Memoirs of the Life and Reign of King George the Third, Volume 1 (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

George III (1738-1820) was on the throne when England lost its American colonies and when it defeated Napoleon. Jesse, an influential British historian, sketches here the monarch’s life and times, from childhood and marriage through political struggles and mental illness—a story enlivened by the presence of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, William Pitt, and Edmund Burke. Volume One starts, as it should, with the birth of George III and his young adulthood as Prince; it closes with the infamous tax on tea entering America and the Boston Tea Party.