Rating: 
Summary: Gossipy account of high society in the Regency era.
Review: Serious historians won't find much to peak their interest in this gossip-ladden review of the Regency period, but lay readers will find it an interesting and entertaining read. The research supposedly comes from original sources, including newspaper columns about the foibles and follies of the haute ton. Admist the many amusing anecdotes, the author tries to cover all aspects of daily living in England at the time. Unfortunately, the structure of the book is such that there is a lot of repetition and I had trouble keeping track of (and interested in) the various many members of society that kept reappearing. An amusing read, but not a definitive look at the era.
Rating:
Summary: Gossipy account of high society in the Regency era.
Review: Serious historians won't find much to peak their interest in this gossip-ladden review of the Regency period, but lay readers will find it an interesting and entertaining read. The research supposedly comes from original sources, including newspaper columns about the foibles and follies of the haute ton. Admist the many amusing anecdotes, the author tries to cover all aspects of daily living in England at the time. Unfortunately, the structure of the book is such that there is a lot of repetition and I had trouble keeping track of (and interested in) the various many members of society that kept reappearing. An amusing read, but not a definitive look at the era.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, if not terribly accurate
Review: This book caught my eye on a display, and I bought it more out of curiosity than from any great desire to know the intimate details of the upper classes of the late 18th and early 19th century. I'm not terribly knowlegable on the history of the Regency, so I can't really comment on the accuracy of the history, but it is an entertaining read. It also manages to illumintate some of the social history of a critical point in modern history- the transition from a mercantilist agragrian society to a modern market-based one. It's not unlike reading Paul Johnson; the author may not have a terribly good grasp of the details, but there's an interesting narritive nonetheless.
Rating: 
Summary: Gossip, Glamour and Fascinating Facts: A Great Read !
Review: This book got rave reviews from the quality papers in England - and I quite see why. It is amusing, well-written, well-researched and full of fascinating details. In fact, 'An Elegant Madness' is just what the doctor ordered for any one interested in social, as opposed to academic, history. One paper in the U.K [the Independent] wrote that it 'reaches the parts the professional historians rarely deign to cover.' Hear, Hear! It tells us all the things we really care about - the relative cost of living: (only very rich lovers could afford to elope because the fare was the equivalent of a round-the-world trip first class today); what they ate and drank (22 courses for a dinner party and red wine for breakfast). There are chapters on love and marriage and morals and money and mistresses: one chapter is headed 'A mistress had a better deal than a wife'.The stories move from the drawing rooms of Mayfair to the gin palaces of the East End; from duels to servants, from dandies to duchesses, from gambling to waltzing. And it is all great fun...I suggest readers ignore the customer comments and read the editorial reviews: or better still the book itself!.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book is incredibly well-written and well-researched. It is an excellent resource for any student of Regency history or anyone with a general interest in the time period. It is a good book for a general overview of high society and a good place to begin if you want to study more specific elements of the time. It is definetely NOT a dry history book. It was difficult to put down!
Rating: 
Summary: failed to hold my interest
Review: This book looked interesting when I picked it up, and I'd heard from other readers that it was good. I've never read much about this period, so I was interested to find out what it was like. I found it mildly entertaing in parts, but in a way repetitve. The book is divided into sections, each dealing with a different aspect of society such as the 'bon ton', london, the seaside, the persuit of pleasure, fashion and manners. In the end I found that most of the people she was writing about were very self indulgent and mostly came to a bad end. (like any regency novel). I've also since found out that this book is not the best on accuracy which is a dissapointment. In the end I found I was skim reading this book, because I felt like I was going over the same ground over and over, and it just lost my interest. Some books will do that to you and this one did it to me. Such a shame as I started with high hopes for it.
Rating:
Summary: failed to hold my interest
Review: This book looked interesting when I picked it up, and I'd heard from other readers that it was good. I've never read much about this period, so I was interested to find out what it was like. I found it mildly entertaing in parts, but in a way repetitve. The book is divided into sections, each dealing with a different aspect of society such as the 'bon ton', london, the seaside, the persuit of pleasure, fashion and manners. In the end I found that most of the people she was writing about were very self indulgent and mostly came to a bad end. (like any regency novel). I've also since found out that this book is not the best on accuracy which is a dissapointment. In the end I found I was skim reading this book, because I felt like I was going over the same ground over and over, and it just lost my interest. Some books will do that to you and this one did it to me. Such a shame as I started with high hopes for it.
