Tamara Colloff-Bennett

A Sweet View

It was a sweet view – sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive.

– from ‘Emma’, Jane Austen’s novel published in 1815

Jane Austen had lived for six years in this redbrick 18th century house called Chawton Cottage when she had her character Emma air these observations about the estate belonging to the character Mr. Knightley in her novel Emma.

My husband David took this photo when we visited Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire in southern England last summer. So I hope you enjoy this dose of summer as you read this in the depth of winter!

It is often said that authors write best about the realities that they know, and so I think that Jane might well have been referring to her own home located in the quiet English countryside when she wrote this description in Emma.

Called Chawton Cottage during Jane’s lifetime, Jane moved to the village of Chawton in the summer of 1809 when she was 34 years old.

The Arduous Path To Chawton

Four years before she arrived to live in relative peace at Chawton that summer, however, Jane and her family experienced first hand what dependency on a male head of a household meant in her era when her father Reverend George Austen died at the age of 74 in January 1805.

The family was living in Bath at the time. After her father died, however, the family had to leave Bath and Jane moved two more times with her mother and sister, each time to lodgings that were less expensive than the last.

Following this they stayed in several other locations including Clifton, Adlestrop, Stoneleigh, Kent, and Southampton, and small seaside places.

I would think that the cumulative effect of this dislocation also added to Jane’s sensitivity as an author since she learned first hand what it was like to live in ‘reduced circumstances’, as the euphemism of the time termed it.

Unsettling Times

Biographers have claimed that during this destabilizing period of her life when she and her family moved about (getting rid of all of their furniture as well along the way), Jane seemed unable to write.

She must have dealt with her writing block to some degree, however, because as Elizabeth Proudman explains in her booklet called The Essential Guide to Finding Jane Austen in Chawton, the novelist “always carried with her the manuscripts of three unpublished novels, Elinor and Marianne, First Impressions, and Susan.”

Refuge At Last

Finally in July 1809 which was four-and-a-half years after her father died, the Austens moved into Chawton Cottage.

Jane had effectively moved back home because the small village of Chawton is in the same county of Hampshire as the village of Steventon where Jane spent the first 25 years of her life. Her family only left the county in 1800 to move to Bath because her father wanted to retire there.

After traipsing about to different locations, the family finally went back to a neighboring part of the county that they had first left years earlier.

You can see this illustrated (and nifty!) map that my husband David made:

A Sharp Observer Who Did Not ‘Marry Well’

During Jane Austen’s lifetime, women’s social standing and economic security were intricately bound up with the men that they married.

So because she focused so centrally on this pressure to ‘marry well’ in her classic novels, I find it ironic that both Jane and her sister Cassandra themselves never married, either ‘well’ or otherwise.

However, perhaps precisely because she never tied the knot, Jane gained objectivity on such an important social element in her times that might have been impossible otherwise.

Pride and Prejudice‘s Famous Beginning

Surely Jane’s circumstances influenced her writing, as you can see reflected in this very famous beginning of her classic novel Pride and Prejudice which was published when she had lived in Chawton for four years:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

The Quill, The Inkwell, The Desk!

When we visiting Chawton, I found it exciting to be in Jane’s physical space, to be in the room where she wrote her ingenious novels.

For example, here is Jane’s writing table that she used in Chawton – including the quill and inkwell that she used to write all of her wonderful novels.

A Room With A View

And from where Jane’s chair and this little table were located in the room, she could look outside through this window:

A Gentleman’s Daughter

Like her heroine Elizabeth Bennet in her novel Pride and Prejudice, the woman who wrote her classics on that desk and looked out that window in Chawton was a gentleman’s daughter.

Her father George Austen was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers who had risen to the lower ranks of the landed gentry.

However, she wasn’t always assured this status since her father’s branch of the family went through difficult times when her father was a boy.

That was why it was his wealthy uncle Francis Austen who paid for his education. Then when when he was 16, George received a scholarship to Oxford to study for ordination.

A Lady’s Daughter

George continued his association with Oxford when he became engaged to Cassandra Leigh.

