Jane Austen Quickstep Guide

For Jane Austen fans who want to follow in her footsteps and have fun doing it!

Persuasion

Jane Austen Festival Dancing and the Assembly Rooms

Jane Austen in the Upper Assembly Rooms

When each September comes round, I am filled with thoughts of Jane Austen’s time living here and the city of Bath she experienced. For any Jane Austen fan, a visit to Bath, England is an essential literary pilgrimage. During the Jane Austen Festival, thousands of gentlemen and ladies descend on the city of Bath to celebrate Jane Austen, her life and works for ten days.

The biggest sell out events are the Balls that used to take place on each of the two weekends, and now take place every day. Tickets go on sale in May and are usually gone in 24 hours, leaving the rest of wondering how we can enjoy regency dancing during this week when we visit. Jane is all around us, and it was a big part of her life.

Jane Austen lived in Bath from 1801 to 1805, and she used her personal experience to bring the city to life in her books. Northanger Abbey, the novel she wrote in her teens, and Persuasion, the last novel she wrote in full are party set in Bath. She knew the city well.

Jane’s writing stalled whilst living her, most probably because she was so busy. Her calendar was filled with social engagements, including trips to the circulating libraries, walks along the river, shopping in Milsom Street, going to the theatre, musical performances, and dancing at the Assembly Rooms.

By the time of the Regency, Bath was no longer the fashionable resort that it once was. The rise in popularity of sea bathing to improve ones health and the royal visits to the south coast sent people to Weymouth, Lyme and Brighton. Mr and Mrs Austen’s dream of finding husbands for their two daughters disappeared as Bath filled with invalids and older men looking for younger wives.

The Georgian architecture that dominated the city when Jane lived in Bath has remained largely unchanged. The result is that you can walk around Bath today and imagine yourself transported back to Jane’s time, walking in her footsteps, and seeing the same sights she saw and visiting the same places she did.

It was however a place her writing stalled, and we can speculate that they were not the happiest of years. in a letter to Cassandra she wrote, “It will be two years tomorrow since we left Bath for Clifton, with what happy feelings of escape.” 

The Assembly Rooms

When Jane lived in Bath there were the Upper and Lower Assembly Rooms. Two were needed to take the volume of dancers. They have been owned by the National Trust for a number of years, and many dances that took place in Bath were held here.

Most recently, the National Trust took the Assembly Rooms back. The Fashion Museum that had been in the basement for years had to vacate.

They announced that the Assembly Rooms would close and be part of a large renovation project that I have followed closely. This is one of the ‘before’ pictures, and you can see the large fire places that were lit to keep the dancers warm in winter.

This photograph is a similar room of similar size, and was known as the tea room and concerts were held here every Wednesday in Jane’s day. The Assembly Rooms play a small but important part in Persuasion as Jane uses them as the backdrop for a pivotal scene in the story when Anne Elliot wants to see Captain Wentworth. 

Although she does not specifically say that the concert was being held in the Upper Rooms, as opposed to the Lower Rooms, it is clear that it was, because she mentions a room there, the Octagon Room, by name:

Sir Walter, his two daughters, and Mrs Clay, were the earliest of all their party at the rooms in the evening; and as Lady Dalrymple must be waited for, they took their station by one of the fires in the Octagon Room.

In Northanger Abbey, the heroine, Catherine Morland, often visits both the Upper and Lower Rooms.

Catherine eagerly anticipates “the important evening” which was “to usher her into the Upper Rooms”, however.. 

“…Mrs Allen was so long in dressing that they did not enter the ballroom till late. The season was full, the room crowded, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr Allen, he repaired directly to the card-room, and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves.”

National Trust Project

The national trust have released a number of photographs and updates about the Bath Assembly Room Renovation project set to be completed in 2027.

