Messy women, sharp history, Regency receipts.
Vulgar History: Regency Era turns the late 1700s and early 1800s into something sharper than costume-drama scenery. Anne Foster and guests trace queens, artists, witches, mistresses, writers, and political operators through scandal, survival, ambition, disability, class pressure, and historical mythmaking.
PRESS PLAY
Vulgar History: Regency Era treats the Regency period as a crowded social ecosystem, not a pastel backdrop. The show is interested in who got invited to the ball, who paid for it, who was in debt, who was being judged, and who had to make impossible choices in public. Anne Foster anchors the season around England in the late 1700s and early 1800s, while letting related stories pull the conversation toward Tudors, Mary Shelley, gothic fiction, and modern historical fantasy. It is brisk. It is funny. It also knows when the joke is sitting next to something cruel. Episodes on Emma Hamilton follow charm, beauty, pregnancy, secrecy, Nelson, and the strange logistics of preserving respectability when everyone can see what is happening. Mary Bateman brings the show toward everyday poverty, witchcraft, and the kind of ridiculous behavior that still needs historical context. Sarah Biffin's story opens a different view of Regency life through art, disability, fairs, publicity, patronage, and the complicated gaze of wealthy supporters. Queen Charlotte becomes a bridge between real monarchy, King George III's mental health problems, Bridgerton, and the appeal of alternate history. Margaret Beaufort adds court politics, Wars of the Roses intrigue, Richard III, and the way later fiction can turn a situational pivot into a grand lifelong scheme. The Mary Shelley material lets the show talk about gothic feminist body horror, anatomical Venuses, Frankenstein energy, and why women's bodies become spectacle. The guest dynamic matters here. Amanda Matta brings royal drama and art-history context. Alison Epstein arrives as a frequent guest for stories where someone behaves outrageously. Rebecca Lehman and Alison Rushby connect historical research to historical fiction with sharp, specific premises. Kristen Lopez helps place Sarah Biffin's career inside disability, entertainment, and cultural memory. The show works best for listeners who like history with personality, but still want the social mechanics explained. It does not treat women from the past as saints or side characters. It treats them as people under pressure, making moves inside rules they did not write.
Made for: For listeners who like women's history with jokes, context, and a tolerance for scandal. It especially suits fans of Bridgerton, Tudor intrigue, gothic fiction, and stories about women maneuvering through reputation, class, and power.
What sets it apart: The show uses pop-culture comparisons and guest banter without losing the historical thread. Its strength is making social pressure legible: the gossip is entertaining, but the point is always what the gossip reveals.
A feminist women's history comedy podcast. We look at history through a feminist lens, focusing on the women often removed from the narrative.
History class gets messier when Anne Foster brings Bridgerton comparisons to Emma Hamilton's life story.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Horatia's cover story is the episode's sharpest and strangest thread.
Vulgar History: Regency Era turns Emma Hamilton, part two, into a focused look at managed appearances, with Anne Foster and Amanda Matta tracking how Emma and Nelson keep Horatia's birth hidden behind a careful paper trail.
Emma Hamilton's story turns on charm, pregnancy, and a costly bargain.
Emma Hamilton's story moves from a summer of easy conversation into Charles Greville's orbit, and the episode lets charm, beauty, and social ease do the work of drawing them together.
A Tudor matriarch comes into focus as politics, rumor, and family power collide.
Anne Foster presents Margaret Beaufort as the political force this episode argues she was, linking the mother of the Tudor era and grandmother of Henry VIII to the wider Wars of the Roses alongside Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret of Anjou.
Sarah Biffin's career anchors a Regency episode about art, disability, and patronage.
Anne Foster uses Sarah Biffin's story to broaden Regency history beyond the royal family, centering a woman artist who became one of Regency era England's most successful while living with limb differences from focal milia.
Alison Rushby's Slashed Beauties keeps Mary Shelley close through cursed wax figures and anatomical horror.
The episode treats Shelley Month's turn to Alison Rushby's Slashed Beauties as a book with clear Mary Shelley echoes and a strong gothic feminist body-horror pull.
Feminist history with wine-night velocity.
Women’s history with drinks, jokes, and bite.
Earth stories, science lives, human impact.
Difficult women, messy histories, sharp company.
Anne Foster introduces a Pride Month special interview with Argentine writer Gabriela Cabezón Cámara about her novel inspired by the life of the Lieutenant Nun, a historical trans figure.
Anne Foster interviews Alison Tyra about her book 'Uncredited' and her project 'Infinite Women', an encyclopedia of overlooked women in history.
Anne Foster introduces a new series on the Regency era by discussing Jane Austen's life and cultural impact with guest Dr.
Vulgar History: Regency Era follows Emma Hamilton in Naples as Maria Carolina, queen of Naples and Marie Antoinette's sister, drives the anti-French response after the French Revolution.
Anne Foster and guest Amanda Matta trace Emma Hamilton from Amy Lyon’s childhood in poverty to her rise as the “original it girl” of the Regency era.
Anne Foster introduces a special guest to discuss the Regency era and the story of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire witch.
Anne Foster interviews author Rebecca Lehman about her novel 'The Beheading Game', where Anne Boleyn sews her head back on and seeks revenge on Henry VIII.
Anne Foster discusses the real Queen Charlotte, her role in the Regency era, and how her portrayal in Bridgerton compares to historical facts.
Anne Foster interviews historian and author Lauren Johnson about her new biography Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker, positioning Margaret as the political architect of the Tudor dynasty rather than the villain she is typically portrayed as in Philippa Gregory adaptations.
Vulgar History host Anne Foster is joined by author and entertainment journalist Kristen Lopez to profile Sarah Biffin, a Regency-era miniature painter born in 1784 without hands or arms, whose 1821 self-portrait sold at Sotheby's in 2019 for 137,500 pounds — the most ever paid for a miniature of its type.
Anne talks with Alison Rushby about Slashed Beauties, a dual-timeline novel that links 18th-century London to a present-day antiques dealer through cursed wax figures.
Anne Foster and Alison Epstein discuss Germaine, a wealthy woman who survived the French Revolution, contrasting with previous subjects who died.