This climaxed with the battle of Waterloo, huge political unrest, resulting in riots, and economic hardship for the poor due to decades of war.

People watched their world completely transform London was redesigned, the risqué waltz was introduced, and trading ceased with a mostly Napoleon controlled Europe. It was a time of transition after absolute monarchy but before democracy, and between the agricultural age and the industrial age. The period 1795-1837 though, is often associated with the Regency due to unique trends in fashion, culture, architecture and literature. The Regency era officially ran from 1811 to 1820, when Prince George IV ruled as proxy for his father King George III, who had been deemed unfit to rule. They reflect the social friction and extreme contrasts that were prevalent during the Regency era. The two conflicting nationalities of Jack Maggs, English and Australian, create uncertainty in his psyche. Jack Maggs’s nationality crisis reflects the zeitgeist of the Regency era and gothic aesthetics.

To gain a better understanding, this essay will also explore the term nationality and what it meant at the time Jack Maggs is set, in both Britain and Australia. This essay will explore them both, as well as Jack’s nationality, from the perspective of Britain and from Jack himself. Britain’s Regency era was a time of extreme contrasts and great change, while the gothic was a time of fear and uncertainty. He has spent roughly half of his life in England and half in Australia, thus giving him a nationality crisis.

It charts the psychological journey of the titular character Jack Maggs, who grew up in the slums of London but was transported, in later years, to Australia for his crimes. It is a neo-gothic and neo-regency fiction, the latter of which grew in popularity in the late twentieth century. Following his example, the Australian novelist, Carey sets his novel in Britain’s Regency era, which spanned from 1795 to 1837. Dickens’ bildungsroman novel was published in 1860-1861, and was set in early to mid-nineteenth century Britain. Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs, first published in 1997, is a re-doing of Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations.

Jack maggs