A birdcage scaffold in the Tea Room | © National Trust/Ruth Newell
Moving a Telephone Box and Scaffolding Outside | © National Trust/Ruth Newell

One exciting discovery is a collection of Georgian items discovered under the Assembly Rooms. Included was the fragments of a wine bottle with the words ‘DALTON’ inscribed on the outside. Wine or another type of alcohol would have been made and stored for Mr Dalton to drink when he frequented the rooms. It dates from 1760.

You can see the amount of work that is going into its renovation in the timeline on the website, and hopefully, when it opens in 2027 (in time for the festival in September), we can once again dance in the Assembly Rooms where Jane danced and planned out her novels.

Lovely Links

Jane Austen Travel: Jane Austen Festival Bath
TAGS

Jane Austen, Bath, Jane Austen Festival, Bath Abbey, Assembly Rooms, National Trust, Regency Dancing, Milsom Street, The Circle, Regency, The Crescent, The Octagon, Paragon, Green Park Buildings, Laura Place, Queens Square, Gay Street, Trim Street, Jane Austen Centre, Sydney Gardens, Holburne Museum, Parade Gardens.

Jane Austen’s Novel, Persuasion

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago.

Persuasion was published in a four volume set along with Northanger Abbey after Jane’s death. They are shorter novels and are unique as a set, as Jane wrote Northanger Abbey as a gothic novel about a young Catherine Moreland who is in fact ‘coming out’. This is in contrast to Jane’s oldest heroine, Anne Eliot, who meets Captain Wentworth again after many years apart.

A first edition of Persuasion (Bauman Rare Books)

Jane referred to the novel as The Elliots, the name of Anne’s family. Jane wrote it whist living at Chawton Cottage.

After her death, Henry and Cassandra arranged for Murray to publish the two novels of Jane’s, and it was up to Cassandra to edit the novels as she knew them so well.

Plot summary (no spoilers)

The story follows Anne Elliot, Jane’s most mature heroine who is 27 years old. She is unmarried, having seven years earlier been persuaded to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a promising young naval officer. When the Elliots rent out their family estate to try to reduce their debts, Anne is reacquainted with Captain Wentworth, who is home on leave and has since been promoted.

The Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger’s eye will seek.

The theme focuses on the relationship between Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, who are given a second chance at love after years of separation and misunderstanding. It deals with themes of loss, love, second chances, and pride. Jane had a deep love of the sea and the Navy, and weaves those themes throughout.

Family themes

Jane and Cassandra were given Topaz crosses by their youngest brother Charles, bought with his winnings gained as a Royal Navy officer. Jane was so impressed with the gift, she wrote it into Mansfield Park, where Fanny’s brother William gives his sister a topaz cross.

It seems that she was further inspired by Charles as there are similarities between his career and character and those of Captain Harville. Both began their careers in North America, commanding sloops and then frigates. They are both about the same age, popular with their crews, and won prize money, although Captain Wentworth won considerably more!

When Jane met Charles wife Fanny Palmer, she liked her and they got on well. Jane greatly admired her bravery, as England was at war with France at this time and Fanny lived with Charles on board his ship. Fanny has similar traits to Mrs Croft in Persuasion who follows her husband, no matter where he was commissioned to serve and the danger they were in.

Another ending

Jane rewrote the ending of the novel, as explained by her nephew in his Memoir of Jane Austen. Edward writes that his aunt finished the novel in July 1816, but was dissatisfied with the ending. “She thought it tame and flat, and was desirous of producing something better.”

In her revision, Jane expanded Chapter 10 of Volume 2 into two chapters, and made the original Chapter 11 into Chapter 12 of the finished novel.

The original draft of the last two chapters of Persuasion is the only part of a manuscript of Jane Austen’s that has survived, and you can read the original manuscript in Jane Austen, A Portrait in Prayer.

Publication

Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published by John Murray in December 1817, with the title page of January 1818. For the first time the biographical notice, written by Jane’s brother Henry, named Jane Austen as the author – although she never got to see it.

The Title Page of 1818 Edition (Public Domain: Wikipedia)

The first edition of around 1750 copies sold quickly, and the total profits were estimated to make around £500 for Cassandra at that time.

