JESSICA MILLER is professor of philosophy at the University of Maine, a clinical ethicist, and an academic career coach. Her research and teaching areas include bioethics, moral psychology, and philosophy and literature.

• Esteemed Members of the Ton (Notes on Contributors) viiiOur Most Humble Thanks (Acknowledgments) xvCarriages, Courtship, and Questions of a Most Vexing Nature (An Introduction) 1“I Burn for You”: Sex and Desire 51 Feminist Sex?: It’s in His Kiss 7Sharon Kaye2 Bridgerton and the Philosophy of Good Sex 17Laura Katherin Jimenez- Cuadros and Pablo Rivas- Robledo3 Out of the Shadows?: Examining Assumptions About Love and Fatness in Bridgerton 27Cheryl Frazier and Jeremy FriedFreedom, Happiness, Mortality … and Those Bees! 394 Authenticity Through Solidarity: A Beauvoirian Existentialist Analysis of Lady Danbury, Simon Basset, and Penelope Featherington 41Mary Bernard and Susan Peppers- Bates5 “I Shall Be Very Happy, Indeed”: The Meanings of Happiness in Bridgerton 51Jessica Miller6 Bee- ing and Time: Mortality, Ontology, and Love in Julia Quinn’s The Viscount Who Loved Me 62Eric Murphy Selinger7 Bridgerton and the Environment 72Katherine Byrne“Who Needs Fresh Air When There Is Fresh Gossip?” 838 A Bridgerton’s Defense of Gossip 85William Rodriguez9 Is Lady Whistledown Full of B.S.?: An Impertinent Investigation 96Lisa Cassidy10 “All of Us Talk”: Bridgerton and the Value of Gossip 106Catherine M. Robb11 “The Most Curious of News”: Testimony, Gossip, and the Search for Knowledge 116Clara Nisley and Thomas NisleyFriendship, Trust, and Betrayal 12512 Ladies Reading and Writing: Penelope, Eloise, and the Friendship of Women 127Sarah E. Worth and Sondra Bacharach13 The Bane of My Forgiveness: On Excuses, Apologies, and Repentance 136Katelyn Antilla and Lel Jones14 Trust Lessons from Bridgerton: Shades of Vulnerability and Betrayal 145SuddhaSatwa GuhaRoyLove, Marriage, and Motherhood 15715 Breaking the Bonds of Crystallization: The Search for Perfection and Love in Bridgerton 159Zachary Isrow16 Is True Love Really Friendship? 169Guillaume Lequien17 Queen Charlotte: Wedlock (- ed) 179Janelle Pötzsch18 “Has Anyone Told You That Your Mother Is Rather Terrifying?”: Mothers and Their Children in Bridgerton 189Rebecca Chapman“Not Everyone Can Always Get Things So Right”: Questions and Critiques 19919 “I Have Never Been a Man That Much Enjoyed Flirting, or Chatting, or, Indeed, Talking at All”: The Duke of Hastings’s Stutter and the Troubles with Defining Disability 201Jade Metzger- Riftkin and Tolonda Henderson20 Queerbaiting the Fans: What (If Anything) Is Wrong with Queerbaiting in Bridgerton? 211Gah- Kai Leung 21 Understanding the Great Experiment in Netflix’s Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte 221Edwardo Pérez22 Of Brawn and Brow: Boxing and Honor in Bridgerton 233Tom UeIndex 243

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