K.J. Charles's Reviews > The First Celebrities: Five Regency Portraits

Interesting introduction comparing today's celebrity cults and the nature of celebrities with the way celebrity played out in the Regency. Plus ca change, basically.

I'm not sure the selection of people entirely backs up the premise. Harriot Mellon, absolutely: an actress who married first Thomas Coutts and then the Duke of St Albans. Also Lady Charlotte Bury, once agreed to be the most beautiful woman in England, whose story is a fabulous illustration of how quickly and easily you could slide down the privilege scale and the things people did to keep afloat: really interesting. But Princess Lieven wasn't interested in appealing to the masses, only to the elite and the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos was an aristo not a celeb, and neither of them really fulfils the premise. Thomas Lawrence combines incredible talent and achievement with a huge amount of personal fame, especially in his heavily promoted child prodigy days, but again, it's veering away from the premise. Basically I'd have liked more variety. What about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor or one of the Sons of Africa? What about a celebrated villain?

Still, the stories are well told (except for the enraging habit of calling each subject 'our hero/heroine') and it's well researched and interesting stuff.