Move over Gossip Girl, because Lady Whistledown is here to take your scandal-exposing crown — and she's doing it with a quill and an insatiable thirst for piping hot regency era tea. Voiced by the incomparable Julie Andrews on Netflix's Bridgerton, Lady Whistledown is the show's seemingly all-knowing narrator, and her identity is a mystery that's slowly unspooled over the course of Season 1. But the character isn't a show only creation: The 19th century's answer to Gossip Girl is also an important figure in Julia Quinn's Bridgerton book series. Warning: Spoilers for the Bridgerton books to follow.

If you haven't read Quinn's eight book series (and the swoony collection of epilogues that followed) about the romances of the Bridgerton siblings then turn back now, because Lady Whistledown's identity in the books is a pretty big deal. Much like Eloise, readers spend the first three novels trying to unravel the identity of the ton's prolific tattler, but it's not until the fourth book in the series, Romancing Mister Bridgerton, that Lady Whistledown is revealed to be none other than Eloise's best friend: Penelope Featherington.

Penelope, who is played by Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan in the series, is consistently overlooked by her mother and the other members of London's high society due to her shyness and the fact that she's the third daughter in a family that doesn't have the best reputation as it is. However, Pen uses her ability to go unnoticed to her advantage and gathers all of the ton's secrets for her popular gossip sheet. But writing as Lady Whistledown is about more than exposing secrets for the youngest Featherington, it's also about channeling her creativity and using her voice in a era where both activities are considered most unladylike indeed.