In 1811, the Prince of Wales was officially appointed Regent to act in place of his ailing father, King George III. The Regency marked a period of high fashion and low morals that is famous today for the flourishing of the arts, but also for the scandalous personal life of the prince. The actual regency was to last a mere nine years, starting in 1811, before the prince acceded to the throne in his own right as King George IV. But the Regency was more than a political event - it was a style, a fashion, a new state of mind. This book explores what is meant by the Regency Era. It was a time when Jane Austen was publishing her famous novels; when the Romantic poets such as Keats, Byron and Shelley were in their prime; when war with France finally ended with the Battle of Waterloo and a rejoicing nation emerged, blinking, into a new sunlight. It was an age that gave us Buckingham Palace and Brighton Pavilion as we know them today. It gave us high fashion, extreme etiquette, pageantry and huge social change.

All this against the background of the prince himself - a generous but flawed individual who lived life to excess. This introduction to the Regency covers the major events, ideas and personalities of the period.