Branches of her Leigh family had academic connections with Oxford and included all classes of gentry.

And in terms of status, this intelligent woman was descended from a Lord Mayor of London during the reign of Elizabeth I.

The Austen Crew

This importance of family loomed large in Jane’s life.

As I read on the site of the Jane Austen Society of Australia (JASA), Claire Tomalin reflected in her biography Jane Austen: A Life that the author “lived with a perpetual awareness of cousinage extending over many counties and even beyond England.”

And along with this very large extended family, her nuclear family included eight children with Jane herself being the seventh born.

Here is the line-up of the Austen siblings – all of whom along with her mother outlived Jane: Her six brothers were James (b.1765), George (1766), Edward (1767), Henry (1771), Francis, or Frank (1774), and Charles (1779).

Her one sister named Cassandra (after their mother) was born in 1773, and Jane herself was born in 1775.

Reflections Of Reality?

As far as how her one sister figured in her life, Cassandra was Jane’s closest friend throughout the author’s lifetime.

Could it be that the sisters Elizabeth and Jane Bennet who are the main characters in Pride and Prejudice and who also are very close in fact echo the author’s real-life relationship with her own sister Cassandra?

Life In The Austen Family

Not surprisingly considering her parents’ backgrounds, another biographer of Austen named Park Honan pointed out that life in the Austen home was lived in “an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere.”

Perhaps this accounts for the fact according to Le Faye’s A Family Record that Jane “never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment” after returning from school in 1786.

Little Brother Saves The Day

The Chawton Cottage to where Jane and other family members went to live after their wanderings was a residence owned by none other than Jane’s third brother Edward.

How did her sibling have such means?

What happened was that when he was about 16 years old, Edward was adopted by Thomas and Catherine Knight of Godmersham Park in Kent who were wealthy and childless relatives of the Austens.

The Knights’ stipulation was that Edward would have to take the family name of Knight.

Arranging all of this was a practical way of ensuring that the inheritance would remain in the family, and gradually Edward was entrusted to the affectionate care of these relatives.

Edward Austen Knight eventually took over management of the estates at Godmersham and Chawton in 1797. He lived at Godmersham, and let the Great House (as it was called) at Chawton to gentlemen tenants.

By 1809 he offered the house in the village – i.e., Chawton Cottage – to his mother, Cassandra, and Jane.

Coping With The Reality Of Life In Georgian Times

Why would supposedly loving parents put one of their children up for adoption? I have wondered about this since I read this fact years ago about Edward.

In other words, even though it turns out that it was a generous gesture on the part of wealthy relatives as I have just explained – I still find the situation a bit unusual.

That’s why I was happy to read an explanation for this as put forth by Michael Giffin in his article called The people in Jane Austen’s life – The quintessential Georgian parents: George & Cassandra Austen featured in the JASA site.

An author, editor, and Anglican priest, Giffin in his article on the JASA site claims that too many biographers, historians, and critics fail to look at the Austen family in the context of the Georgian times in which they lived – which he summarized as follows:

…the Georgians… lived in the shadow of the Reformation, Civil War, Restoration, and Glorious Revolution. Their way of life was dominated by an unregulated capitalism …. Agrarian change threatened their economic security…. Their social life was determined by property and patronage…. Every class was restless and insecure and under threat.

Giffin further points out the following with particular reference to Edward’s adoption by the Knights, and the effect that this ultimately had on Jane’s life considering that her father had died:

…the adoptive and biological parents of Edward Austen had a series of socially-constructed and genetic expectations… for their mutual benefit,…. One by-product was an environment that supported Jane during her most brilliant and productive years… Austen’s life… would have been rendered much more difficult without the support of her brother….

The History of Chawton Cottage

As Elizabeth Proudman details in her pamphlet called The Essential Guide To Finding Jane Austen In Chawton, Chawton Cottage was built in around 1700. It then served as an ale house beside the coach road near by for some years.

Following that, it was the home of the farm bailiff who worked for the Knights, the wealthy relatives who adopted Jane’s brother Edward.

Later when Edward took over management of Godmersham and Chawton, he improved the house for his mother and sisters.

