When Netflix launched Bridgerton in late 2020, success was predictable. Created by the same manufacturer of Grey’sAnatomy, How to get rid of murder and other television hits, the series knew how to understand the tastes of its audience with calculated accuracy. Lush costumes, an irresistibly attractive cast and generous love quotes – Forbidden, loving, passionate and of any kind – they give life to a vintage fiction that caught both Jane Austen’s fans and those who had never heard of her. Yes, success was inevitable. But what few expected – inclusive Julia Quinn, the writer who created the story – was the magnitude of this triumph.
Transformed a few months after its premiere into the most watched series on the platform, Bridgerton’s adventures now have the flavor of a record and a cultural phenomenon. Fans Daphne and Simon have discovered that behind the boom there is a literary saga waiting for them. These are nine books that Julia Quinn (a graduate of Art History) has been publishing since 2000, in which she explores the amorous misfortunes of eight brothers of the English nobility at the beginning of the 19th century.
When she speaks, Quinn (a 51-year-old American) speaks more warmly like a friend obsessed with reading than a best-selling writer. He laughs fluently, apologizes when he drinks coffee, and displays without a bit of arrogance an encyclopedic knowledge of the Roman novel genre.
Julia Quinn on the set of Bridgerton: here with Simon, the Duke of Hastings (British actor Regé-Jean Page).
In social networks, his photos with the distribution of the production show that he is another fanaticHis eyes were as amazed as those of his followers. Its simple presence does not set it aside, but in it there are plans and ideas that are not worth just millions: they give new life to a genre that still carries machismo and literary stigmas.
Get more credit if you avoid the happy ending: they teach us that tragedy is more important. How many of the award-winning films are comedy?
Julia Quinn, writer
-How did your relationship with literature begin?
-Since I was little I was a great reader: I was the girl who was awake with a flashlight under the covers at night next to a book. And when he came back from school, he always stopped at the library. I became a writer because I like to read: just as simple. Not all great readers become writers, but every writer is a great reader..
-At what point did you discover that writing was your vocation?
-I sold the first two books to a publisher in the same month I was accepted into Medicine. It was really crazy. The end, I dropped out of college because I was so excited about writing that if I had continued my studies, I wouldn’t have had time.. First I postponed them for a year, then there were two … I panicked and had the crisis of the twenties: my friends were about to graduate and I felt adrift, which is funny because I was publishing my books. In the end, I was convinced that the best thing would be to write full time and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.
“When was the idea for the Bridgerton saga born?”
-First book, The Duke and me, was published in 2000. I don’t remember how the idea came about, but I do remember how Lady Whistledown was born. When you write a book, sometimes you have context data that you need in the story, but which is heavy if you leave it at once. Then it occurred to me to invent a character: a gossip rumor whose role was to provide information so that it would not be necessary. I had a lot of fun writing his passages, although he brought me challenges: I received a calendar from 1813 with the real days of Monday, Wednesday and Friday on which the gossip would come out and I calculated when each event happened in the books to fits the opinion columns. . Later came the idea of playing the mystery and that the other characters did not know who the writer was, which became one of the most popular aspects of the saga. It was a very happy accident.
Bridgerton: The sex scenes between Daphne and Simon have generated controversy.
-In the book, all the scenes revolve around the protagonists, Simon and Daphne, while the show includes new characters and subplots. How did you see this change?
-It was a great idea because there are things that work very well in books, but not on TV, and vice versa. In my novels there are secondary characters to whom I give a life of my own, but I never get into their heads and I have no scenes outside the protagonists. But television requires a wider range of stories. What the writers did was take characters who later became more important in the saga and give them to them from the beginning, planting seeds for subsequent conflicts. They read all the books and that allows them to think in perspective. A word-for-word adaptation would not have worked as well.
The first book in the Bridgerton saga (Editorial Urano), now republished with the characters from the series on the cover.
