Jean Uhland asked Sabrina Jeffries:

I really don’t have a question but a comment. When doling out currency in your regency time, it is totally out of whack. As a working girl in England in the late fifties I made only thirty two shillings a week. It cost a farthing for a bus ride. That’s a quarter of a penny. Five pounds would have made me rich! A meal in one of your stories cost ten shillings...in today’s currency that would be two thousand ?

Sabrina Jeffries Dear Jean,
It would help if you could tell me which book it was in. Then I would know which character that was for. Prices vastly depended on the wealth of the character. For example, this period account of dinner for the wealthy stated, "The dessert- generally ordered at Messrs. Grange's, or at Owen's, in Bond Street- if for a dozen people, would cost at least as many pounds." (From Gronow's Reminiscences). So, a pound per person for dessert alone. I found it very hard to research money, especially in the early days of my career when the internet was in its infancy. Every article I read gave different numbers for how the value of a pound was translated into present-day pounds. Sometimes it was 20 times (so 200 shillings or 10 pounds). Sometimes it was 100 times! These are vastly different numbers. In later years, I could look up meal costs in general, but even now it's hard to find good research on that without spending hours in a library. So I do my best using what research I can find, and knowing that the wealthy spent far more money proportionally than the working class. If you find a reliable source for what the character would have paid for a meal in Regency England, please let me know! That's invaluable information.

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