Persuasion in film

Persuasion Office Release Poster (Public Domain Wikipedia)

Persuasion has barely made it onto the big screen, and the most known is the 2022 film with Dakota Johnson who took the lead role. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, it gained mixed reviews. It is currently showing on Netflix if you wanted to watch it.

The End

For fans of Jane Austen, Persuasion is Jane’s most mature novel and is quite a sad story. Anne is like all of her heroines, poor and unprotected, cultivating the theme that is so particular to Jane Austen, the style that Sir Walter Scott describes as “renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting.”

It was thought that some lines in the novel, with its heroine Anne being in later years, described in some parts as a mirror of Jane’s life. Of love lost, and in her case, never found again.

What do you think?

Jane Austen Travel

There are four locations that feature in Persuasion. Bath, Lyme Regis, Kellynch Hall, and Uppercross. Jane spent a number of years living in Bath and mentions places throughout the novel, some of which can still be found today including the Pump Room and Assembly Rooms.

In Lyme Regis, Louisa makes a leap from the Cobb, which is a man made brick structure that goes out to sea above the waves, that you can walk along. For Kellynch Hall and Uppercross, there has been much speculation as to what inspired these places.

For More persuasion

Read the last two chapters of Persuasion online at the London British Library

Read more about the cancelled chapters of Persuasion in Jane Austen, A Portrait in Prayer

Persuasion is the theme of the autumnal festival held at Jane Austen House Museum in September 2026

Jane Austen’s Bath Festival

The Ultimate Guide for Jane Austen Fans

**Updated for 2026**

For any Jane Austen enthusiast, a visit to Bath, England is an essential literary pilgrimage as Jane lived in Bath for a number of years, and placed two of her novels in the city.

The Jane Austen Festival in September is how the people of Bath, and Janeites that flock to Bath, celebrate her life and her novels. Alongside the festival activities there are many other ways to enjoy Jane Austen’s Bath, some of them free.

Jane lived in Bath between 1801 and 1807, when the city was a bustling spa town, popular with fashionable society. She also set two of her novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in Bath, making the city rich with locations tied to both her real life and the fictional worlds she created.

The Georgian architecture that dominated the city when Jane lived in Bath has remained largely unchanged. The result is that you can walk around Bath today and imagine yourself transported back to Jane’s time, walk in her footsteps, and see the same sights and visit the same places she did.

It was however a place her writing stalled, and in a letter to Cassandra she wrote, “It will be two years tomorrow since we left Bath for Clifton, with what happy feelings of escape.” 

While she held deeper affection for other places like Chawton and Steventon, it’s the city of Bath that remains tied to her legacy. Thousands of fans flock here every year to visit the places she did and find out more about their most fondest author.

What A Jane Austen Fan To Do In Bath Today

I’ve explored Jane’s Bath many times and visit annually for the Jane Austen festival. Below are all the things that should be on your list as a Jane Austen fan in Bath, and how to make the most your time visiting this beautiful city.

1. Visit the Jane Austen Centre

Without a doubt, the top destination for Jane Austen fans in Bath is the Jane Austen Centre on Gay Street, a few doors down from where Jane once lived. Upstairs, you will find the Regency Tea Rooms, where you can sit down to ‘Tea with Mr Darcy’. It provides the perfect starting point for exploring Jane Austen’s Bath.

2. Parade your bonnet at the Jane Austen Festival

The Jane Austen Festival happens every September and opens with the famous Regency Costumed Promenade. This is followed by ten-days of to balls, concerts, exhibitions, workshops, dancing lessons, talks, walks, and more. While celebrating, visit No.1 Royal Crescent to explore a typical Georgian styled house that Jane would have visited. In 2025, they have a special Jane Austen Exhibition featuring The Watson’s manuscript pages and two letters that Jane wrote from Bath telling Frank about their father’s death.

3. Take the Waters  at the Pump Rooms

During the Regency era, visitors came to Bath seeking a cure for their ailments by ’taking the waters’. Jane visited the Pump Rooms often to see who had signed into the city visitors book kept in reception. Building began in 1789 and was completed a decade later.  You can also take a sip along with afternoon tea.

