An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England

Ventetia Murray obviously does her research before writing! Her book is full of useful information for those folks who write Regency period fiction, presented in an entertaining and interesting style of writing that keeps the reader involved. Great for reference and just plain fun to read.

I would have given this book 5 stars, but: In ennumerating and explaining the times, it was not as good as EB White's "The Age of Scandal" Still, High Society is an engaging and thoroughly enjoyable guide to the mores and foibles of a most interesting age.

I just don't understand why the customer comments on this book have been so mixed: some people seem to hate, others to love it. Why does it arouse such strong reactions? I liked it very much indeed - but then that is because I like reading about the way people of a different time actually spent their days and how they lived: my husband always said that I was the kind of person who would want to know Who Did the Catering for the Last Supper! He was quite right! I'm fascinated by menus,and babies and medicines and cooking and all the mundane, eternal things of life.When you add duels and gambling and fete champetres and dandies and crinolines,and Lady Caroline Lamb stabbing herself at a ball for love of Byron - I'm hooked. This book is refeshingly un-academic; but it is also funny, clever, full of fascinating details and endlessly evocative - of a wonderful time to have been alive. [Just so long as you were rich, that is! Also, preferably, aristocratic, witty, beautiful and highly educated!. The so-called 'jet set' and 'Beautiful People' of today seem like suburban Puritans in comparison to the glitterati of the Regency!]

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!.

I found this book a light and delicious souffle: academic history it is not: but a great read for the upper middle-brow interested in daily life, love, money and and all the things we all care about as much now as we did two hundred years ago - Yes, and Yes again. Full of amusing stories, witty, very well-resarched and exactly what the author claims in her Preface. She writes " 'An Elega nt Madness' was never intended to be taken as a sociological survey: the aim of this book was to convey the mood of the Regency, to entertain my readers, and, perhaps, to enlighten a few.'" I just don't understand the negative customer comments: they must be amateur historians with their own agenda.