Rating:
Summary: Lifestyles Of The Pompous And The Pampered
Review: What an enjoyable piece of fluff! I have read some of the negative reviews by other Amazonians, so I suppose it depends on what you are looking for in this book. I wasn't looking for a serious and scholarly historical work. I wanted to be entertained with some light social history and this is what I got. If you want to know what the upper classes ate and how they dressed and how they kept themselves occupied (I won't say in their "spare time" as they had nothing but!) you will find this book very interesting. Ah, those were certainly the days! A young dandy would get up in the morning and spend a good 2-3 hours at his toilette. (It took a lot of work to get that cravat looking just right!) If you went out to a nice restaurant they would have an area where live turtles were on display, similar to the way that restaurants in our time have live lobsters on exhibit, as back then they were crazy for turtles and couldn't get enough of them. Rich people would spend their summers traveling to the country estates of other rich people. As a welcome guest you would be entertained at no cost to yourself for a weekend or a week and all you were expected to do was to provide some interesting conversation. You would travel with your maids and valets and other servants and they would be provided for as well. The meals were enormous and the ladies especially had to make sure to bring plenty of clothing as you would need to change 4-5 times in a day. If you were one of the members of the nobility who had either gambled or just overspent yourself into debt, these country trips would be especially nice for the free room and board you would receive. Unfortunately, you would merely put off the day of reckoning when you would either go to debtor's prison or have to flee to the continent to remain a free man! Some aristocrats would gamble away fortunes in one evening and spend more on throwing a party than a laborer would make in a lifetime. When you think of all the money that these people just threw away without making any contribution to society whatsoever it makes you shake your head and laugh out loud at the folly of human nature.
Rating: 
Summary: Shockingly bad research and full of errors
Review: While very interesting and raising some interesting points Venetia Murray's book "An Elegant Madness" is shockingly badly researched and very sloppily edited. Do not rely on this book if you are not familiar with the Regency period - and do not quote from this book as truth, always use a secondary source to back up anything read in this book. Errors are continually repeated. She seems to have a permanant state of confusion with the Spencer (Earl Spencer) family and the Cavendish family (the Duke's of Devonshire). The 1st Earl Spencer had two daughters, Georgiana and Henrietta. Georgiana married the 5th Duke of Devonshire and had two daughters, Georgiana and Harriet. Murray consistently and continually confuses these two generations and families despite listing seven separate books on the family in her bibliography and a number of other associated books that would provide information on them. I am starting to wonder if she read the books at all - if she read that many surely she wouldn't have made those mistakes. She calls the Marquis of Queensbury "Old Q" in fact, 'Old Q' was the Duke of Queensbury, a completely different person. Her description of Beau Brummell is based on entirely apocryphal and disproved events. She places their first meeting on a salacious and since disproved story by Captain Gronow. She says that the Prince and Brummell fell out at an event in 1814 when Brummell insulted the Prince by asking his companion, "Who is your far friend'. This was not the case. Not only did this even actually occur a year earlier in 1813, but it was probably at least a year after the Prince and Brummell fell out. She also fails to show the influence of Brummell on clothing. She says his dress was 'leather breeches for daytime' in actual fact this was the common dress in the 1790's and not at all what Brummell introduced. No one was admitted into his dressing room either - they were entertained in his drawing room while he put on his neck cloths in the dressing room next door with the doors open. She misdates the arrival of gas in London as 1816 - it came in 1808 and was in common use by 1815. She continually misnames people - Lord William Pitt-Lennox for the Duke of Richmonds son Lord William Lennox. She calls James Wedderburn Webster, James Webster Wedderburn. She confuses the Duke of Kent's mutiny in Gibralter (undated in her book but occuring in 1802) with a mutinous incident a few years earlier in Canada. She also says the Duke sentenced the man to 900 lashes, it was actually 999. But the mutiny in Gibralter was not over his cruelty, it was over his excessive regulations which prevented the men from drinking on Christmas Day. She blandly uses 'after the war' as a statement - but doesn't state what war - one must assume she means after Waterloo. In which case it would be after the 'wars'. Given that the Napoleonic Wars dominated all but a few years of the 1788-1830 she