George Iii: A Personal History - Hardcover

Hibbert, Christopher

3.82

367 ratings by Goodreads

9780670869411: George Iii: A Personal History

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670869414 ISBN 13: 9780670869411

Publisher: Viking, 1998

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To the English, George III is the King who went mad; to Americans he is the King stigmatised in the Declaration of Independence as 'unfit to be the ruler of a free people'. Discredited as a clumsy tyrant and a villain, ridiculed as Farmer George orMr King - the time has come for a re-assessment of this remarkable man. For all his eccentricities, George was a man of wide sympathies and intelligence, a man capable of flashes of wit and irony who greatly enhanced the reputation of the BritishMonarchy in the 50 years of his reign until, suffering from a virulent form of a metabolic disorder, he lost his reason and disappeared into a world of strange imaginings.

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Review:

Clearly and engagingly written, with evident affection for his subject, Christopher Hibbert's George III describes the life and times of the man widely believed to have mistaken an oak tree for the King of Prussia. He didn't. That was one of many rumours spread by courtiers during his first bout of the insanity caused by porphyria: a rare hereditary disease, endemic in the Stuarts and transmitted to the Hanoverans via George I's mother, Sophia.

Colourfully illustrated and studded with witticisms, this book shows how George III's efforts to behave as a king ought to have earned him considerable popularity. Like Hibbert's Life of Johnson, Nelson and Wellington, this is more than a biography, and is subtitled A Personal History. This means that we don't only get the inside information on the monarch's manifold eccentricities, his charitable deeds, his love of books, clocks and large families, his cheerful fidelity to a plain and difficult wife, and what he felt about his nine legitimate and approximately 53 illegitimate grandchildren. We also learn about the background to the American War of Independence, the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots and the intricacies of English--or rather British--politics during the second half of the 18th century.

A terrific, informative read for anyone interested in the monarchy and 18th- century history and politics.Lisa Gee --.

About the Author:

Christopher Hibbert is, in the words of the TES, 'perhaps the most gifted popular historian we have'. His books include THE DESTRUCTION OF LORD RAGLAN (which won the Heinemann Award for Literature in 1962); LONDON: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A CITY and THE VIRGIN QUEEN: THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF ELIZABETH I. Christopher Hibbert is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is married with two sons and a daughter and lives in Henley-on-Thames.

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