berylbird's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
This is a dense and informative history of the years when George, Prince of Wales ruled Britain as Prince Regent. His father, King George III, who had suffered from bouts of mental illness for many years succumbed in late 1810 to a deeper darkness from which he did not return. His son ruled as Regent from February 5, 1811 until January 29, 1820, when George III died, then he became King George IV. I have become more familiar with the Regency through the TV series, Bridgerton, and have long been aware of the Regency Romances, but this history does not focus on the romance of the period to the exclusion of all the other important events occurring during those years.
<b>Despite its brevity, the Regency was a time of major events, from the Luddite Riots and the War of 1812 to the Battle of Waterloo, the explosion of Mount Tambora, and the Peterloo Massacre. And it had a glorious cast, including Jane Austen, Beau Brummell, Lord Byron, John Constable, John Keats, Walter Scott, Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, J. M. W. Turner, the Duke of Wellington, and of course the Regent himself.</b>
I read this as part of Jane Austen July and plan to read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and Belinda by Maria Edgeworth, a contemporary of Austen’s. I am not a fan of romance novels or TV shows usually . . . but have become convinced recently that I should read Jane Austen. Now I’m discovering that the historical period is quite fascinating and through this book I’ve started to extend my exploratory quest.
Robert Morrison covers crime and punishment, how regency era citizens entertained themselves, sexual behaviors, wars and the expanding empire, and how modernity and the Industrial Revolution was propelling the nation into the future. Although densely packed with facts, Morrison’s narrative style is accessible and my interest kept me engaged. He breaks up five chapters into more easily navigated subdivisions.
Sadly, for most people, the Regency era was nothing like the Bridgerton TV series, which focuses on the elite set. I’ve yet to read Jane Austen so it will be revealing to see if she brings the hapless lower class to life in her novels. London was a hotbed for criminal activity. In 1811, one million people lived in London. One member of Parliament calculated that more than 6,000 boys and girls lived solely on what they earned from crime. England’s punishments for crime were so severe that they were known as the “Bloody Code.” A child as young as seven could be hanged for the crime of poaching a rabbit or stealing.
My favorite section is about the entertainments of the era, because that is where you find the novelists and the theater.
<b> In addition to Christmas and holiday shows, the theater offered an extraordinary range of other entertainments, from farces, ballet, operas, and dramas to magic acts, aquatic spectaculars, translations of foreign plays, and adaptations of fashionable novels. Some of the finest creative minds of the Regency were drawn to the theater, from successful playwrights such as Joanna Baillie, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Robert Maturin, through avid theatergoers like Jane Austen, John Keats, and Lord Byron, to brilliant reviewers such as Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt.</b>
From the lower class filling the lower and upper galleries to the elites in their expensive boxes, the theater offered respite, chuckles, or a therapeutic cry if the play was a tragedy.
The book has many lovely black and white drawings, using a lot of hatching and crosshatching to render its subjects. They were all delightful and added greatly to my enjoyment of Morrison’s historical account. My favorite drawing is a caricature of the Regent drawn byGeorge Cruikshak, published on December 4, 1819,
<b>In “Loyal Address’s & Radical Petitions,” the Regent stands on a dais facing to the left a group of obsequious “Lords & Gentlemen” who hold scrolls reading “Loyalty,” while behind him to the right are a group of radical petitioners reeling backward from a powerful fart issuing from the Regent’s large bum. In the legend, the Regent tells the sycophants that they may “Kiss my Hand” while “it will be easy to guess what the other side may Kiss!!” Before the dais is an open book authored by “F. Fartardo.”</b>
It’s a political cartoon that could work well today with certain figures who are full of . . .
libraryofcalliope's review against another edition
4.0
The Regency period refers to the rule of George IV as Prince Regent before he was officially crowned king upon the death of his father. It spanned approximately 9 years from 1811 to 1820, a fairly influential and important decade featuring a variety of events from the publication of Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein and Byron’s Don Juan to the Peterloo massacre, the Luddite Riots, Robert Owen’s New Lanark experiments with socialism and the end of the Napoleonic wars. British society was changing as it headed for the new Victorian age with huge strides being made in medicine, technology and industry but also contained huge levels of inequality and colonial expansionism. Morrison provides a whistle stop tour of the main ideas and events of the time which works as an excellent introduction to the period. It’s very readable especially considering how much content is packed in here. I really enjoyed this book and it’s discussions of the shifting society and priorities is done mostly sensitively and Morrison takes great care to trace the events’ impacts on society today. Definitely a good starting point for someone interested in this period.