

Regency Historicals
-- are longer -- 75,000 words plus.
-- involve a wide variety of story lines.
-- more sexual content than traditional Regency.
-- often contain less historical detail.