CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

The Viscount Who Loved Me

novel by Julia Quinn

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ111190660
Source-derived summary

The Viscount Who Loved Me is a 2000 historical romance novel written by Julia Quinn, first published by Avon. It is the second novel of Quinn's Bridgerton series set in Regency England and tells the story of Anthony, Viscount Bridgerton, the eldest Bridgerton sibling. It is a #1 New York Times Best Seller.

Plot

In 1814, after years as one of the most notorious rakes of the ton, Anthony, Viscount Bridgerton, decides to settle down and carry on the family line. Haunted by his father's death at a young age from a bee sting, Anthony now believes, albeit irrationally, that he will die young too, and does not want the complication of falling in love.

Meanwhile, Kate Sheffield arrives in London's ton with her younger half-sister Edwina and her stepmother Mary. She is determined to find a suitable husband for Edwina, who is intelligent and renowned for her beauty, and is less hopeful about her own prospects as a near spinster. When Anthony begins to court Edwina, Kate is determined to interfere, doubting that he is reformed from his roguish ways. Despite the animosity between the two, a mutual attraction begins to develop when they share a kiss.

While visiting Aubrey Hall, the Bridgertons' country estate, Kate is stung by a bee while with Anthony.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Viscount Who Loved Me” is novel by Julia Quinn. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Viscount, Loved and novel, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2000, 1814—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000-12-05. For this dossier, Viscount, Loved and novel is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “novel by Julia Quinn” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q111190660. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000 and 1814.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Viscount Who Loved Me”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Viscount Who Loved Me primary sources, The Viscount Who Loved Me archive and Viscount research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Viscount Who Loved Me”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Viscount Who Loved Me” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.