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Originally Posted by Quoth
Maybe true. I've read real books of the period and she certainly isn't imitating 18th C writers. Real Regency era books have much less of the Regency Cant/slang but are far harder to read.
It reads like modern but set in the period, like books written today set in Jacobean or Elizabethan era England, Scotland or Ireland are basically modern English with some period phrases, like Heyer, often over done. Shakespeare nor King James Bible aren't actually contemporary Jacobean prose. The current King James isn't even original. The later Douay–Rheims Bible is closer to Jacobean and the original of it is hard to read (most of the available versions are much later revisions).
It's actually very difficult to authentically write even in 1920s style, harder to do authentic Victorian, harder still Regency, Georgian, Jacobean/Elizabethan and it gets harder to read it. Irish is worse. Most English speakers can't read Chaucer, or even Robbie Burns. Probably more people can read 1st C. Latin than 12th C. Irish. The Normans "reformed" spelling of a lot of Anglo-Saxon words that are still in use.
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I don't have a problem reading Jane Austen who was actually writing in the 1800s. She does use some words that we now either use differently or rarely use but that's understandable. I am glad she didn't fill her books with what would have been contemporary slang.
I agree that it would be difficult for a modern author to write authentically in the style of an earlier era. Probably the best they can do is try to write characters who act in a manner appropriate to their time period and avoid using any modern-day slang. Maybe throw in an occasional period slang word for flavor.