Non-fiction history of the "Regency" romance genre

In another group there's been a brief discussion of "Regency" romance novels and the history of the genre and I'm assuming there must be non-fiction books covering the subject, even if it's only a long chapter in general histories of the romance genre. Suggestions?

The specific question that is motivating me is difficult to google: when did "Regency" romances move away from the landed gentry favoured by Jane Austen (a few Knights and Baronets) and Georgette Heyer, to focus on peers (many Dukes, Earls, Marquesses, and Viscounts)? Which I mention because someone might also be able to link me to an online article or paper about the transition and the authors responsible.

Thank you for your time. :-)

I don't know the answer to your question about when it moved away from all dukes all the time. I remember being blown away by Janet Mullany subverting the genre with her older and more jaded heroines and having The Weaver Takes A Wife recc'd to me as a novelty duke-free story back in the early 2100s. So I *think* they're early in the field.

Am pretty sure Heyer founded the regency as a genre so the bio of her by Jennifer Kloester might be helpful; I read it when it came out in paperback but cannot remember a thing except that GH sounded snobbish and mean, sorry for my poor memory.

Most of the books I've read about romance books - Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Wendell, v fun in-jokey dive into tropes - or And Then Their Hearts Stood Still by Cadogan are largely about contemp love stories.

2100s? 2000s!
There are weblogs, many of which link to similar, about regency research. I just got distracted by http://riskyregencies.com
but it was historical trivia rather than a timeline of novels.

There are quite a few publications and websites linked on the Wikipedia page, but you’ve probably seen those already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regency_romance

>2 nessreader: Thank you! Yes, most of the non-fiction about romance novels seems to be literary criticism rather than literary history and I think I want the history. And Then Their Hearts Stood Still looks interesting but I'm hoping for something published more recently than 1994.

I've managed to find some online reading about the history of "Traditional Regency" romance novels (the Heyer type) and how they differ from "Regency-set Historical" (ironically tending to be less historical and more fantasy) so my question would probably be phrased differently now, but I'm still interested in recs for good non-fiction histories covering those two genres (and especially the social history aspects).

>3 thorold: Thank you. TBH I often forget wikipedia exists and never look there first so it's helpful to be reminded! It's an unusually informative and well-written page (cough possibly because it's appears to be a close reproduction of text from a book I read part of on google books cough) but unfortunately the most interesting links are dead.

>4 spiralsheep: You're welcome. Yeah the books I named are sadly old (hearts stood still is fun though) and I don't know up to date resouces

Tangential, but a fun read, is Silver Fork Society by Alison Adburgham. It's very entertaining, about the sex 'n' shopping books written in the regency and read in the regency.