Georgian Summer: The Rise and Development of Bath

by David Gadd

Book by Gadd, David

Genres: British Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dated but readable outline of Bath in the eighteenth century, which, like all books about Bath, struggles to be more than a straight architectural history. This one does as well as it can, with liberal quotes from Smollett and Walpole and dedicated chapters to the ‘Artists and Eccentrics’ who flocked to the city – including Philip Thickesse, whose aversion to his in-laws was so great that when his family were all killed in a diphtheria epidemic, he write to his wife's mother as follows:

Madam, your daughter is dead, your grand-children are dead, and I apprehend I am dying: but if I recover, the greatest consolation I have is, that now I have no more to do with you.

Christmas with the Thicknesses must have been fun.