Jane Austen's 250th: An Austen Walk with Akeman Press

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, we are hosting a week of literary events for books on and about the great author!

To round up the week of bookish brilliance, we host Bath-based publishing duo Kirsten Elliott and Andrew Swift of Akeman Press to take us on a ramble through the streets of our beautiful city, revealing what it would have been like at the time Austen's feet pounded the pavements...

Few cities have been so celebrated in print as Bath - from Smollett to Jane Austen, from Dickens to Fanny Burney, and from Sheridan to Georgette Heyer. Many other famous writers have passed through as well - Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a house in the Abbey Church Yard, Coleridge met his wife in the city, and in the twentieth century John Betjeman championed its architectural heritage. Even Shakespeare - or so it is believed - turned up to take a dip in the hot springs.

In their book Literary Walks in Bath, Kirsten and Andrew guide you on eleven walks that help you look at Bath through author's eyes, creating a vivid social history of the city over the last 300 years and bringing the past alive with unparalleled immediacy. Fully illustrated, and including in-depth accounts of the writers and works featured, they can either be followed on foot or - with the aid of historic maps of the city - read as a series of essays.

Austen is Britain’s finest literary heroine, and for many Bath embodies the best of her Regency world. But she seems to have a rather complicated relationship with the city...

“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 10 or 12, and go away at last because they can afford to stay no longer.”

Let's discover the real Bath of Jane Austen's age.

Begin by meeting us at the bookshop at 10:30am for some tea, coffee, and cake before a prompt start at 11am. The walk will last between 1-2 hours. Please bring appropriate shoes for walking around the city and weather-appropriate outerwear. Bonnets are permissible (as always) - but not mandatory!