For a long time, Austen's use of the word baseball in Northanger Abbey was cited as its first appearance in the English language. But as this episode from the podcast The Thing About Austen explains, this was a mistake. Co-hosts Zan Cammack (she/her) and Diane Neu (she/her) address past speculation regarding Austen's role in the invention of this word, while providing illuminating historical context about Regency sports (Did Austen's contemporaries play baseball?), gender (Was it socially acceptable for women to play cricket and baseball?), and the supposed "all-American" game (If it was common in Britain, when did baseball makes its way into American national identity?).!

How do you normally travel to your vacations? While we now depend on machines to get us where we are going, relying on animals used to be the norm. In Regency England, your travel would have depended on having access to horses, as John Thorpe indicates in this passage. While Thorpe argues that rest ruins horses, his treatment of horses counters the common practices at the time, hinting at his callous character. While traveling it was common to stop at coaching inns to get food, alcohol, rest, and fresh horses before continuing on the journey. The term “stagecoach” derives from the fact that journeys were undertaken in stages of 15-20 miles in length. At each stage stop, horses would be changed to ensure the health of the horses and the speed of the journey. Hired horses only traveled between stages, going back and forth between posts that averaged about ten miles apart. So, you would use your own horses for the first part of a journey and leave them at the coaching inn for your servant to retrieve, while continuing on your journey with hired horses. This process would be repeated at each stage of travel.

Domestic tourism was a growing area of interest for many Britons in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. While the European Grand Tour has been popularized in literature, domestic tourism was celebrated as a patriotic way to learn about the history and modern state of Britain, as well as offering an enjoyable leisure pursuit. As John Thorpe offers to Catherine Morland earlier in this chapter, one aspect of the leisurely pursuits offered by domestic tourism was exploring the countryside by the phaeton, as depicted in this painting by George Stubbs. Travel thus became something undertaken as an activity unto itself, rather than an uncomfortable method of arriving at one’s destination. Perhaps John Thorpe and James Morland are themselves enjoying a domestic tour of Britain when they encounter their family members in Bath.

Is Catherine Morland’s journey to Bath really as dangerous as the narrator leads us to believe? Or is the mockery of the sentence simply a way to highlight Catherine and Isabella Thorpe’s absurd fascination with romance and adventure? The narrator’s concern about poor weather, robbers, and accidents is not at all unfounded or unexpected. Travel in the Regency era was difficult, expensive, and could be dangerous. Today, travel by train from London to Bath takes about an hour and a half; on the coach, it would have taken about 14 hours. This chart provides more details. Roads were frequently full of mud and ruts, which only slowed down journeys. Horses were replaced about every ten miles and carriages only went between eight and ten miles an hour!

Stagecoaches were the primary mode of long-distance travel during the Regency era, but they were not always a safe or fast method of travel. The stagecoach was first introduced to English roads in the early 16th century, and by the 17th and 18th century had become a common sight on the roads. Drivers were not on their own to plan journeys. They had the very handy resource of Cary’s New Itinerary; or, An Accurate Delineation of the Great Roads, Both Direct and Cross throughout England and Wales; With many of the Principal Roads in Scotland which provided information on routes, inns, and other important travel information.

While coaches had become common, their rise in popularity resulted in the expansion of the presence of highwaymen. These men terrorized the roads of England, and for 100 years Hounslow Heath, near London, was the most dangerous place in the country. The roads to Bath and Exeter ran across the Heath and these travelers provided rich targets for the highwaymen. Learn more about the highwaymen here.

Catherine’s journey to Bath is uneventful, which is to be expected, but the dangers that came with stagecoach journeys highlight the possibilities that came with travel in the Regency era.