Queen Charlotte kept a diary in which she recorded her daily activities as well as those of George III and other members of the royal family. Only her volumes for 1789 and 1794 survive, in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. Her 1789 diary shows how the king’s illness and recovery impacted upon their lives. Both diary volumes provide hitherto unpublished information about court life and the royal family. Volume 4 of the Memoirs of the Court of George III.

This book examines the lives and tenures of the consorts of the Hanoverian, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Windsor monarchs from 1727 to the present. Some of the consorts examined in this volume—such as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, consort to George VI—are well known while others, including Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, consort to William IV, are more obscure. These innovative and authoritative biographies bring a fresh approach to the consorts of this period, revealing their lasting influence on the monarchy. In addition to covering a period that has seen the development of constitutional monarchy and increased media scrutiny of the whole royal family, this volume also looks to the future of the British monarchy, suggesting ways that future consorts can learn from the example of their predecessors. This volume and its companions reveal the changing nature of British consortship from the Norman Conquest to today.

Lucy Kennedy (c.1731–1826), had an insider’s view of life in Windsor castle and of members of the Royal Family for fifty-three years. Her diary, preserved in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, has never before been published. In it she writes a moving account of the death of Princess Amelia which precipitated the final illness of George III and the Regency. Her observations of his symptoms are relevant for modern-day diagnoses of his malady. Volume 3 of the Memoirs of the Court of George III.

Mrs Papendiek’s Memoirs record events at court from 1761 – when the future Queen Charlotte came to England to marry King George – until 1792. The Papendieks knew many musicians, including John Christian Bach (son of Johann Sebastian), William Herschel (who became an astronomer) and Haydn. The memoirs also record meetings with artists of the day, such as Thomas Lawrence and Thomas Gainsborough. They are a unique resource, recording significant information about living conditions, dress, education and Anglo-German relations.Volume 1 spans 1765–1840.

George III was one of the longest reigning British monarchs, ruling over most of the English speaking world from 1760 to 1820. Despite his longevity, George’s reign was one of turmoil. Britain lost its colonies in the War of American Independence and the European political system changed dramatically in the wake of the French Revolution. Closer to home, problems with the King’s health led to a constitutional crisis. Charlotte Papendiek’s memoirs cover the first thirty years of George III’s reign, while Mary Delany’s letters provide a vivid portrait of her years at Windsor. Lucy Kennedy was another long-serving member of court whose previously unpublished diary provides a great deal of new detail about the King’s illness. Finally, the Queen herself provides further insights in the only two extant volumes of her diaries, published here for the first time. The edition will be invaluable to scholars of Georgian England as well as those researching the French and American Revolutions and the history and politics of the Regency period more widely.

'Brings both house and garden vividly to life... A magnificent achievement' Gardens Illustrated 'A finely crafted work... it is an important record of the history of one of the country's most splendid estates' The English Garden The Palladian house of Stourhead, in Wiltshire, occupies a plateau above the confluence of three valleys. When you cross the south lawn and descend the tree-hung slopes, you glimpse a lake adorned with classical temples. Continue and you will find an allegorical grotto; a gothick hideaway; a Pantheon of demi-gods and, on high, a deserted temple to Apollo. To the west Alfred's Tower commands views over three counties, a gaunt landmark to English monarchy and patriotism. This is how in Georgian times Henry Hoare – known as Henry the Magnificent – would have explored the garden he designed. Generations of the Hoare family, bankers who combined service with enlightened patronage and philanthropy, have developed and cultivated the garden at Stourhead, and for many its breathtaking vistas are paradise. Dudley Dodd charts the owners of Stourhead and the history of the landscape, house and art collection. He describes how flights of folly, individual flair, taste and careful stewardship have nurtured a national treasure, which is among the finest English landscape gardens and, since 1946, a jewel of The National Trust. The stunning new pictures by the renowned photographer Marianne Majerus provide an up to date record of this enduring Elysium.

Wallpaper’s spread across trades, class and gender is charted in this first full-length study of the material’s use in Britain during the long eighteenth century. It examines the types of wallpaper that were designed and produced and the interior spaces it occupied, from the country house to the homes of prosperous townsfolk and gentry, showing that wallpaper was hung by Earls and merchants as well as by aristocratic women. Drawing on a wide range of little known examples of interior schemes and surviving wallpapers, together with unpublished evidence from archives including letters and bills, it charts wallpaper’s evolution across the century from cheap textile imitation to innovative new decorative material. Wallpaper’s growth is considered not in terms of chronology, but rather alongside the categories used by eighteenth-century tradesmen and consumers, from plains to flocks, from China papers to papier mâché and from stucco papers to materials for creating print rooms. It ends by assessing the ways in which eighteenth-century wallpaper was used to create historicist interiors in the twentieth century. Including a wide range of illustrations, many in colour, the book will be of interest to historians of material culture and design, scholars of art and architectural history as well as practicing designers and those interested in the historic interior.

Though she failed to become a handmaiden to Queen Anne, Mary Delany went on to become a figure at Court, eventually lodging at Windsor. This new edition of her correspondence during her years at Windsor presents previously unpublished letters as well as applying modern standards of editorial principles to her correspondence. The letters show the daily rituals of living at Court, document the first social steps of Fanny Burney and Mary Georgina Port, and supply new information on the family life of the royal family - including material on the assassination attempt against George III by Margaret Nicholson. Volume 2 of the Memoirs of the Court of George III.

Fanny Burney (1752-1840) is best known as the author of EVELINA, one of the most engaging novels of the eighteenth century. But for much of her long life, she was also an incomparable diarist, witnessing both the madness of George III and the young Queen Victoria's coronation. To read the journals she kept from the age of sixteen is to step back into Georgian England, meeting Dr Johnson, Garrick and Reynolds, being chased round the gardens of Kew Palace by the King. . . She was lady-in-writing to Queen Charlotte; she married an aristocratic emigre from the French Revolution and had her first and only child when she was forty-two; she was in Paris as Napoleon's armies marshalled against England, and in Brussels she heard the muffled guns, and watched the wounded being carried back from Waterloo. Kate Chisholm's delightful biography, incorporating the latest research and illustrate with unusual portraits and drawings, is lively, funny, shocking, informative and deeply moving; it paints a vivid portrait of a woman of great talent, against the changing background of England and France, a culture and an age.