In any genre of Regency-set fiction, landed estates may and often do play an important role either as setting, as a facet of characters’ lives, as a source of income and prestige, or as a character in and of itself. The temptation in including a landed estate in one’s story is to emphasize the wealth, beauty, and social status of the subject or to use the property as a pawn in a wider aspect of one’s plot. However, landed estates played a far more important role in the lives of not only the owners, but in the lives of all who lived and worked in, on, and even around these vast holdings. Landed estates were indeed an important part of the British economic and agricultural worlds, especially between 1780 and 1840, the era in which we set most, if not all, of our Regency fiction.

The purpose of this class is to explain how these estates worked. The management of a landed estate was no simple thing. Nor did it necessarily come under the control of one man, whether that man be a steward or the owner. Landed estates required a combination of the skills and people necessary to run a business, a farm, a corporation, a city, and more. This class will endeavor to explain the roles of the owner, the steward or land agent, the lawyers, the government, the tenants, and the various other people involved in the running of an estate. The class will cover the various sources of income an estate might provide, the income derived, and the expenses incurred. An emphasis on the duties of the steward or land agent will delineate the various tasks, accounts, supervision, and management skills necessary to run a successful estate and what might happen should these skills fail.

It is hoped the class will provide information to attendees that can be used to bring the landed estate and its occupants to life and perhaps may inspire some new and intriguing ideas with which to entertain, surprise, and fascinate their readers.