Designed With The Family In Mind

Because the house is so close to what was considered a busy road in that Georgian era, Edward had a window in the front closed and he had another Gothic one looking into the garden:

Then Edward added three bedrooms at the back. This was also to accommodate the Austens’ good friend Martha Lloyd who lived with the family.

Cassandra Lives On Alone

After Jane died in 1817 and her mother died in 1827, her sister Cassandra lived alone at the cottage until 1845.

When Cassandra died, the house was partitioned to accommodate living space for three families.

A Tribute To A WWII Casualty

As you can see in this stone plaque that is on the front wall of the house, Thomas Edward Carpenter bought Chawton Cottage to be a museum in memory of his son Lieutenant Philip John Carpenter.

Philip served with the East Surrey Regiment, and he was killed during WWII in action in 1944 in Lake Trasimene in Italy.

You can see a portrait of Philip on the stairs in the house.

Praise, Jane Style

Chawton Cottage became Jane Austen’s House Museum in 1949, the same year the Jane Austen Memorial Trust was founded.

I wonder what Jane and her family would think about this.

However, historians do believe Jane was delighted with Chawton Cottage as evidenced from this little ditty ‘tribute’ of sorts that she wrote to her brother James to tell him how she felt about the place:

Our Chawton Home, how much we find
Already in it to our mind;
And how convinced that when complete
It will all other houses Beat
That ever have been made or mended,
With rooms concise or rooms distended.

Concealed Forever?

So here’s hoping that Jane herself would be content and happy to see how her and her family’s life has been preserved in this lovely museum of a home.

Beyond that, however, we do know for certain that an amazing wealth and blossoming of the imagination took place in Chawton Cottage.

For this was the place where Jane revised earlier manuscript novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, and where she also wrote Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion.

Still, I like to think for the sake of her and her family’s privacy that Chawton Cottage holds many other secrets beyond what we can see today from the remnants of her and her family’s lives in this quietly beautiful country cottage museum.
 

PART 1 OF THIS TWO-PART ARTICLE (Jane Austen in Bath) IS HERE.

Clarence Odbody in It’s A Wonderful Life

Ah, Frank Capra’s 1946 Hollywood movie ‘A Wonderful Life’: Nothing like snuggling down to watch it during the winter festive season yet one more time.

And no matter how many times I have done so – I always wait in anticipation for Clarence Odbody to make his appearance.

As you may well know, Odbody played by the actor Henry Travers is a guardian angel who has been assigned to save George Bailey, the lead character played by James Stewart.

Angel Second Class

“Ridiculous of you to think of killing yourself over money!” Odbody says to Bailey when Bailey asks him who he is. Then tells Bailey that he was sent to save him when he tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in town into icy waters.

As the snowflakes cascade down thick and fast outside, the two of them are resting in a little wooden hut trying to dry off themselves and their soaking clothing.

Bailey frowns and growls in response to Odbody’s admonitions about his trying to take his life due to money problems. Then he asks Odbody in amazement how he knows such personal facts about his life – and just exactly who he is.

“Clarence Odbody, AS-2,” Odbody responds.

“Odbody AS-2. What’s that AS-2?” Bailey asks somewhat disapprovingly.

“Angel Second Class,” Odbody responds chirpily.

Earning One’s Wings

Bailey asks for an explanation about this and says sneeringly after hearing Odbody’s explanation,

“Well, you look about the kind of angel that I would get. Sort of fallen angel, aren’t ya? What happened to your wings?”

“I haven’t earned my wings yet, that’s why I’m an angel second class,” Odbody responds, standing there in his damp, long ruffled shirt that men wore as in the 19th century – an odd site indeed to the 20th-century Bailey.

Turns out that the angel Odbody lived and died during that previous century, so the garb is certainly in keeping with how he was dressed at the time of his death.

Seeing Angels, 21st-Century Style

Speaking of angels that one can see during the holiday season, I’m here to recommend an angel of a highly different sort to visit at any time of the year.

I am referring to the Angel Of The North.

