The Third George

This volume in Plaidy's Georgian Saga features the English king remembered chiefly for intermittent madness and the loss of the American colonies. George III, sharing history's stage with such stars as Pitt, the Great Commoner, and beset by public scandals of the exchequer and personal scandals of the boudoir, found solace in the domestic environs of his wife and children. Married to Charlotte, a docile German princess who bore him 15 children, and whose looks were often compared to a crocodile's, George ruled his household with petty tyranny, but as king was hostage to public opinion. A guilt-laden moralist, George struggled with out-of-control family members, particularly the Prince of Wales's notorious liaison with Mrs. Fitzherbert, not only an actress but a Catholic. Rendered with Plaidy's customary crispness, the turbulent times of George III come to life on a human scale, chronicled as they are in this pleasantly readable historical romance. (July 1)