The Prince Of Pleasure And His Regency 1811 - 20: J.B. Priestley

A fabulous, easy to read volume on the Prince Regent and his day. The Regency Period was one of the most romantic of British history: an age that swung between extremes of elegance and refinement and the depths of sodden brutality. The central figure is the Prince Regent, 'Prinny', and though he sometimes appears as a gigantic spoilt child, he was famously good company and a notable patron of the arts. The author portrays the personalities of the giants of the romantic age - Byron, Shelley, Sheridan, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Beau Brummel and Sir Walter Scott; Davy Faraday and Macadam; Turner, Constable and Cotman - to name a few. It was an age of extravagance; an age marked by great eccentricities and prodigious jokes; the Luddite riots; the Battles of Waterloo and Peterloo; the first waltzes and the first locomotives. There's exotic and outrè fashions, scandals, political upheaval, architecture and the lot of the common man. Illustrated with colour and black and white drawings and photographs.