-Something that stood out from your work is that you play with elements of period novels, such as the role of women. Did you feel that certain platitudes need to be “updated”?
-The gene has always evolved. When they pointed out to me that my heroines are feminists, my answer is that if you read other books in the genre, you will find many other characters who are also feminists, even if that word did not exist at the time. What I want to do is stay realistic historically: my characters are feminist in terms of what society has allowed them, and their life experience allows them to imagine. They are revolutionaries because they are starting to ask questions.
-How does this work?
-In the Netflix series, Eloise wonders what it’s like to go to college. I don’t think it would cross her mind to go to Oxford and ask to be admitted; it is something very far from its context. But questioning reality is a start: recognizing when something is wrong is revolutionary. Giving the characters these feminist sensibilities is historically correct. Looking back, there are certain women we call pioneers. But we must also celebrate those who allowed that empowerment: before these extraordinary feminists tore down the walls, there were others who removed the bricks to make it easier to throw. That’s what my women think.
-Vintage romances seem to generate a very special attraction in the 21st century. Why?
-The historical time I choose for my novels, located at the beginning of the 19th century, is one of the most popular for the romantic novel. Partly because I grew up reading Jane Austen or watching adaptations of her works. But they are also located in a correct point that is far enough away to feel like a fairy tale, but not too far away that the actions of the characters are incomprehensible or difficult to empathize with.
If someone said, “There were no dukes with Simon’s skin color,” I’d say there probably wouldn’t be so many attractive single men without syphilis.
Julia Quinn, writer
-The fact that these novels are often solved with a “happy forever” makes them the target of criticism. How do you stand in front of them?
-The happy ending is the definition of a love novel. If it doesn’t, it’s not. It may be love or it may have certain elements of romance, but it is something different. What happens is that you get more credit if you avoid the happy ending: we are taught that tragedy is more important. How many of the award-winning films are comedy? It’s a shame: darkness is wonderful, but it’s not the only thing that exists. Then there is a certain contempt for the happy ending, but with romance it deepens.
-Why?
-Because it is written and read mainly by women. It is something we do as a society: we devalue the things we consider “feminine”. And so it is believed, although many people read these books and are very profitable financially. The sale of these novels allows publishers to publish poetry: it subsidizes it with romance. I hope that Bridgerton’s success as a series will help change these preconceptions. Many people have seen the show without knowing that they will see a love novel and maybe now they are looking for something like this.
-The series has changed the characteristics of some characters to be more inclusive. For example, the black-skinned nobles of the British aristocracy of the nineteenth century. How did you see that?
-I think it’s cool too I feel grateful. The show’s creative team expanded my world in a way I couldn’t have. I’m just one person and my diversity is limited to me, while the writers of the series form a diverse group in gender, sexual orientation, race and religion. Everyone managed to bring their own imagination into the narrative universe and I appreciate that they did.
Julia Quinn, happy on Bridgerton’s set.
-Were you worried that it was questioned as historically incorrect?
-When we talk about romance, the only thing that matters is feelings. The show did a great job, bringing this to the screen in a way that now more people can relate as part of that experience. If someone said, “There were no dukes with Simon’s skin color,” I’d say there probably wouldn’t be so many attractive single men without syphilis. If you are already in a fantastic country, why not let more people feel worthy of your happy ending? My concern when I write is the feeling of the second, or third, being historically correct.
-There is a scene that caused agitation, in which Daphne forces the Duke to have sex. Did you expect the success of the show to bring a debate on consent?
-It’s not a simple scene. Some have suggested that it should be removed, but these characters are not perfect and I think it is too important for the story. It is fascinating to analyze the reaction that the scene has aroused over time; it is a window to the evolution of our society. But it is important to see it in the context in which the characters live, because it is about power and how it is distributed. Society has taught Daphne that her job is to marry and have children, and her husband denies this, adding that he has total dominance and could do whatever he wants with her. Many are terrified to ask what would happen if they changed their sex, but it is not so simple, because one of them has all the power.
