Amusement and Society in Georgian Bath

"The Ball," from The Comforts of Bath (1798), Thomas Rowlandson (image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Click here to listen to some dance music from the era while you read!

As England's premier resort city, Bath offered a variety of amusements and recreations, from plays to cards to dancing to bathing in the town's signature hot-springs. For many tourists, though, the main attraction would have been each other. In Bath, you could mingle with other members of the polite classes (including members of the opposite sex) in a somewhat more easy-going atmosphere. Not everyone, though, was enthusiastic about the Bath social scene. See below for some contemporary perspectives:

From New Bath Guide (1795): A guide to the city designed for visitors -- and a neat bit of marketing, too
From Bath: An Adumbration in Verse (1795): A satirical description of a typical day in Bath
Matthew Bramble, a gouty old gentleman from Tobias Smollett's Humphry Clinker (1771), found the atmosphere of a Bath ball rather overwhelming.