You can see its red-rust silhouette high above the trees while traveling in northern England on the A1 near Gateshead near Newcastle Upon Tyne.

You can also see its location on this nifty map that my husband David put together:

The first time we saw the huge structure, we were on our way to Scotland and we didn’t have time to stop to have a closer look at it.

However, we made a promise to stop on the way back south to take a closer look which is what we finally did.

175 Feet From Wingtip to Wingtip

It’s quite a long detour off the highway to get to the grassy hillside where the Angel stands.

And its outline is mighty different than that of the human-turned-angel Clarence Odbody.

Weighing 200 tons and from wingtip to wingtip it is 175 feet (54metres), the Angel of the North is an astonishing vision standing on a hilltop against the skies as you can see here in our photo:

Aside from the sheer enormity of the structure, close up you can see that the welded steel from which the Angel is constructed is more than two inches (50mm) thick.

And of course, there is that lovely, autumnal rust-red color.

Gormley Revisited

The internationally acclaimed sculptor Antony Gormley who created the Angel of the North also made this figure that we saw at the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art Gallery One (formerly known as the Dean Gallery) here in Edinburgh where we live:

To read more about Gormley and his sculpture in Edinburgh, you can check out my husband David’s article I Spy Modern Art In Edinburgh.

Standing On The Site Of An Old Coal Mine

Back to the Gateshead area, during the early 1990s: Through a commission of the Gateshead Council and the backing of the Gatehead Council’s Art in Public Places Panel who wanted to mark the site of coal mining in the area, an artist was sought to create something special to mark the spot.

The artistic image was to be undertaken to commemorate the work and times of the miners of the Team Colliery who worked at the site from the 1720s onwards.

Mining continued throughout the centuries, and in fact it was only discontinued on the site not too long ago during the late 1960s.

Weathering Steel

In 1993, a shortlist of international artists was drawn up and by the next year Gormley was selected to make his proposed creation.

By September 1997, work had begun on the foundations of the Angel by Thomas Armstrong (Construction) Ltd. according to Gormley’s design. And by February 1998, the Angel was completed.

The Angel was fabricated from 200 tons of weathering steel, which is a special kind of steel alloy designed to eliminate the need for painting. This steel creates a stable, rust-red appearance when exposed to the weather.

The Angel rises 65ft (20m), and its wing span of 175ft (54m) that I noted here previously is almost as wide as that of a jumbo jet!

Angling To Embrace

The Angel’s wings themselves are not planar or flat. Rather, they are angled 3.5 degrees forward.

Why was this done?

The sculptor Gormley explained what motivated this choice of his:

The effect of the piece is in the alertness, the awareness of space and the gesture of the wings – they are not flat, they’re about 3.5 degrees forward and give a sense of embrace.

You can see more of what this enveloping gesture feel like through this close-up image of ours:

Wondering As Jimmy Stewart’s Character Did

Like Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey who was dubious about Clarence Odbody’s mission to save him and get his own wings in the bargain, some people were similarly wary of the Angel of the North at first.

This resulted in some controversy in British newspapers, including a campaign called “Gateshead stop the statue” along with a local councilor named Martin Callanan who was especially opposed to the project.

However, just as Bailey was eventually won over by Odbody – these days the Angel is considered by many to be an outstanding, iconic landmark for the Northeast of England.

Personally speaking, we thought it was jaw-droppingly striking and beautiful in its own very particular way.

A Steel Angel Viewed By 33 Million Every Year

The Angel is one of the most viewed pieces of art in the world.

As the information plaque at the bottom of the hill leading to the enormous seraph says, this piece of art is “seen by more than one person every second, 90,000 every day or 33 million every year.”

Gormley On His Angel

What is it about angels that appeals to something deep in us?

Gormley had this to say about his Angel of the North creation:

People are always asking why an angel? The only response I can give is that no one has ever seen on and we need to keep imagining them.

The angel has three functions – firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years, secondly to grasp hold of the future expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age, and lastly to be a focus for our hopes and fears.

