A comprehensive history of Roman Bath

In the middle ages, a poet told a story that mocked a strong woman. It became a literary classic. But what if the woman in question had a chance to tell her own version? Who would you believe? 'Brooks' mischievous retelling [of Chaucer's The Wife of Bath] dials up the feminist themes - and the fun - to 11.' The Canberra Times England, The Year of Our Lord, 1364 When married off aged 12 to an elderly farmer, Eleanor Cornfed, who's constantly told to seek redemption for her many sins, quickly realises it won't matter what she says or does, God is not on her side - or any poor woman's for that matter. But Eleanor was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars. Both a lover and a fighter, she will not bow meekly to fate. Even if five marriages, several pilgrimages, many lovers, violence, mayhem and wildly divergent fortunes (that swoop up and down as if spinning on Fortuna's Wheel itself) do not for a peaceful life make. Aided and abetted by her trusty god-sibling Alyson, the counsel of one Geoffrey Chaucer, and a good head for business, Eleanor fights to protect those she loves from the vagaries of life, the character deficits of her many husbands, the brutalities of medieval England and her own fatal flaw... a lusty appreciation of mankind. All while continuing to pursue the one thing all women want - control of their own lives. This funny, picaresque, clever retelling of Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath' from The Canterbury Tales is a cutting assessment of what happens when male power is left to run unchecked, as well as a recasting of a literary classic that gives a maligned character her own voice, and allows her to tell her own (mostly) true story. 'Astonishingly good - an instant classic. Certes 'tis a tale for everywoman.' Tea Cooper, Bestselling International Author

Fisher's work is a vivid, lively, and readable translation of the most famous work of England's premier medieval poet. Preserving Chaucer's rhyme and meter and faithfully articulating his poetic voice, Fisher makes Chaucer's tales accessible to a contemporary ear.

Every time Mr Archimedes has a bath with his friends, the water overflows. Somebody must be putting extra water in the bath. Is it Kangaroo? Or is it Goat or Wombat? Whoever it is, Mr Archimedes is going to find out.

Swan’s international bestselling novel The Wives of Bath, is both a shocking Gothic tale about a murder in a girls’ boarding school and an adolescent confession. Mouse and Paulie, reluctant fourteen-year-old boarders at Bath Ladies College, are confronted by the slippery quest for one small, vital thing: the thing that definitively makes boys different from girls. The novel was made into the feature film Lost and Delirious, shown in 34 countries. Since the film’s debut, young women all over the world have role-played the parts of Mouse, Tory and Paulie on the Lost and Delirious website.

A humorous picture book about the ups and downs of bathtime, now available as a board book

As your bath water drains, that slurping sound it makes is the Bath Monster—dirty bath water is his SECOND favorite food. No one wants to find out what his FIRST favorite food is . . . until Jackson decides he doesn't believe in the Bath Monster anymore and refuses to take a bath ever again. Starving, the Bath Monster visits Jackson for his FIRST favorite food . . . Thank goodness it's not little kids, but mud pies!

Perfect for fans of Five Little Monkeys Jump in the Bath, this fun and educational picture book brings together adorable baby animals and bathtime. How do YOU take a bath? Does your mama comb your fur? Do you shake off all your dirt? Do you splash and flap and quack? Do the birdies peck your back? No! Follow elephants, pigs, monkeys, hippos, and more in this charming rhyming picture book from veteran author Kate McMullan. How does a pig take a bath? It sinks in the mud! What about a chicken? It thrashes about in dust! And a cat? Why, it licks itself clean, of course! Sydney Hanson's adorable illustrations toggle neatly between animals in nature grooming themselves and humorous depictions of children attempting the animals' bathing tactics. By the end of the book, the child finally makes his way to the bathtub, no mud baths or lick baths about it!

Bath is one of the most popular and significant tourist destinations in Britain. No fewer than four million visitors each year visit the much-renovated Roman Baths, marvel at the sites of this World Heritage city, or simply meander through its now carefully conserved eighteenth-century streets. For a few hours before they are whisked away to Stratford-upon-Avon, Edinburgh or London, they absorb the carefully presented image of Bath as ancient spa, elegant Georgian city and haunt of the likes of Richard 'Beau' Nash or Jane Austen. Bath has always tried to present itself in a favorable light. The true picture of Bath throughout its long and varied history is of course much fuller, more interesting and varied than the facade presented to casual visitors. From its earliest known history as spa during the Roman period, Bath transformed itself into Saxon monastic town and subsequently Norman cathedral city. It developed into a regional market and - perhaps surprisingly - a centre of the woollen trade during the Middle Ages, before becoming probably the most important health resort of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thereafter, rapid expansion in the Georgian period created an enduring architectural legacy which made Bath the country's foremost fashionable resort, attracting increasing numbers of visitors. Later, the city experienced some years of relative decline, from which it re-emerged, this time as a favored place of genteel residence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This theme of constant re-invention now sees Bath attempt to become a 'festival city', in the market for cultural tourism, while the long-anticipated opening of a new thermal spa should bring a new lease of life to the hot springs which, of course, represent Bath's very oldest attraction, and in many ways its very raison d'être. This book goes beyond the narrow, popular image of Bath to explore years of extraordinary change, variety and interest, focusing wherever possible on the lives of ordinary residents, and seeking to explain as well as to chronicle Bath's truly unique historical legacy.