And So to Bath is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Cecil Roberts

Cecil Roberts

Cecil Edric Mornington Roberts was an English journalist , poet, dramatist and novelist.Roberts worked as a journalist on the Liverpool Post during World War I, as literary editor and then as a war correspondent. From 1920 for five years he edited the Nottingham Journal...

 first published in 1940.

Roberts lived in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

 and was familiar with the Old Bath Road as far as Maidenhead

Maidenhead

Maidenhead is a town and unparished area within the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, England. It lies on the River Thames and is situated west of Charing Cross in London.-History:...

 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

Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...

 in Hammersmith

Hammersmith

Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...

. 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, Count D'Orsay

Alfred d'Orsay, known as the comte d'Orsay was a French amateur artist, dandy, and man of fashion in the early- to mid-19th century.-Life:...

  and Sir William Herschel, and places including Kensington

Kensington

Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...

, Brentford

Brentford

Brentford is a suburban town in west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Brent, west-southwest of Charing Cross. Its former ceremonial county was Middlesex.-Toponymy:...

, Slough

Slough

Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...

, Newbury

Newbury, Berkshire

Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...

 and Calne

Calne

Calne is a town in Wiltshire, southwestern England. It is situated at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs hill range, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty....

.