Others on Gormley’s Creation

A controversial statue, here are what several people have said about this otherworldly winged statue of Gormley’s:

Antony’s huge talent has produced a piece of public art unique in the history of this country, and in time I think it may only compare with the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. I think it is one of the masterpieces of 20th-century sculpture.

              (Lord Gowrie, chairman of the Arts Council, on the day the Sculpture was erected on site.)

I think it is probably the emptiest, most inflated, most vulgar of his (Antony Gormley’s) works. Gateshead is a self-inflicted wound. Bomb it, then you will change it. It is an awful place – most of the North is awful.

              (Brian Sewell, Art Critic for the London Evening Standard)

I think the greatest thing for the Angel is that Brian Sewell has classed it as rubbish, which must mean it’s good.

               (Eamonn McCabe, Picture Editor, The Guardian)

Flash Gordon with wings and the feet of the Beast from the Black Lagoon.

               (M. Fiddes, of Scotswood, in the Evening Chronicle)

It is a witness to life at the end of the 20th century. The car is a human body isolated in a bubble, not communicating with anyone else. The Angel is trying to ask, is that all we can be?

               (Lord Gowrie)

Maybe the Angel of the North will embrace travellers with those wings and tell them that, wherever they live, here is homecoming.

               (Beatrix Campbell, The Guardian)

Odbody’s View Of Things

Homecoming is a major theme in It’s A Wonderful Life, of course – and so after trials and tribulations, all turns out well in the movie for George Bailey, his wife Mary (played by Donna Reed), and their passel of children.

In this celluloid vision of angel wisdom, Clarence Odbody as Bailey’s guardian angel gives Bailey this advice and thanks as an inscription in a copy of Tom Sawyer, the 19th-century novel that Odbody had on him when he jumped into the waters to save Bailey earlier on in the story:

Remember no man is a failure who has friends.

Thanks for the wings!

Love, Clarence

This One’s For You

Way to go, Clarence, I say, that’s wonderful advice indeed – and it’s also our way here at Quillcards to wish a wonderful holiday season to one and all.

Promenading In Regency Costumes

All this week the 2011 Jane Austen Festival has been celebrated in the city of Bath in Somerset, England.

Hundreds of Jane Austen fans and aficionados dressed in Regency costume kicked off the opening last weekend with a promenade through the streets of Bath.

It’s the 11th year that the festival has been held. It runs through tomorrow, and as always it has attracted Austen devotees from all over the world.

A Jane Austen Character In Bath

The quotation in this ecard – “It is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible” – comes from Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey.

It is the novel’s protagonist Catherine Morland who is so advised during her first visit to Bath with family friends.

On The Street Where She Lived

The Jane Austen Centre organizes the Jane Austen Festival, and then all year ’round the center tells the story of the five years that Jane lived in the city and the effect that this experience had on her writing.

Located at No. 40 Gay Street, it’s similar in layout to No. 25 on the same street – which was the house where Jane lived for some months following her father’s death in 1805.

Jane’s Parents’ And Grandparents’ Connections With Bath

Bath is not a large city, and so it’s not that far from 25 Gay Street to the city’s Walcot area.

Walcot figures in Jane’s life because on April 26, 1764, Jane’s father George and her mother Cassandra were married at St. Swithin’s Church there.

Cassandra’s connection with the city was through her mother since her mother settled in Bath following the death of Cassandra’s father.

However, Jane’s parents did not stay in Bath after they got married because Jane’s father held the position of rector of the Anglican parishes in Steventon, Hampshire and a village near by. So Jane lived in Hampshire for the first 25 years of her life.

It was not until December 1800 that the family reacquainted themselves with Bath when it is reported that much to everyone’s surprise, George Austen announced as head of the household that he had decided to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath.

More Associations With St. Swithin’s Church

Five years after he moved his family to the city, Jane’s father George died in Bath in 1805.

The reverend was buried in the southeast burial ground of St. Swithin’s, the same church in which he had been married more than four decades before.

St. Swithin’s is still a functioning church today. However, some time in the mid-18th century after the Austins got married, St. Swithin’s was rebuilt from its medieval state to something more roomy and contemporary.

