Editor's Introduction to Special Issue: Regency Studies (Essay‪)‬

The facts of the situation are fairly straightforward: George III, "old, mad, blind, despised, and dying," was declared unfit to rule in 1811 and his son, the Prince of Wales, and future George IV, was installed as Regent--a position he filled until his father's death in 1820. (1) Hence, the Regency Era. The implications of the situation (so much harder to pin down than the facts), however, are a bit more complex. What was the ideology of the Regency? How did it relate to the major literary and cultural movements that both surrounded and encompassed it? And, what kind of legacy has it left? REGENCY APPETITES