Her Season in Bath

by Emma Marshall

Her Season in Bath. A story of bygone days. British Library, Historical Print EditionsThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.The GENERAL HISTORICAL collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. This varied collection includes material that gives readers a 19th century view of the world. Topics include health, education, economics, agriculture, environment, technology, culture, politics, labour and industry, mining, penal policy, and social order.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition ++++ British Library Marshall, Emma; 1889. 178 p. ; 8º. 012632.f.42.

120 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2010

About the author

Emma Marshall, born Emma Martin in Cromer, Norfolk, in 1830, was a prolific British children's author, one who published more than two hundred novels in the course of her career. She married banker Hugh Graham Marshall in 1854, going to live with him in Clifton, in Bristol, Somerset. The Marshalls had nine daughters, the youngest of whom, - Christabel Gertrude Marshall, aka Christopher Marie St. John - was an author, a playwright, and a noted campaigner for women's suffrage. Marshall began writing in 1861, choosing, for each of her stories, a famous structure or person from history, and weaving a fictional tale around it. Her best-selling books were Under Salisbury Spire, Penshurst Castle and Winchester Meads. She died in 1899.

Reviews

[Christopher Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fragmented story.

[Lanelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

"It was the height of the Bath season in 1779, and there was scarcely any part of the city which did not feel the effect of the great tide of amusement and pleasure..." Young Griselda Mainwaring, an orphan and ward of her aunt, was not amused nor pleased with the pressure of accepting the suit of Sir Maxwell Danby. He was repugnant! How could she get away from him?

The author tried so hard for this one book to be so many things. It seemed like it was intended to be an educational historical fiction, part romance (with gothic tendencies) and an inspirational story, to boot! Included in all this, the author wrote in an awkward style meant to be the common speech of the late 1700's. In my opinion, it just didn't work.

All that being said, the story did keep my attention throughout the whole. The plot was well defined, if somewhat predicable. And I learned something in the process. Evidently, Emma Marshall was well-known for taking a real person and inserting them into her fictional tale.

In Her Season in Bath, the Hanoverian-born British astronomer, William Herschel and his sister Caroline, are neighbors to the young heroine. Herschel built his own reflecting telescopes. He "began to look at the planets and the stars" in May 1773 and on 1 March 1774 began an astronomical journal by noting his observations of Saturn's rings.

In March 1781, Herschel noticed an object appearing as a nonstellar disk. It must be a planet beyond the orbit of Saturn. He called the new planet the 'Georgian star' after King George III. The name did not stick. In France, where reference to the British king was to be avoided if possible, the planet was known as 'Herschel' until the name 'Uranus' was universally adopted.