Jane’s Visits To The Paragon In Bath

Jane was her parents’ seventh child. She had five older brothers, one younger brother, and one older sister.

Her sister was named Cassandra, and she was Jane’s closest friend. She also died unmarried like Jane.

Jane visited Bath before her father moved the family there in 1800 because Jane’s mother’s brother, James Leigh Perrot and his wife, had a house in the Paragon which is a street of beautiful and historic Georgian houses that still exists today.

Jane’s And Cassandra’s Travels From Hamphire to Somerset

During the time when James Leigh Perrot and his wife lived there, they did not have children and so they frequently invited their nieces Jane and Cassandra to visit them.

The Austen sisters would come up from the country parsonage of Steventon in Hampshire where the large Austen family lived, traveling about 65 miles (105 kms) to get to Bath.

About The Georgian Architecture That The Austen Sisters Saw

Through staying at their uncle’s residence in the Paragon and by walking around the city, Jane and Cassandra could see a lot of the Georgian architecture that still dominates the city today.

The King’s Circus In Bath

A beautiful example of Georgian architecture in Bath is the Circus, begun in 1754 and completed 14 years later in 1768:

Circus In Latin

The construction was given the name of ‘circus’ because in Latin it means a ring, oval, or circle, which is the striking shape of this structure.

It was originally called King’s Circus, though now it’s known simply as the Circus.

The Classical Facade

The Circus is divided into three segments of equal length, and in the center is a large grassed area with trees surrounded by wrought iron railings.

In keeping with Georgian architecture’s aim, each of the curved parts faces on to the three entrances – which means that all visitors see a classical facade straight ahead, whichever way they enter.

‘Famously Scarce’ Information About Jane

As one biographer put it, getting solid biographical information about Jane Austen is “famously scarce.”

This is because it is estimated that out of 3,000 letters written by Austen, only about 160 are known to have survived.

Most of the letters were originally addressed to her sister who it is said later burned “the greater part” of the ones she kept.

Cassandra then censored those she did not destroy.

There were other letters that were destroyed by the heirs of one of her brothers, Admiral Francis Austen.

Other biographical material produced in the 50 years after Jane’s death was written by her relatives. It is said to reflect the family’s preference to portray the author as “good quiet Aunt Jane.”

Jane’s Impressions Of Bath, From The Weighty To The Light

We do know some of the impressions Jane had of Bath, taken from her surviving letters and from two novels set in Bath, namely Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

Writing in Northanger Abbey and featuring several of her characters, Jane wrote this about Beechen Cliff:

“That noble hill whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice render it so striking an object from almost every opening in Bath.”

“The Tilneys were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing; and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste… In the present instance Catherine confessed and lamented her want of knowledge, declared that she would give anything in the world to be able to draw;… He talked of foregrounds, distances and second distances; side screens and perspectives; lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape.”

Writing about buying fabric in Bath Street in a letter in June 1799, Jane wrote:

“I saw some gauzes in a shop in Bath Street yesterday at only 4s. a yard, but they were not so good or so pretty as mine.”

Writing in a letter in January 1801 about her mother’s search for a suitable house in Bath, Jane wrote this about Chapel Row:

“But above all others, her wishes are at present fixed on the corner house in Chapel Row, which opens into Prince’s Street. Her Knowledge of it however is confined only to the outside, and therefore she is equally uncertain of its being really desirable as of its being to be had.”

Writing about Gay Street in a letter in January 1801 on the search for a house, Jane wrote:

Gay Street would be too high, except only the lower house on the left hand side as you ascend; towards that my Mother has no disinclination; it used to be lower rented than any other house in the row, from some inferiority in the apartments.”

Writing about Gay Street in Persuasion, Jane wrote:

“The Crofts had placed themselves in lodgings in Gay Street perfectly to Sir Walter’s satisfaction. He was not at all ashamed of the acquaintance.”

Writing about the Pump Room in Northanger Abbey, Jane wrote:

“Every morning now brought its regular duties… the Pump Room to be attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour.”

Later in the book she writes how the Thorpes and Allens stayed:

“…long enough in the Pump Room to discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not a genteel face to be seen.”