chooses as the scope for her book she has almost no information of the effect of these wars on the country. She quotes many things out of context to - the list of her errors, omissions and flat out misconstructions could go on. Frankly while I am interested in much of the information she brings up, those things that I know about or have researched further have shown that she has very little discipline either in her note taking or her ability to put it into its correct context. She jumps around her chosen 50 year period with little regard to the development of society, London or social mores. So she states with certainty it was a violent age and people were mugged etc. Yet the difference in London in the 1780's when people were robbed in the carriages in broad daylight in London streets, and in 1810 when this was extremely uncommon, is not developed at all. It is not like Murray has put new interpretations on facts - she has taken too many events and given them incorrect dates, people or information. This is an exceptionally sloppy book, littered with errors and should be read with extreme caution. I have only listed some of the errors in the book here.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but far from accurate
Review: Why does this book have such contradictory reviews from newspapers and magazines, compared to some of the readers? I read this book last year, and again this year when I finally decided to acquire my own copy despite all the problems I had with the book. Firstly, this book is indeed entertaining, with some very good sketches and with lots of interesting little snippets about the lives of the richest and noblest members of British society in the first decades of the 19th century. It makes for a good read from that point of view, especially if you are more interested in the feel of how the "ton" or high society lived than in historical accuracy. The book is not meant to be a history of the entire Regency period, and nor is it meant to be a political history. On the other hand, I would have liked to have seen a little more reference to the major political figures of the day, given that politics was as important as economics to the aristocrats of the Regency period - even if they often chose to ignore both. It is certainly a pity that there is little discussion of the Prince Regent's association with Fox and the Whigs, or for that matter on what was happening politically. Even for a mostly social history of the elite, the omission of some major political events and trends is surprising. I do have the same problems with the book that have been so elegantly expressed by others. One of the things that shocked me was that Miss Murray claimed to have done all her research with first-hand sources and in fact thanks the staff at the Windsor Castle library and so forth. The second thing that shocked me even more were the enconiums paid her by several eminent personages who should have noted some of the problems. Yes, she collected a vast array of data and an equally vast stock of anecdote and wove them into a light-hearted look at the Regency era. But all the same, she makes some remarkable mistakes for someone who claims to have done all her research. I found the index to be very frustrating, because everytime I tried to look up someone, that reference was useless. Someone obviously slipped up here. The author's references to peers and peeresses were also frequently inaccurate. It may be pedantic of me to demand that she correctly identify a certain peer as Lord Yarmouth as the heir of the 2nd Marquess of Hertford. But for those not conversant with the peerage (and even for some who are), such explanations are vital. I also find it frustrating when an author casually mixes up two countesses of Jersey who are mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, with the elder being the royal mistress and the younger being the noted society hostess and arbiter of fashion. Finally, in a book so strewn with names and references to this peer and that, an appendix with a list of the main personages who are mentioned in the book would have helped greatly. [Or a detailed index]. For a good example of both, see the recent collection of the Churchill letters edited by his daughter Mary Soames. What are the merits of this book? First, it is easy reading. Second, it is still in print and relatively inexpensive. Third, it includes several anecdotes about various peers, aristocratic ladies, and courtesans which certainly makes for interesting reading. On the other hand, it is not the book to read if you really want to understand what was going on in high society or for that matter in the rest of English society. Some other reviewers have recommended Stella Margetson, but her books are not easy to locate outside large university libraries. J.B. Priestly's The Prince of Pleasure (not the eponymous Saul David book) is a good start but there are probably even better books. For the gossip, I strongly recommend the originals (Creevey, Gronow, Greville and so forth), if you have the interest and the patience. Why not get the gossip from the source after all?
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