George IV
By: E.A. Smith.
Series: Yale English monarchs
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New Haven [Conn.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 306
Subjects: George IV, King of Great Britain, 1762-1830; Regency -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- History -- George III, 1760-1820; Great Britain -- History -- George IV, 1820-1830; Great Britain -- Kings and rulers -- Biography
Other titles: George the 4th; George the Fourth
Description: This biography of George IV, king 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 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-300) and index.