In Persuasion, Jane also wrote,

“In the Pump Room one so newly arrived in Bath must be met with.”

Writing about the Axford buildings which are now a continuation of the Paragon, Jane wrote this about her aunt in a letter in January 1801:

“We know that Mrs Perrot will want to get us into Axford Buildings, but we all unite in particular dislike of that part of the Town, and therefore hope to escape.”

Writing about Walcot Church in a letter in June 1799, Jane wrote:

“My Aunt has told me of a very cheap shop near Walcot Church [for hat trimmings] to which I shall go in search of something for you.”

Writing about her father’s funeral to take place in Walcot Church, Jane wrote simply in a letter in January 1805:

“The funeral is to be on Saturday at Walcot Church.”

Writing about Sydney Gardens in a letter in May 1799, Jane wrote:

“There is a public breakfast in Sydney Gardens every morning, so that we shall not be wholly starved.”

Writing about Sydney Gardens again in a letter in June 1799, Jane wrote:

“There is to be a grand gala on Tuesday evening in Sydney Gardens; a Concert, with illuminations and fireworks; to the latter Eliz. & I look forward with pleasure, & even the Concert will have more than its usual charm with me, as the gardens are large enough for me to get pretty well beyond the reach of its sound.”

Writing in a letter in May 1801 about the Upper Rooms now known as the Assembly Rooms, Jane wrote:

“By nine o’clock my Uncle, Aunt and I entered the rooms & linked Miss Winstone on to us. Before tea, it was rather a dull affair; but then the before tea did not last long, for there was only one dance, danced by four couples. Think of four couples, surrounded by about an hundred people, dancing in the upper rooms at Bath! After tea we cheered up; the breaking up of private parties sent some scores more to the Ball, & tho’ it was shockingly & inhumanly thin for this place, there were people enough I suppose to have made five or six very pretty Basingstoke assemblies.”

Writing about the main theatre in the city in Persuasion, Jane wrote:

“The theatre, or the Rooms, where he [Captain Wentworth] was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough for the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the elegant stupidity of private parties.”

Writing in Northanger Abbey about her characters the Allens and the Thorpes at the Royal Crescent (then known simply as the Crescent), Jane wrote that they:

“… hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of better company.”

Writing in a letter in May 1801 about coming into Bath with the evening sun in her eyes, Jane wrote:

“The first view of Bath in fine weather does not answer my expectations; I think I see more distinctly through rain. The sun was got behind everything, and the appearance of the place from the top of Kingsdown was all vapour, shadow, smoke and confusion.”

In Northanger Abbey, Jane’s characters Henry Tilney and Catherine discuss Bath when Henry tries to disillusion Catherine as follows:

“Bath, compared with London, has little variety, and so everybody finds out every year. For six weeks I allow Bath is pleasant enough; but beyond that, it is the most tiresome place in the world. You would be told so by people of all descriptions, who come regularly every winter, lengthen their six weeks into ten or twelve, and go away at last because they can afford to stay no longer.”

Jane’s character Isabella Thorpe in the same novel expresses it more dramatically:

“Do you know I get so immoderately sick of Bath, your brother and I were agreeing this morning that, though it is vastly well to be here for a few weeks, we would not live here for millions.”

Lastly, it is believed that in her novel Persuasion, Jane’s character Anne Elliot may be thought to express Jane’s own opinion about Bath:

“Anne disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her.”

[Anne] “dreaded the possible heats of September, in all the white glare of Bath.”

However, Jane brought in the positive side of Bath too. This can be seen through her character Admiral Croft in her novel Persuasion who asserted heartily that Bath met his requirements very well:

“We are always meeting with some old friend or other; the streets full of them every morning; sure to have plenty of chat.”

City Mouse, Country Mouse

As well as the hustle and bustle of the city, Jane and her characters often showed a great love of the outdoors and nature, as shown by the quote in this Quillcard that appeared in her novel Mansfield Park:

Showing the author’s love of the great outdoors, Jane asserts through her novel that “they are much to be pitied who have not been… given a taste for nature early in life.”