Mad and Bad

Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency- Bea Koch
Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: September 1, 2020

Rating:
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Synopsis:  Regency England is a world immortalized by Jane Austen and Lord Byron in their beloved novels and poems. The popular image of the Regency continues to be mythologized by the hundreds of romance novels set in the period, which focus almost exclusively on wealthy, white, Christian members of the upper classes.

But there are hundreds of fascinating women who don't fit history books limited perception of what was historically accurate for early 19th century England. Women like Dido Elizabeth Belle, whose mother was a slave but was raised by her white father's family in England, Caroline Herschel, who acted as her brother's assistant as he hunted the heavens for comets, and ended up discovering eight on her own, Anne Lister, who lived on her own terms with her common-law wife at Shibden Hall, and Judith Montefiore, a Jewish woman who wrote the first English language Kosher cookbook.

As one of the owners of the successful romance-only bookstore The Ripped Bodice, Bea Koch has had a front row seat to controversies surrounding what is accepted as "historically accurate" for the wildly popular Regency period. Following in the popular footsteps of books like Ann Shen's Bad Girls Throughout History, Koch takes the Regency, one of the most loved and idealized historical time periods and a huge inspiration for American pop culture, and reveals the independent-minded, standard-breaking real historical women who lived life on their terms. She also examines broader questions of culture in chapters that focus on the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, the lives of women of color in the Regency, and women who broke barriers in fields like astronomy and paleontology. In Mad and Bad, we look beyond popular perception of the Regency into the even more vibrant, diverse, and fascinating historical truth.

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When we think of the phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" we think (of course) of Lord Byron and the men like him: dangerous rakes who could seduce a woman with a glance.  But in Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency, author Bea Koch turns this idea on its head by examining Regency England through the women who did't meet the stereotype of a demure Regency miss.  Koch refutes critics who bash Regency romances, claiming the historic time period is window dressing for stories with far too 'modern' heroines, by introducing us to real Regency heroines, from Lady Jersey and Caroline Lamb to DIdo Elizabeth Belle and Caroline Herschel.

Among the contradictory aspects of the Regency, sex and decorum are at the top of the list. So it is only natural that Koch starts Mad and Bad with some of the real "bad girls" of the era- women who pushed against Society's rules to be influential mistresses of royalty or highly placed politicians.  Any reader of Regency romance knows Almack's Assemblies and the strict and starchy Patronesses who ruled Polite Society.  But Koch gives us the behind-the-scenes stories of their affairs and intrigues that would shock any debutante.  How many Patronesses slept with the Prince Regent?  Or with each other's husbands? Who really ruled the ambassadorial home (and work) of Count and Princess Lieven?

Once she has hooked you with sex, Koch introduces us to women who might not be shocking by today's standards, but certainly didn't fit the stereotypical Regency mold.  Artists, authors, and actresses the reader may know by name are fleshed out into real people following their muse.  Female scientists, astronomers, and geologists struggle to be recognized in a man's world.  Today we think of movies or books that add LGBTQ and non-white characters as being "politically correct"- Koch introduces us to famous, infamous, and relatively unknown, but true life, LGBTQ and non-white people living in Regency England. Koch looks past the scandalous reputations women like Caroline Lamb have to try and find the real woman behind the myth, to put them in context of the times, and to show us the networks of women (and sometimes men) who supported them.    

The writing style of Mad and Bad is relaxed and informal, the people are introduced in relatively short pieces, as the book itself is not designed to be in-depth biographies.  Instead, it is an introduction to a world many readers might not have known even existed, and an introduction to the people who may become the forefront of history as we ask new questions about the "real" Regency England.  Koch provides the reader with plenty of 'recommended reading' and bibliographies to access more in-depth histories of any of the individuals who particularly grasp your attention, and I know my own "to read" list about doubled because of this!  My only complaint was the tendency towards repetition, a little more editing would have pushed this review from 4 to 5 stars easily.

An excellent introduction to a few of the strong women of Regency England who helped pave the way for women to this day.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review