Novel Getaways
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About

Real Places in...Persuasion

10/7/2020

2 Comments

 

Somerset

Picture
The novel begins at Kellynch Hall, a fictional estate in Somerset(shire) where Anne Elliot lives with her father, Sir Walter, and elder sister, Elizabeth. Although we can't know for sure if Austen based the house on a real place, some think that Barrington Court fits the bill geographically as it is located about 20 miles from Lyme Regis and 50 miles from Bath. Now owned by the National Trust, this impressive Tudor property featured as Cardnal Wolsey's house in the Wolf Hall miniseries. 

Lyme Regis

Picture
"...the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing machines and company; 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; and a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better."  (Persuasion Chapter 11)

Jane Austen visited Lyme Regis in Dorset on two separate occasions in 1803 and 1804 and was instantly taken with it. This pretty coastal village plays a crucial role in the novel. It's here that Anne and Captain Wentworth begin to rekindle their romance and where Louisa Musgrave falls from the Cobb, the iconic harbour wall. 

Bath

Picture
​One of Austen's most Bath-centric novels (along with Northanger Abbey), Persuasion delves into the hierarchy of Regency society in the fashionable spa town. Anne doesn't care for Bath and is reluctant to move there. "She disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her; and Bath was to be her home." (Persuasion Chapter 2)

​Austen uses many real places in Bath including the The Assembly Rooms (pictured above), the Pump Room and Camden Place (now Camden Crescent). And Austen carefully places her characters' homes according to their social status. (This excellent article on Jasna.org offers an in-depth analysis of Austen's use of Bath geography in Persuasion.) Each location seems to have a deeper meaning. So it's perhaps no coincidence when Anne bumps into Captain Wentworth on Union Street towards the end of the novel. 
 

2 Comments

A Guide to...Margaret MItchell's Atlanta

12/15/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
"Long ago, I gave up thinking of Gone With the Wind as my book; 
it’s Atlanta’s."
 
~ Margaret Mitchell 
​

Driving into Atlanta today, it’s hard too see beyond the modern city of skyscrapers and flashy Coca-Cola billboards. The noticeable lack of antebellum buildings downtown serves to remind us of the city’s violent fall in the Civil War – when General Sherman notoriously burned it to the ground in his March to the Sea.


Read More
0 Comments

    Categories

    All
    A.A. Milne
    A Christmas Carol
    A Guide To...
    Atlanta
    Bath
    Beatrix Potter
    Broadstairs
    Canterbury
    Chalk
    Charles Dickens
    Charlotte Brontë
    Chawton
    Chimney Rock
    Cornwall
    Curious George
    Daphne Du Maurier
    David Copperfield
    Derbyshire
    Devon
    Dorset
    Emily Brontë
    Emma
    England
    Enid Blyton
    Ernest Hemingway
    Film Locations
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
    Gone With The Wind
    Great Expectations
    Hampshire
    Harper Lee
    Hemingway
    H.G. Wells
    Idaho
    In Search Of...
    Jane Austen
    Jane Eyre
    Kent
    Lancashire
    Last Of The Mohicans
    London
    North Carolina
    Oscar Wilde
    Paris
    Persuasion
    Pride And Prejudice
    Real Places In...
    Rebecca
    Rochester And Chatham
    Rudyard Kipling
    Shirley
    Somerset
    Sun Valley
    Surrey
    Sussex
    The Brontës
    The Lake District
    The Peak District
    To Kill A Mockingbird
    Top Ten...
    West Sussex
    Winchester
    Winnie The Pooh
    Wuthering Heights
    Yorkshire

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About