Twelve very different people and their lives

In his book Meet the Georgians Robert Peal tells the story of twelve notable people of the eighteenth and ninetieth century when the kings on the throne were called George. It’s a book of popular history so the figures chosen are known for something unusual and the chapters are relatively short. The book is also written in a more informal style than more serious history books, with lots of colloquialisms. I didn’t have any problem with any of this because the book is designed to reach people who don’t read more “serious” history and also because it made the book fun to read. If you want to know more about these people then there are plenty of biographies available.

The twelve people chosen for the book are all well-known and I had heard of them all and even read about them in the past but the chapters were entertaining and informative and there is a large variety in the subjects. The chapters include Mary Wolstonecraft, an early feminist; Lord Byron, aristocrat and poet; Lady Hamilton, mistress of Nelson; Olaudah Equiano, former slave and writer; and the female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

The author uses the mini biographies to talk about Georgian life, beliefs and culture, although there isn’t the space to include a lot of background. He tries to set these lives in context and by choosing a variety of subjects he covers a lot of ground. It would be wrong to assume that these people are typical of their time and, in fact, they have been chosen precisely because they are unusual or stand out in some way. The twelve people chosen also can’t give us a comprehensive overview of the period but they do offer an insight into different lifestyles, the opportunities available to people from different backgrounds and the choices that people make.

I enjoyed this book which is short and to the point. I did, however, grow weary of the author’s view that this was a particularly “outrageous” period which he mentioned again and again – I am pretty sure that he could also have chosen twelve different people who would reinforce the view that the century wasn’t outrageous at all !