Bridgerton

About the Bridgerton series

Two decades before Netflix made the name a global obsession, Julia Quinn's Bridgerton novels were already the gold standard of Regency romance. The series gives each of the eight alphabetically named Bridgerton siblings — Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth — their own love story, set amid the balls, promenades, and merciless gossip of London's ton, all narrated in part by the anonymous scandal sheet of Lady Whistledown. The Duke and I opens the sequence with Daphne's fake courtship with the marriage-averse Duke of Hastings; The Viscount Who Loved Me delivers the series' most beloved enemies-to-lovers duel between Anthony and Kate Sheffield; and the remaining books work through the family with Quinn's signature blend of wit, warmth, and genuinely funny dialogue — closer to a drawing-room comedy than a brooding bodice-ripper. The core eight novels ran from 2000 to 2006, later joined by The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After, a collection of second epilogues checking in on every couple. Quinn then wrote the Rokesby quartet (2016-2020), a prequel series set a generation earlier featuring the Bridgerton parents' era and the family next door. The Netflix adaptation remixes the books' order and plots, so readers coming from the show will find familiar couples in unfamiliar configurations — and a great deal more of Lady Whistledown's pen.