page_title: Lord of Scoundrels
section_title: Analysis
hierarchical_section_title: Lord of Scoundrels / Analysis
caption_attribution_description: Illustration for Beauty and the Beast. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1874.
context_page_description: Lord of Scoundrels is a Regency romance novel by American author Loretta Chase. Published in 1995 by Avon Books, it is the third installment of her Débauchés series. Set in 1828, the story follows the Marquess of Dain, an aristocrat known as "Lord Beelzebub" and the "Lord of Scoundrels" for his unscrupulous, immoral behavior. The son of an English father and Italian mother, Dain is hardened due to a difficult childhood and meets his match in Jessica Trent, a 27-year-old bluestocking more than capable of trading wits with him.
  Chase had a love for Italian culture, and decided that this background would provide ample motivation for Dain, being the product of his parents' inability to understand each other's cultures. As with many of her stories, Chase made her heroine a strong female, deciding to model Jessica after the type of women who lived a few generations previously and who had "a more practical, frank attitude toward sex". Lord of Scoundrels is a retelling of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast, with the author stating that like the Beast, Dain is an outcast and misfit among his society.
context_section_description: Lord of Scoundrels is typically classified as a Regency romance novel, though its story is set in the post-Regency era of 1828. It features a strong female heroine, a characteristic that Chase has become known for including in her romances. The author explains that "for most of history, and in too many cases today, women are considered (and too often consider themselves) lesser beings who do not matter. In my books, the women are not lesser, and they do matter. In other words, I make the world the way I think it should be". Romantic fiction scholars have identified Jessica Trent as a "feminist heroine" with whom the "alpha male hero" has met his match. Chase inverts many qualities typical of the archetypical romantic hero and heroine. Near the end of the story, Jessica is the one who initiates consummation of their marriage, by seducing Dain. Afterwards, Jessica promptly falls asleep, causing her husband to seethe "that was what he was supposed to do".
  In her entry for The Bloomsbury Introduction to Popular Fiction, Maryan Wherry posits that Lord of Scoundrels represents a modern retelling of the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast, suggesting Chase's story is a morality tale of "restoring humanity" that is directed at "all levels of society" (rather than at the lower classes as classic fairytales were intended). Chase makes direct reference to this fairytale in the novel, when Dain silently compares his relationship with Jessica to that of Beauty and the Beast.
  In a 2007 interview, the author described the novel as her "Beauty and the Beast story", stating that like the Beast, Dain is an outcast and misfit among the novel's society. Chase describes Dain as "truly awful:  rude, overbearing, and intimidating... He consciously uses his monstrousness in the same way he uses his vast wealth and his social position: to control his world and protect himself. It's sad, in a way, because he’s isolated, like the Beast of the fairy tale trapped in his castle. But Dain is not pitiful by any means:  He’s smart, cynical, and sarcastic, with a sharp eye for the ridiculous. He has a sense of humor and is adept with clever comebacks and putdowns". Jessica represents the Beauty of the story, someone who "enters the Beast’s lair of her own accord" as his equal "no matter how awful" he acts.
  Leading up to the couple's marriage, Dain cynically makes many assurances that he will provide for Jessica financially. At one point, Jessica brings a defamation lawsuit against Dain before they agree to convert it into a prenuptial agreement, leading English professor Jayashree Kamblé to liken their relationship to "a take-over bid". Kamblé has studied the presence of capitalism and modern economics on storylines in the contemporary romance genre. To her, while Lord of Scoundrels is a Regency romance novel and thus less apt to depict the types of economic pairings seen in many contemporary romances, Kamblé argues that Dain's repeated monetary promises still contain "echoes of the kind of wealth, monetary security, and financial reward that the heroes of Harlequin Mills and Boon promise as husbands". The couple is physically attracted to each other, while financial considerations also play a factor.
caption: Lord of Scoundrels has been described as a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast (1874 representation pictured)
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