George IV

Sobre el libro George IV de publicado por Thames al 2005:

George IV was larger than life. A gambler and a drunkard, he married a widow older than himself, illegally and in secret, dabbled in the politics of opposition and amassed fantastic levels of debt. His legitimate union with Caroline of Brunswick ended in an acrimonious and lengthy divorce; all the while mistress followed mistress, each one seemingly fatter and greedier than the last. George was a gift to cartoonists, and had the misfortune to live during the golden age of their art. The merciless lampoons of Gillray and the Cruikshanks, drawn mainly from Kenneth Baker’s unique collection, make many of today’s cartoons seem almost respectful. Yet as Prince Regent he gave his title to an elegant style of architecture and design. He was London’s best town-planner – with legacies that include Regents Park, Regent Street, Waterloo Place, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, and – outside London – the Brighton Pavilion and a modernized Windsor Castle. George made the Royal Collection one of the finest collections in the world and kept copies of Jane Austen’s novels in each of his houses. His handling of major political crises – so different from his predecessors´ – paved the way for today’s constitutional monarchy. He organized splendid celebrations open to ordinary men and women and he invented the state visit. By the time of his death the monarchy had become less mysterious, distant and secret. Kenneth Baker draws on a lifetime’s experience of high politics to scrutinize the changing figure of George, setting his extraordinary life in the context of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Peterloo Massacre, Wellington, Pitt and Fox, providing a skilful and thoroughly enjoyable understanding of the period´s most colourful character.