…that aren’t romances, badly-done Jane Austen paraliterature or maritime novels (or classics, so no Austen, Thackeray or Tolstoy, please). Bonus points if anyone can find any in that time period set in America.
Since you’re not getting other responses, I’ll reply with my tentative suggestions.
Do you like fantasy? If so, you might like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and also Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series (although there are some maritime elements to those.) Those books have very nice Regency settings.
Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series is good. It’s military, but not maritime.
Patrick O’Brians Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin books. Yes i know you said no Maritime. I presume you’ve been burnt by that whiny wanker Hornblower. But seriously if you don’t like the O’Brian books you don’t like fun. Many of the books are set partly, or in a few cases mostly on land. Try the second book in the series Post Captain as an introduction. Also if your into audio-books try and get hold of the versions read by Patrick Tully. The best Audiobook performance’s i’ve ever heard.
Well, skirting close to the “…that are not romancs” restriction, Annemarie Selinko’s Desirée is a masterpiece, a best-seller in its day. It’s the fictionalized account of Desirée Clary, cloth-seller’s daughter of Marseilles at the time of the French Revolution who ended up Queen Desideria of Sweden, consort of Karl XIV Johan, né Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, later Marechal du France and King of Sweden. Well-written and transcending “genre” fiction, it’s a reasonably accurate historical account of the 1795-1830 period as seen through the eyes of a woman growing up on the fringes of power.
I despise most Regency romances. I read this book in my college years and loved it then, and still have a high appreciation for it.
Watch Blackadder III.
Your presumption is correct.
Will do.
Thanks also, to everyone else and their recommendations.
If you don’t mind fantasy, Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer have written a number of stories set in the Regency era, although it’s a version where magic exists. Sorcery and Cecelia, and Mairelon the Magician being the earliest ones. The former does have some romance elements, and is written as a series of letters ( and in fact was a game between the two authors originally ).
Georgette Heyer is spot on with her characterization of the Regency period, but you’ll have to put up with some romance. She’s nothing like Barbara Cartland, if that has you worried (or nauseated–I can’t stand Cartland). Heyer’s books are more comedies of manners, with pithy political insights as well. She does emphasize the social scene, though. Try Frederica–the least romancy and one of her funniest.
Well, I would have recommended O’Brian and Heyer as my favorite authors of Regency fiction, but the OP was pretty emphatic about not wanting maritime or romance.