Following the footsteps of Jane Austen in Bath, hotbed of 1800s gossip and novel plots

Shilpa Ganatra - The Irish Times - 23/03
With its Georgian architecture, Roman baths and Austen-tatious literary history, Bath never breaks character

Jane Austen came close to penning her bestselling romance novels in Ireland, I am told by my tour guide, Theresa Roche, who is elegantly dressed in a cherry-red Regency costume.

Towards the end of Austen’s romance with her first love, Limerick-born Tom Lefroy, she wrote to her sister that she expected to receive an offer that evening. “But no offer came,” says Roche, of Strictly Jane Austen Tours, as we navigate the cobbled streets of Bath. “If it happened, then she would have no doubt moved to Ireland, and written her novels from there.”

It was a sliding doors moment. Yet the more we retrace Austen’s eventful life in Bath on this spring day, the more I wonder whether enduring favourites such as Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion and Emma could have been written if she hadn’t lived in Bath, England’s location of choice for socialising and gossip in 1800.

It’s a point that the city itself is not shy of making, especially since 2025 marks 250 years since Austen’s birth.

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Bath, an hour’s drive east of Bristol, on the northern tip of Somerset, has a heaving calendar of events in 2025 to celebrate Austen and her work.

The annual Jane Austen Festival is set to hold an elevated edition in September, alongside extended events like tw...
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