George IV. This item is unavailable.George IV

This engrossing biography of George IV, king of Great Britain between 1820 and 1830, provides a full and objective reassessment of the monarch's character, reputation and achievement. Previous writers have tended to accept the unfavourable verdicts of the king's contemporaries that he was a dissolute, pleasure-loving dilettante and a feeble and ineffective ruler who was responsible for the decline of the power and reputation of the monarchy in the early nineteenth century. Now E. A. Smith offers a new view of George IV, one that does not minimise the king's faults but focuses on the positive qualities of his achievement in politics and in the patronage of the arts. 'excellent ... a balanced, fair and definitive biography' Robert Blake, 'Financial Times' 'a delightfully written and stimulating contribution to English royal history' Derek Turner, 'Literary Review' 'a fine biography which goes a long way to explain its extravagant, puzzling, frightened subject - one of the most cultured kings we ever had' Philip Hensher, 'The Spectator' 'It is clear that this book will be the standard biography of George IV for many years to come' Andreas Fahrmeir, 'German Historical Institute Bulletin' E. A. Smith was reader in history at the University of Reading, and author of 'A Queen on Trial: The Affair of Queen Caroline', among other books.

What becomes of a controversial Prince of Wales, embroiled in a messy marital separation in which popular opinion thinks the wife virtuous and wronged and the husband an adulterer? Charles, the current Prince of Wales, could do well to read this study of George, Prince Regent in the 1810s and king himself--acceding to the throne at the age of 58--from 1820 to 1830. He might not find the experience too unpleasant either: where previous biographies and studies have tended to characterise George as "dissolute, pleasure-loving dilettante and a feeble, ineffective monarch", Smith sets out to tell the whole story, and gives us his strengths as well as his weaknesses. The business with his wife, Caroline, for instance: although George did have a mistress, and the Princess of Wales was extremely popular, the marriage had genuinely broken down and there were many instances of George's kindness to his estranged wife. George's spendthrift nature had a good side too, in his patronage of many arts and artists.

Smith is able to show that many of the brickbats hurled at his reputation were hangovers from his wilder youth and don't reflect his later maturity. Indeed, Smith's is the first biography of George to deal comprehensively with the fuller political context of the man's life and reign. This will surely become the classic account of George as king. --Adam Roberts