Nada Saadaoui

Hello, Jane.

It's my first time here at the Cobb and it's so dramatic.

It's such an empowering landscape.

You feel that breeze, that air brushing through your hair and it's just really, really, really liberating.

So what kind of town was Lyme?

Lyme was then quite a famous seaside resort.

Many people visited.

Sea bathing and walking and taking the air here was advocated for by a lot of writers, but also advised by many doctors.

So when Austen visited, she walked along the cop.

She enjoyed conversations with acquaintances.

She bathed.

And she also danced.

She attended the assembly rooms.

And we also have pivotal moments in Persuasion, of course, that took part here at Lyme in the Cobb.

It actually makes a lot of sense why Austen would base it here.

Austen herself envied the wives of sailors and soldiers because of what this place offers, the freedom, the liberty that you feel at the seaside.

We know she visited in 1803.

and 1804 she was in her late 20s and she moved to bath with her family and lime and the seaside was an escape for her from the city from that social life and those kind of like restrictions that were found in more bounded spaces in 1804

Jane wrote to Cassandra about bathing in the sea and this was after recovering from a mild illness.

She writes, I continue quite well in proof of which I have bathed again this morning.