Regency Recollections: Captain Gronow's Guide to Life in London and Paris

by R.H. Gronow, Christopher Summerville (Editor)

Captain Rees Howell Gronow was a dandy, a debtor, a duellist and a raconteur who lived the high life in Regency London and Paris. He was also a talented writer and his memoirs form the liveliest picture of Regency society ever produced. A contemporary noted that Gronow 'committed the greatest follies, without in the slightest disturbing the points of his shirt collar.' An epitome of style, the personification of the man about town, he devoted his life to fashionable and exciting pursuits. And he lived in exciting times. He was a Waterloo veteran, knew the obnoxious Prince Regent, mixed with the imperious Beau Brummell, was a friend to both Byron and Shelley, and, generally, was at the very heart of high society. Inevitably, Gronow's lively memoir is inhabited by a cast of belles, beau sabreurs, courtesans, dandies, duellists, eccentrics, gamblers, heroes, millionaires, mistresses, matriarchs, and more. As a debtor seeking refuge in Paris, Gronow would produce these astonishing anecdotes which remain an outstanding source for historians. This edition presents Gronow's Regency recollections in an accessible form, aimed at the general reader as much as the aficionado. Here, all the fascinating details of Regency life put on their gaudy show: how to get invited to a ball, how to fight a duel, how to make a successful elopement, how to win (and just as importantly, how to lose) at the gambling table, how to wear the right trousers. It is more than a manual to Regency style, it is a record of a life well lived and a life brilliantly remembered.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Regency

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2006

About the author

Rees Howell Gronow

Reviews

[CharlotteReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Napoleonic wars, snippets about the (mis)deeds and deeds of soldiers occupying Paris, details about some famous, and volatile duelists and the downfall of Beau Brummel and certain gaming hells.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an edited memoir of Captain Rees Howell Gronow, a dandy whose heyday was Regency England. It largely spans the period from when Gronow received his commission in December in 1812 until the early 1820s. The memoir is filled with lots of interesting tidbits, but it requires wading through repetitive accounts of rich aristocrats gambling away their fortunes and dueling a the drop of a hat. Probably the best parts for me were the eyewitness accounts of Waterloo and encounters with Byron and Shelley. Since Gronow's memoirs are multiple volumes, I am uncertain whether to lay the tedium at Gronow's door or Christopher Summerville's, the editor, or if it is modern sensibilities, but there was a lot of redundancy. This book was marketed as a complement to the world of Jane Austen, but it is more the anti-Jane. The dust jacket bills it as a manual for Regency England: how to dress, how to duel, how to make a successful elopement, how to lose at the gambling tables. People certainly do these things in Gronow's memoir, but more often than not he is writing for an audience he assumes will know the mechanics and the styles. More accurately it is a who's who of a very particular social set. I did not find it an enjoyable read, but it would be valuable for anyone writing about the period.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another of my "research into the Regency period" books, and it's pretty good, as I recall. I read it (or started to) a while ago, and while I am not sure that I read the whole thing, it's not that sort of book for me. It's a reference book.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of some of the supposedly better entries in the diaries of Captain Gronow, arranged by chronology and theme. The footnotes and introduction by the author are pretty good, but the material just isn't that interesting. I found him rather dull and didn't learn a whole lot.