Jane Austen's Bath
"Bath is still Bath" Jane Austen sighed wearily to a friend in a letter from the provincial outpost of fashionable society that forms the setting for 'Northanger Abbey' and the closing chapters of 'Persuasion'.
Her heroines were not so disenchanted: "Oh! Who can ever be tired of Bath?" asks one, "the honest relish of balls and plays, and every–day sights..."
Austen (1775–1817) knew the city well. Her parents were married in Bath and the family lived there for five years from 1801.