Jennifer Kloester's Georgette Heyer's Regency World gives great background. The book blurb: Presents a guide to Regency society as depicted in the novels of the English author Georgette Heyer, covering such topics as social classes, fashion, London and country homes, shopping, food, drink, clubs, sports, and the Royal Family. You can see the author knows the books, she will talk about something and refer to a character in relationship to the whatever. Snuff - who used it, shoes - when someone had to buy ready-made instead of made-to-order, etc.