The tone is nostalgic, but The Last Enchanted Places should appeal not just to readers who would like to travel back in time to an era that was already fast fading at the time of the childhood memories in Tunbridge Wells that Bradley recalls.

BEFORE READING The Last Enchanted Places, I had a vague idea of spa towns as places to which characters in Jane Austen novels are dragged against their will by tiresome relations, perhaps retaining a faint air of upper-class hypochondria. It didn’t take long, however, for the book to re-enchant this mental image. It quickly opened my eyes to the unique geological features of these mineral-rich springs, and to the varied role they’ve played in literature and culture.

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