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What does persuasion mean - a firm belief, or the action of persuading someone to think something else? Anne Elliot is one of Austen's quietest heroines, but also one of the strongest and the most open to change. She lives at the time of the Napoleonic wars, a time of accident, adventure, the making of new fortunes and alliances. A woman of no importance, she manoeuvres in her restricted circumstances as her long-time love Captain Wentworth did in the wars. Even though she is nearly thirty, well past the sell-by bloom of youth, Austen makes her win out for herself and for others like herself, in a regenerated society. 208pp. Paperback

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Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. With its wit, its social precision and, above all, its irresistible heroine, Pride and Prejudice has proved one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language. 272pp. Paperback

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'Northanger Abbey' tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. Austen observes with insight and humour the interaction between Catherine and the various characters whom she meets there, and tracks her growing understanding of the world about her. In this, her first full-length novel, Austen also fixes her sharp, ironic gaze on other kinds of contemporary novel, especially the Gothic school made famous by Ann Radcliffe. Catherine's reading becomes intertwined with her social and romantic adventures, adding to the uncertainties and embarrassments she must undergo before finding happiness. 176pp. Paperback

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'Young women who have no economic or political power must attend to the serious business of contriving material security'. Jane Austen's sardonic humour lays bare the stratagems, the hypocrisy and the poignancy inherent in the struggle of two very different sisters to achieve respectability. 'Sense and Sensibility' is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Eleanor and Marianne represent these two qualities. Eleanor's character is one of Augustan detachment, while Marianne, a fervent disciple of the Romantic Age, learns to curb her passionate nature in the interests of survival. 272pp. Paperback.

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Jane Austen teased readers with the idea of a 'heroine whom no one but myself will much like', but Emma is irresistible. 'Handsome, clever, and rich', Emma is also an 'imaginist', 'on fire with speculation and foresight'. She sees the signs of romance all around her, but thinks she will never be married. Her matchmaking maps out relationships that Jane Austen ironically tweaks into a clearer perspective. Judgement and imagination are matched in games the reader too can enjoy, and the end is a triumph of understanding. 384pp. Paperback.

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Adultery is not a typical Jane Austen theme, but when it disturbs the relatively peaceful household at Mansfield Park, it has quite unexpected results. The diffident and much put-upon heroine Fanny Price has to struggle to cope with the results, re-examining her own feelings while enduring the cheerful amorality, old-fashioned indifference and priggish disapproval of those around her. 368pp. Paperback

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THE IMAGINARY AUTOCRAT

Richard Beau Nash was the right man, in the right place, at the right time and the city of Bath with its grandiose Georgian architecture owes much to him. Little is known about this son of a Welsh glassmaker's early life. He went to Oxford, albeit for one year, then to the Inns of Court in London and he once stood at the west door of York Minster wearing only a blanket to win a wager of 50 guineas. In 1705, at the age of 30, he arrived in Bath. The city was a spa town competing with the likes Tunbridge but some 40 years later, he had help create and forge the city we all know. His self confidence enabled him to create himself as the "King of Bath", "Master of Ceremonies", "Regulator of the Diversions and Moderator of Disputes of Play"and "Overseer of the Marriage Market". He created the social rules, the dress code, controlled the music, dancing, entertainment and subscriptions that all visitors paid. He also had a strong influence in the boom in gambling and high stakes won and lost at cards. Elgin reveals how during this short period the city exploded in every dimension; social and political battles that transformed it, the 3,000 turnspit dogs who helped keep it fed and the characters who together with Nash created Georgian Bath; the Assembly Rooms, Pump Rooms, the Parades, Queen's Square and King's Circus, and gives us a fascinating insight into a man who rewrote his own history to fit the facts. 300 pages with many black and white illustrations and 50 pages of references.

2005

Published Price: £20

By the Waters of the Sul

Click, to read about this fascinating book by one of the Societies founders and past Chairman. It tells of the Bath in the swinging seventies, Princess Margaret and of the civic destruction of much of the City's Georgian architecture for "redevelopment and progress".

Foreword by Jan Morris

March 06

Available from:

Whiteman's in Orange Grove and Oldfield Park Bookshop in Moorland Road and from the front office counter of Bath Chronicle. Also direct from publisher and of course amazon.com

Bath

Click to see some of the wonderful photographs from this book by kind permissions of N Meener (all rights reserved)

Niell Menneer (photographer)

MEMOIRS OF AN ANCIENT LADY

Jessica Godwin's indomitable spirit has ensured that she has lived every moment of her 100 years to the full. Her faultless memory takes the reader back with her over ten decades. She remained in a Home for the Fatherless until she was eight years old, then was allowed back into her own home because her mother had remarried. She survived bombing in two world wars, and worked, among other jobs, as a lady's companion, a tractor driver in the Land Army, and the director of a 'home for gentle ladies'! When she was 96, she flew to Canada, 'popped over to Australia' to visit a friend she had not seen for 40 years, and finally moved to Bath, where she lives next door to the house Jane Austen once occupied. Her book is a delight to read - not to mention being a first-hand historical record of a century.

Published Price: £7.95

119 pages with b/w photos.

Known at this Address

They Came to Bath

Click to read of some of the Crescent characters from this book - by kind permissions from Redcliffe Press (all rights reserved)

The Royal Crescent

Bath. (A Pevsner Architectural Guide)

The City of Bath

The Georgian Buildings of Bath

reprinted 1969 Kingsmead Reprints

0906230217 (1980 edition)

republished 1996 Bath Preservation Trust

Genius of Bath

A City of Palaces

Pleasures and People of Bath. (A Folio Miniature)

Georgian Summer: Bath in the Eighteenth Century

Georgian Summer: The rise and Development of Bath

The Eighteenth Century Architecture of Bath

Click to see pictures from this book

Images of Bath

Click to see some images from this boook - all rights reserved by publisher

A Plan for Bath: Report for the Bath and District Joint Planning Committee

Click here to read some of the "plans"

Click here to read the article by Crescent resident George Saintsbury from the book