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Historical person
1762–1830
George IV was the eldest son of George III and served as prince regent from 1811, when his father’s final illness made him incapable of ruling, before succeeding as king in 1820. His regency coincided with the final campaigns against Napoleon and with severe economic and political strains at home. Personally extravagant and deeply interested in fashion, collecting, architecture and display, he helped give the Regency its distinctive cultural image while repeatedly attracting criticism for his debts and private conduct.
George’s relations with his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick created a prolonged public scandal, culminating in the failed attempt to exclude her from the rights of queenship after his accession. He exercised influence over appointments and policy but ruled within an increasingly ministerial constitutional system; Lord Liverpool dominated most of the regency. George strongly opposed Catholic emancipation, yet in 1829 he reluctantly accepted the legislation promoted by Wellington and Peel. His only legitimate child, Princess Charlotte, had died in 1817, leaving succession to his brothers.
George IV is a recurring presence or background ruler in Regency fiction, including Georgette Heyer’s Regency Buck, Laura Purcell’s God Save the King and Queen of Bedlam, and C. S. Harris’s Sebastian St Cyr mysteries. Winston Graham’s later Poldark novels also move through his regency and reign. Non-fiction treatments include E. A. Smith’s George IV, Stella Tillyard’s George IV (Penguin Monarchs), Saul David’s Prince of Pleasure and Sarah Gristwood’s Bird of Paradise.
Series
The Alastair–Audley novels form a loose multigenerational sequence linking Georgian family drama with the Regency and the Battle of Waterloo. These Old Shades introduces Justin Alastair and Léonie, while Devil’s Cub follows the next generation through their son, Dominic. Regency Buck shifts to Judith and Peregrine Taverner under…
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The Poldark novels follow Ross, Demelza and their family in Cornwall from the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and into the Regency aftermath. The series combines mining, gentry politics, coastal smuggling, marriage, family conflict and the pressure of war on…
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The Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries follow Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a former cavalry officer and intelligence agent who investigates murders in Regency Britain. Beginning in 1811, his cases carry him from royal palaces and Mayfair drawing rooms to prisons, docks, rookeries and country villages, where violent crimes…
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The Morland Dynasty is a thirty-six-book family saga tracing the fictional Morlands of Yorkshire from 1434 to the approach of the Second World War. Beginning with the marriage of Robert Morland and Eleanor, a ward of the Beaufort family, the sequence follows successive generations as Morland Place grows…
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The Sharpe series follows Richard Sharpe from service as a private soldier in India to command in the British Army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The novels place him at the Siege of Seringapatam, Battle of Assaye, Siege of Gawilghur, Battle of Trafalgar, British attack on Copenhagen,…
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The Matthew Hervey novels follow an English cavalry officer from the final campaign against Napoleon into the unsettled decades after Waterloo. Beginning as a young cornet in the 6th Light Dragoons, Hervey advances through command while trying to reconcile professional duty, personal honour, family obligations and the often…
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The Thomas Kydd series follows a Guildford wig-maker pressed into the Royal Navy in 1793 and traces his rise from inexperienced landsman to admiral. Across twenty-seven novels, Kydd learns the work of the lower deck, crosses to the quarterdeck and commands increasingly important ships during the French Revolutionary…
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The Georgian Queens novels place royal women at the centre of Britain's Hanoverian monarchy. Queen of Bedlam follows Queen Charlotte and her daughters as George III's illness turns family life into a constitutional crisis. Mistress of the Court moves back to the Hanoverian accession, tracing Henrietta Howard and…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
