Walking Jane Austen's London--Louise Allen

Book Review

Walking Jane Austen’s London: A Tour Guide for the Modern Traveller

By Louise Allen

ISBN: 978-0-74781-295-1

In preparation for a trip to London, I read this book multiple times. On my trip, it was invaluable.

Louise Allen has grouped the walks into easily navigable experiences, complete with maps, and stopping points of interest to Regency enthusiasts. Besides her descriptions of each site, she adds history and anecdotes of the place and Jane Austen’s time there or that of her novel’s characters.

Allen lists 8 walks through Regency London, each with a starting location and distance.

For example, Walk 2 explains the use of Bond Street in Sense and Sensibility.

In Sense and Sensibility, Marianne, miserable over Willoughby, is a poor companion on a shopping trip:

'In Bond-street especially, where much of their business lay, her eyes were in constant inquiry; and in whatever shop the party were engaged, her mind was equally abstracted . . .'

Willoughby is lodging in Bond Street when he writes to Marianne, protesting that he had never intended to court her as his affections were already engaged elsewhere.

The street was full of hotels, lodgings and eating places as well as shops. Steven’s and Long’s hotels were both favourites of the ton, as members of fashionable Society were known. Byron and Scott patronized Lon’s dining room and Steven’s attracted aristocratic army officers.

In Walk 7, there is an excerpt of a letter from Jane to Cassandra about attending a play at the Lyceum:

"We did go to the play after all on Saturday, we went to the Lyceum, & saw the Hypocrite, an old play taken from Molière’s Tartuffe, & were well entertained. Dowton & Matthews were the good actors. . . . I have no chance of seeing Mrs. Siddons. . . . I should particularly have liked seeing her in Constance, & could swear at her with little effort for disappointing me."

I love hearing Jane’s personality and voice in her letters.

Beautifully illustrated with modern photographs as well as historic renditions, paintings, and comic illustrations, this guide book connects the reader with Jane Austen and her London.

5 stars