The open pool on the rooftop of the Thermae Baths next door gives you a beautiful view of the city, and is the only natural spa in England.

4. Parade Around Town

Gravel Walk was the Lover’s Lane of Jane Austen’s day, the top of which is across the road from the Royal Crescent. Jane used the setting for a touching love scene in Persuasion. As you stroll down Gravel Walk, look out for the discreet door into the Georgian Garden on your left. It has been restored to how it would have appeared in Jane’s time.  

Further out is the Bath Skyline Walk which gives you wonderful views of the city.

5. Shop in Milsom Street

Milsom Street is where Jane shopped on a regular basis, and she mentions it by name in both of her Bath novels. In Northanger Abbey, General Tilney and his children stay on Milsom Street, a more fashionable address than Pulteney Street. In Persuasion, a sweet shop on Milsom Street is where Captain Wentworth and Anne Eliot first encounter each other after years of absence. 

6. See the Holburne Museum and Sydney Gardens

When Jane lived in Bath, the Holburne Museum was the Sydney Hotel, a place she frequented for breakfast. For the 250th celebrations, there is a special exhibit titled Illustrating Jane Austen that focuses on the artwork featured in her novels. Jane Austen lived across the road at 4 Laura Place for a number of years (now a holiday rental). Behind the Museum is Sydney Gardens, where Jane mentions seeing a firework display in one of her letters.

7. Take Afternoon Tea and Bag A Bun!

A young Jane Austen writes in a mischievous letter about “disordering my stomach with Bath bunns.”   No doubt she liked them too much! You can find Sally Lunn’s Historic Eating House where Jane bought her bun in the cobbled streets behind the Abbey.

8. Visit Bath Abbey

Jane would have known Bath Abbey well and often attended services. They have a series of Jane Austen themed events running each year, and during the festival there is a morning service and Evensong. Outside you can find free and paid Jane Austen waking tours.

9. Visit Mr Austen at St Swithin’s Church

You will pass No.1 The Paragon where Jane stayed with her aunt and uncle on the way to St Swithin’s Church where Jane’s parents married in 1767. Mr Austen was buried in the church in 1801, and his gravestone has been moved outside so it can been seen when the church is closed. Jane was a fan of Fanny Burney, and she too is buried here.

10. Take a trip to the theatre

Jane attended the original Theatre Royal and saw her most admired actresses, Sarah Siddons perform. The Theatre Royal Bath dates from 1805, and hosts a number of Jane Austen themed performances each year.

Further Afield: Explore ‘Meryton’

The beautiful village of Lacock provided the setting for Meryton in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. The historic Lacock Abbey has monastic roots and was home to nuns The medieval Lacock Abbey with its medieval roots was a former nunnery (and also stood in for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series of films). 

Jane Austen Walking Tours

There are two self-guided tours of Bath I can recommend.

How to arrive

  • Bath by car – There is an exit for Bath off of the M4 motorway if you are coming from London. You then follow the road straight into the city. For long term parking for the day look for Charlotte Street Car Park. There are three park and ride facilities which have buses that run regularly into the City.
  • Bath by train – Bath Spa is the train station. Depending where you arrive from, you usually have to change at Bristol although it’s only 15 minutes from there. National Rail is the most popular website for train information in the UK.
  • Bath by coach – National Express run a coach network from Heathrow Airport to various locations, which is also an option from London although the coaches run a limited service.

Lovely Links

Jane Austen Travel: Jane Austen Festival Bath
TAGS

Jane Austen, Jane Austen Festival, Bath, Bath Abbey, Assembly Rooms, Regency Dancing, Milsom Street, The Circle, Regency, The Crescent, The Octagon, Paragon, Green Park Buildings, Laura Place, Queens Square, Gay Street, Trim Street, Jane Austen Centre, Sydney Gardens, Holburne Museum, Parade Gardens.

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