Regency Recollections: Captain Gronow's guide to life in London and Paris ed. Christopher Summerville Ravenhall Books, 207pp, £16.99 ISBN 1905043074
Captain Rees Howell Gronow knew a thing or two about duelling. And gambling. And the right cut of trouser to wear before the Prince Regent. Gronow was a veteran of Waterloo, and his entertaining memoirs take in his time as an officer, but they only really come to life in his descriptions of Paris and London high society, the cafés and clubs, the scandals and the fashions.
Christopher Summerville provides historical context, but the real joys come chiefly from Gronow's own writings. Acquainted with Beau Brummell, Percy Bysshe Shelley and almost every other key character of the Regency period, this dandy and debtor kept a detailed and, for the most part, uncritical account of all his activities.
These reminiscences are fascinating and often very amusing, though he rarely focuses his observational skills on himself: he remains a bit-player in his own life story, seemingly happier recording the misdeeds of others. Still, though one occasionally desires a little more depth, there's no denying that Gronow makes a superb guide to a world in which fortunes were frequently lost with a single roll of the dice and quarrels were resolved with a show of pistols at dawn.
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