Bath and Jane Austen

Visiting Bath, the home of Jane Austen for many years and the settings of two of her novels, was very helpful in understanding Austen’s life and her works more fully. I visited the Jane Austen Centre, which was very informative about Jane Austen’s life and her connections to Bath. While Austen was young, she took several long trips to Bath, which she enjoyed. It was around this time that she started to write Northanger Abbey. Her love for Bath was reflected in her heroine’s feelings about the city—she “was come to be happy, and felt happy already” and she told Mr. Tilney she “liked it very well”. When Austen moved to Bath later in her life, her dislike of the society there was reflected in Anne Elliot’s opinion of the town in Persuasion, who “disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her.” Austen disliked living in Bath, and spoke of “happy feelings of escape” upon leaving it. Seeing specific locations from Austen’s novels, such as the Pump Room and the Royal Crescent, was helpful in understanding the context of her stories. Seeing the setting of Jane Austen’s novels, as well as the place she spent some years of her life, was helpful in more fully understanding her work.

The Pump Rooms

The Roman Baths
The Royal Crescent