The sight of Jane Austen’s three-legged, walnut writing table in Chawton, England, sometimes moves visitors to tears. It’s easy to picture her in the brick house where she penned Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and more—arm draped over the table, hand racing across the page. The same is true in the city of Bath, where Austen lived from 1801 to 1806. There’s something “transporting” about seeing what Austen may have seen, or retracing the paths she may have walked, says Barbara Heller, a self-professed Janeite. Places and objects…
