“One can never have too large a party” (Emma – Jane Austen)...
“One can never have too large a party” (Emma – Jane Austen)
This year, the 24th annual Jane Austen Festival is taking place in our wonderful city of Bath, hosted by the Jane Austen Centre. This year’s festival marks 250 years since the birth of the English novelist, who is widely regarded as “Bath’s most famous resident.”
Born in 1775 in Hampshire, Austen moved to Bath in 1801 with her family. After the death of her father in 1805, Austen, her mother, and her sister Cassandra left Bath. In 1811 she anonymously published her first novel, Sense and Sensibility, after which came Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816). Austen passed away in 1817 after becoming ill the previous year, and her final two novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, were published posthumously.
Her books discuss the English middle and upper classes, especially the lives of early 19th century women. In Bath, Austen worked on various drafts and the later abandoned novel The Watsons. It is believed she stopped working on the novel due to her father’s death. Both Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are set in Bath, and the Jane Austen Centre describes how her time in Bath allowed her to have a deeper understanding of societal norms. She observed Bath’s early 1800s fixed class structure and societal expectations, which became integral themes in her novels.
Bath’s Jane Austen Festival is the biggest and oldest Jane Austen Festival in the world, having begun in 2001, and running annually in September. Back then, events took place over a single weekend, but the festival has since evolved into a full 10-day programme. This year, the festival takes place from Friday 12th September to Sunday 21st September.
The festival opens with the highly popular Regency Costumed Promenade, which sees the streets of Bath being filled by visitors in Regency dress. Since 2004, the opening ceremony even holds the Guinness World Record for the ‘Largest gathering of people dressed in Regency costumes.’ This year, the Promenade will be taking place on Saturday 13th September, so if you’re in the area, watch as 2000 Regency fans walk around Bath. The Jane Austen Centre’s recommended viewing points are below the Royal Crescent lawn, the centre of The Circus, the sides of Milsom Street and Orange Grove grass island. To view the Promenade as it enters Parade Gardens, they recommend viewing from the footpath on the opposite side of the river, in front of Bath Rugby Stadium.
For visitors who enjoy dancing, three costumed balls and dance workshops are organised. Dance events are on the 12th to the 14th September, and the Roman Bath’s Pump Rooms will host balls on 17th and 19th September. For those who enjoy observing rather than joining, Jane Austen’s Assemblies – a narrated Regency dance performance on Monday 15 September will allow visitors to be transported to the various venues where Austen’s characters enjoyed the ballroom. The Jane Austen Centre offers Regency dress and dance tips and instruction videos on their website.
Every day of the festival has a different fashion theme – from Floral Friday (12th) to Thrifty Thursday (18th) to Stripey Saturday (20th), and with most events having different themes themselves, attendees can join in as much or as little as they want. However, attendees don’t have to be dressed up to enjoy the festival – only a few events specifically require Regency dress.
For fans of the Regency era, tours, talks, and lectures are offered on both the history of Regency England and Austen’s life and novels. They tackle everything from architecture, carriages, period dress and costumes on TV, to diversity in Austen’s time, gossip, and dye in Regency life. For the first time, this year’s festival is also offering Zoom tickets to some of the online lectures and talks for Austen fans who cannot physically attend the festivities in Bath.
Comedy tours and theatricals are also available for those appreciative of Austen’s wit. On 18th and 19th September, The Complete Works of Jane Austen (Abridged) tells the entire canon of Austen’s novels in just 90 minutes in the Mission Theatre. On Tuesday 16th September, a 50-minute telling of Pride and Prejudice will take place for this fan-favourite. A large-scale, outdoor, Sense and Sensibility-themed event will be held on the evening of Sunday 14th September, but the main theatrical event this year is Ryan Craig’s adaptation of Emma, hosted at the Theatre Royal Bath on Saturday 20th September.
For those who enjoy Character Trails, 26 of Austen’s Characters can be found around the streets on which Austen herself stepped foot. It’s free to take part, and those who have completed the Trail can be entered in a prize draw sponsored by Bath BID and Wylde Jewellers.
To celebrate Austen’s 250th birthday, a special event is taking place in the Parade Gardens on Sunday 14 September – a truly immersive recreation of Georgian Pleasure Garden, full of drinks, musical entertainment, sweet treats, and circus performers. All in all, there are over 200 events taking place this year. The full programme can be found here.
The Festival in Bath began to celebrate the beloved novelist and her connection to the city of Bath. At the time, not many events were taking place in Bath in September, so David Baldock, owner of the Jane Austen Centre, created the Festival to draw visitors to Bath by offering a unique experience beyond the Centre’s regular exhibition. It is amazing to see how the Festival went from taking place over a weekend to the current 10 days of Regency-filled events attracting visitors from other parts of England and beyond. The range of events means that there’s something for everyone, and locals can see their beautiful city transported back to the Regency times. If you’re in Bath this September, I would highly recommend watching the Promenade and if you’re new to Bath or a returning student, taking part in Bridgerton and Jane Austen guided tours of the city is always a great way to discover what our wonderful city has to offer!
Websites used:
https://janeausten.co.uk/pages/jane-austen-festival-2025-programme