Catherine was all eager delight.” This exclamation launches the novel, bringing Catherine, in effect, from the country to the city, and from girlhood to what will follow.

Jane Austen, and Cassandra too, when informed that they were to move from Steventon, must have asked, why Bath? True, Bath was a golden city, and not just because of the color of the local building stone—Jane Austen, in fact, expressed complaint about the “glare” of the fresh stone facades. The city glowed with newness, with history, with harmonious architecture, with the positive and curative effects of its hot springs, with optimism and with gentility. Jane Austen was familiar with London from a few short visits and knew her parents would never settle there. Bath was the only other urban center she knew, and it was a logical retirement location, which she must have realized once she had absorbed the idea that her parents were really to leave Steventon behind—and how reasonable and even predictable that they should choose Bath over their other favorites, Lyme Regis and Sidmouth.

Bath in 1800 would have presented a happy compromise for them, since, with its approximately 34,000 inhabitants, it was decidedly urban but without the stress associated with London. Tradesmen had sprung up everywhere along its streets. Unlike other growing urban centers, this city catered to people who had come from elsewhere, bringing money with them and the desire for pleasure and relaxation.

And Bath was familiar to the Austens, being the previous site of happy holidays and family reunions. Mrs. Austen’s brother, Leigh-Perrot, and his wife lived there in some luxury. The parents of Jane Austen had been married in 1764 at the old Walcot Church at the edge of the city. An entry in the Parish register reads: “Geo Austen Bachelor of the Parish of Steventon, County of Hampshire to Cassandra Leigh, Spinster. Married by license this 26 April . . .” Here, too, is the recorded death notice of Mrs. Austen’s father. And in 1805, just five years after his retirement, Mr. Austen himself was buried in the Walcot churchyard: “Under this stone rest the remains of the Rev. George Austen, Rector of Steventon . . .”

Bath is in Somerset, about a hundred miles from London. It existed because of its natural hot springs and their healing properties, which were known to the Romans, who built a city on the site. The elaborate baths, and a temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva, had long since fallen into decay and forgetfulness, and were not excavated until 1871. Astonishingly, the Austen family would have known nothing about ancient Bath, though it is hard to believe there were not legends in circulation and perhaps even the odd artifact. In the sixteenth century Queen Elizabeth I granted the city a charter, and with this stroke made it a fashionable pleasure resort. (Today Margaret Thatcher comes here to relax; the Clintons have dropped in and so have a number of film stars, including Elizabeth Taylor and Demi Moore. There can be no doubt that name-dropping was, and continues to be, part of fabled Bath.)

Art and history conspired to bless the city, as did the great spurt of economic growth in the late seventeenth century. Roads had improved—the London-Bath road was the best-maintained artery in England—making it easier for people to travel in search of improved health and also to advance themselves in society. As modern Bath emerged, it was as a planned city with an integrated architecture, unlike anything else in Britain. During the early years of the eighteenth century, streets were paved and well lit so that people could come and go in safety and could alight from their carriages without finding themselves ankle deep in mud ( Jane Austen’s novels are filled with references to this particular inconvenience). Commerce arrived in the form of elegant shops, circulating libraries, and banks.

But people needed accommodation for their short or extended stays, and so construction was soon underway to provide apartments for these many visitors. A theater was established in the middle of the eighteenth century, with well-known actors arriving from London and performing the latest plays.