Georgian English History

In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.

A personal indictment of the institute of slavery in the Southern United States, as witnessed directly by Fanny Kemble, a British actress in 1838 and 1839. In a very personal way, she relates her many varied experiences, efforts to make life easier for the slaves despite her husband's stubborn resistance. As an English citizen, she had seen the total end of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833, just a few years before her journey to Georgia. She ends her account with a stirring defense of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

As maid of honor to the Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Chudleigh enjoyed a luxurious life in the inner circle of the Hanoverian court. With her extraordinary style and engaging wit, she both delighted and scandalized the press and public. She would later even inspire William Thackeray when he was writing his classic Vanity Fair, providing the inspiration for the alluring social climber Becky Sharp. But Elizabeth’s real story is more complex and surprising than anything out of fiction.

Some historians have called the Seven Years’ War the first true world war, and they make a good point. Ultimately, this globally coordinated war involved five continents and at least 29 states and tribal confederacies, with a casualty toll in the millions and the maps forever altered. As part of the Seven Years’ War, the French and Indian War was the last in a long series of colonial conflicts between the French and British and also changed the map in America. At the end of the war, disputed borders were finally settled, and both empires were left reeling from the costs of war.

Lady Victoria Aston has everything she could want: an older sister happily wed, the future of her family estate secure, and ample opportunity to while her time away in the fields around her home. But now Vicky must marry - or find herself and her family destitute. Armed only with the wisdom she has gained from her beloved novels by Jane Austen, she enters society’s treacherous season.

Dr Gregory Fremont-Barnes presents a detailed overview of the Forty-five Rebellion, dispelling the myths that have grown up around battles like Culloden and the figures of the Highlanders. Fremont-Barnes examines this key turning point in British history, analysing the dynastic struggle of two royal houses, the Rebellion’s manoeuvres and battles and the tragic aftermath for the Highlands.

London: a settlement founded by the Romans, occupied by the Saxons, conquered by the Danes and ruled by the Normans. This unremarkable place - not even included in the Domesday Book - became a medieval maze of alleys and courtyards, later to be chequered with grand estates of Georgian splendour. It swelled with industry and became the centre of the largest empire in history. And rising from the rubble of the Blitz, it is now one of the greatest cities in the world.

The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next 50 years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age.

Immerse yourself in the vanished world inhabited by Jane Austen's contemporaries. Packed with detail and anecdotes, this is an intimate exploration of how the middle and upper classes lived from 1775, the year of Austen's birth, to the coronation of George IV in 1820. Sue Wilkes skillfully conjures up all aspects of daily life within the period, drawing on contemporary diaries, illustrations, letters, novels, travel literature, and archives.

In December 1774, Benjamin Franklin met Caroline Howe, the sister of British General Sir William Howe and Richard Admiral Lord Howe, in a London drawing room for “half a dozen Games of Chess”. But as historian Julie Flavell reveals, these meetings were about much more than board games: They were cover for a last-ditch attempt to forestall the outbreak of the American War of Independence.

Anne Lister was extraordinary. Fearless, charismatic, and determined to explore her lesbian sexuality, she forged her own path in a society that had no language to define her. She was a landowner, an industrialist, and a prolific diarist whose output has secured her legacy as one of the most fascinating figures of the 19th century. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister follows Anne from her crumbling ancestral home in Yorkshire to the glittering courts of Denmark as she resolves to put past heartbreak behind her and find herself a wife.

In Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution, Don N. Hagist brings life to these soldiers, describing the training, experiences, and outcomes of British soldiers who fought during the Revolution. Drawing on thousands of military records and other primary sources in British, American, and Canadian archives, and the writings of dozens of officers and soldiers, Noble Volunteers shows how a peacetime army responded to the onset of war, how professional soldiers adapted quickly and effectively to become tactically dominant, and more.

In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveller's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most loved period in British history: the Regency (a.k.a. Georgian England). Bookended by the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and the death of George IV in 1830, this is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets, the paintings of Constable and the gardens of Repton, the sartorial elegance of Brummell and the poetic licence of Byron, Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo and the threat of revolution and the Peterloo massacre.

In 1815 the Battle of Waterloo brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars and the European continent opened up once again to British tourists. The nineteenth century was to be an age driven by steam technology, mass-industrialisation and movement, and, in the footsteps of the Grand Tourists a hundred years earlier, the British middle-classes flocked to Europe to see the sights. In Tourists, the voices of these travellers – puzzled, shocked, delighted and amazed – are brought vividly to life.

In a world rife with conflict and tension, how does a great power prosecute an irregular war at a great distance within the context of a regional struggle, all within a global competitive environment? The question, so pertinent today, was confronted by the British nearly 250 years ago during the American War for Independence. And the answer, as this book makes plain, is: not the way the British, under Lieutenant General Charles, Earl Cornwallis, went about it in the American South. Southern Gambit presents a closely observed, comprehensive account of this failed strategy.

The Battle of Culloden in 1746 has gone down in history as the last major battle fought on British soil: a vicious confrontation between the English Royal Army and the Scottish forces supporting the Stuart claim to the throne. But this wasn't just a conflict between the Scots and the English: The battle was also part of a much larger campaign to protect the British Isles from the growing threat of a French invasion.

A Southern Underground Railroad constitutes a powerful counter-narrative in American history, a tale of how enslaved men and women found freedom and human dignity not in Jefferson's "Empire of Liberty" but outside the expanding boundaries of the United States.

Like its popular and acclaimed predecessor, Restoration London, this book is the result of the author's passionate interest in the practical details of the everyday life of our ancestors, so often ignored in more conventional history books.

In 1765, as the Stamp Act riled eastern seaports, frontiersmen clashed with the British Empire over another issue: Indian relations. When British officials launched a diplomatic expedition into the American interior to open trade with the Indian warrior Pontiac, the Black Boys formed to stop it and led an uprising that threatened the future of Britain's empire. Clashing with traders, diplomats, Native warriors, and imperious British officials, the Black Boys evolved into an organized political movement that resisted the Crown years before the Declaration of Independence.

The Seven Years’ War, also known as the French and Indian War in North America, was fought between 1756 and 1763, and it involved all of Europe’s great powers and many of the so-called middle powers. By the end of the conflict, Britain would gain control over Canada and Florida, but the war would nearly bankrupt the country as it doubled its national debt. Still, the war marked the beginning of the era of British dominance in North America. The war also had profound consequences for indigenous groups in North America.