Author Pamela Regis notes that romance novels don’t get much respect. She cites eye-opening statistics: in 1999, romance novels were 55.9% of paperbacks sold in North America – more than all other genres combined. It’s a billion dollar industry. However, as of the date of this book (2007) the New York Times Book Review had never reviewed a romance novel (despite numerous appearances on best seller lists). She also notes that “mainstream” critical reviews of the genre are almost universally negative – especially by female critics – but that these critics base their opinions on hasty generalizations from tiny subsets (one critic read seven novels; another, two).

Regis then sets out to define “romance novel”: “…a work of prose fiction that tells the story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more heroines”. She then expands that definition to include eight essential elements:
1. The society setting is defined – including explaining unfamiliar principles in historical romances.
2. The hero and heroine meet.
3. A barrier to their relationship is established – for example, the hero’s pride and the heroine’s prejudice.
4. The hero and heroine are attracted to each other.
5. One (usually, but not always, the hero) declares love for the other.
6. The point of ritual death (I had a little trouble with this one; “death” seems too strong a word). Regis refers to a situation where the “barrier” mentioned above in #3 seems to be too strong to overcome and there is no prospect of a happy ending.
7. The recognition – where the hero and heroine recognize that the “barrier” can be overcome
8. The betrothal – the hero (sometimes the heroine) proposes and is accepted. Regis notes that starting in the late 20th century, it’s no longer required that the couple actually marry, just that they establish a permanent relationship.
Regis then notes there are three other common elements that are not essential: a wedding; a scapegoat (who perhaps was responsible for “the barrier) is exiled; and bad character is converted.

Regis goes on the cite the historical roots of the romance novel: Richardson’s Pamela; Pride and Prejudice (which Regis thinks is the best romance novel ever written); Jane Eyre; Trollope’s Framley Parsonage; and E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View. She then takes her ideas into the 20th century, this time citing novelists instead of particular novels – Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart, Janet Dailey, Jayne Anne Krentz, and Nora Roberts. Regis notes some new features in these: the heroine is often “affective”, which is Regis’s term for someone of independent means and/or personality; and the hero is “dangerous”, figuratively (or sometimes literally) a pirate, outlaw, cowboy or adventurer who needs to be “tamed” by the heroine.

My own romance novel reading has included Jane Austen and the Brontë’s in the historical group and Georgette Heyer in the modern category, plus a few others not mentioned by Regis (Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters; Jean Plaidy/Victoria Holt; and miscellaneous others). I’ll definitely have to read some of the other authors Regis cites. Regis comments that men she contacted didn’t like romance novels because “nothing ever happened”; I don’t know how to respond to that except to say that if you think “nothing happens” in Pride and Prejudice you’re missing a lot. ( )

Pamela Regis has written a book of literary criticism analyzing and defending the romance novel in English, from the 18th century forward. She also discusses earlier models, such as Greek New Comedy (c. 300 BCE), which, interestingly, usually featured a young man as the central character.

Regis thinks that previous analyses of the romance novel, such as that Janice A. Radway's Reading the Romance : Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature, are inadequate either in the scope of the study, or in considering their relationship to their society. One of the chief objections to the romance novel is that it ends in marriage, which critics have considered to be obviously deleterious to women. Regis points out that must women, either in the past or in the present, have married. Moreover, marriage, especially prior to the 20th century, defined a woman's life, so it is a subject of supreme importance. She concedes that if one considers the bourgeois to be automatically undesirable, romances has unfortunate endings, but obviously most people don't think that way, given that romances are the most popular genre.

She argues that romance novels in the 18th and 19th centuries were tracking three social trends that are now taken for granted: affective individualism (the importance of individual happiness), the importance of companionate marriage; and the standing of married women under English law. Regis selects for analysis five novels covering approximately two hundred years, which were popular culture in their time, and which are now regarded as high literature, and which feature vivid heroines: Pamela by Samuel Richardson; Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë; Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope; Room with a View by E.M. Forster.

Representing the 20th century, she then analyzes modern novels: The Sheikh by E.M. Hull, and several novels each by Georgette Heyer, Mary Stewart, Janet Dailey, Jayne Ann Krentz and Nora Roberts. Regis points out that the generally, even in Georgette Heyer's historicals, the heroines are independent, strong personalities, and often financially independent, either having inherited wealth or job skills. The issues therefore are somewhat different, even though the form of the the romance remains.

Although scholarly, it is quite accessible to general readers. ( )