{{unreferenced, date=December 2010
''And So to Bath'' is a
novel by
Cecil Roberts
Edric Cecil Mornington Roberts (18 May 1892 – 20 December 1976) was an English journalist, poet, dramatist and novelist. He was born and grew up in Nottingham.
Working career
Roberts published his first volume of poems, with a preface by Joh ...
first published in 1940.
Roberts lived in
Oxfordshire and was familiar with the Old Bath Road as far as
Maidenhead at which point he would turn off.
After meeting the apocryphal Austrian Rudolph he has a revelation that there is an untold story of the old coaching route. Rudolph visits Roberts in London wishing to see the house of
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an English writer and printer known for three epistolary novels: ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' (1740), '' Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady'' (1748) and ''The History of ...
in
Hammersmith. Together they find a hidden gem and this and Rudolph's naive belief that the signs "To Bath" indicate swimming-pools spur Roberts on to take the road to
Bath. He takes three months for the journey (instead of the three hours it can be motored in) and gives potted histories of the people and places en route.
These include people such as
Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, Count D'Orsay
Alfred Guillaume Gabriel Grimod d'Orsay, comte d'Orsay (4 September 18014 August 1852) was a French amateur artist, dandy, and man of fashion in the early- to mid-19th century.
Biography
He was born in Paris, the second son of Albert Gaspard Gr ...
and
Sir William Herschel
Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline H ...
, and places including
Kensington,
Brentford,
Slough,
Newbury and
Calne
Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs ...
.
1940 British novels
Hodder & Stoughton books