A frequent setting for her novels, and once her home, Jane Austen’s characters present mixed feelings on Bath in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

“What a delightful place Bath is” and “Oh! Who can ever be tired of Bath?” were the opinions of Mrs. Allen and Catherine Morland, while Anne Elliot “persisted in a very determined, though very silent disinclination for Bath.”

Perhaps the best critique of all is the vainglorious Sir Walter Elliot’s stance that “The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women…there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! They were infinitely worse.”

I hope that by traveling to Bath I did not add to this multitude. But, “if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”

While Jane Austen’s settings are strong, she spends very little time describing meals. Just vague notions of tea or breakfast. In that spirit, Austen’s works can be appreciated accompanied by a light pleasant snack; English Breakfast tea and a nice shortbread.