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Summary
Summary
* Pride and Prejudice was only half the story *
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she'd most likely be a sight more careful with them.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants' hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen's classic--into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars--and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.
Author Notes
Jo Baker was born and raised in the village of Arkholme, Lancashire, England. She attended Kirby Lonsdale and Somerville College, Oxford. She later moved to Belfast in 1995 to study for an MA in Irish literature at Queen's University, where she also completed a PhD on the Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen. She is now the author of six novels, including the bestseller, Longbourn.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The servants of the Bennett estate manage their own set of dramas in this vivid re-imagining of Pride and Prejudice. While the marriage prospects of the Bennett girls preoccupy the family upstairs, downstairs the housekeeper Mrs. Hill has her hands full managing the staff that keeps Longbourn running smoothly: the young housemaids, Sarah and Polly; the butler, Mr. Hill; and the mysterious new footman, James Smith, who bears a secret connection to Longbourn. At the heart of the novel is a budding romance between James and orphan-turned-housemaid Sarah, whose dutiful service belies a "ferocious need for notice, an insistence that she fully be taken into account." When an expected turn of events separates the young lovers, Sarah must contend with James's complicated past and the never-ending demands of the Bennetts. Baker (The Mermaid's Child) offers deeper insight into Austen's minor characters, painting Mr. Collins in a more sympathetic light while making the fiendish Mr. Wickham even more sinister. The Militia, which only offered opportunities for flirtations in the original, here serves as a reminder of the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars. Baker takes many surprising risks in developing the relationships between the servants and the Bennetts, but the end result steers clear of gimmick and flourishes as a respectful and moving retelling. A must-read for fans of Austen, this literary tribute also stands on its own as a captivating love story. First printing of 150,000. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Elizabeth and Darcy take a backseat in this engrossing Austen homage, which focuses on the lives of the servants of Longbourn rather than the Bennet family. Baker's (The Undertow, 2012) novel finds Sarah, the Bennets' young, pretty housemaid, yearning for something more than washing soiled dresses and undergarments. The arrival of a handsome new footman, James Smith, creates quite a stir as he's hired after a heated discussion between Mrs. Hill, the cook and head of the servants, and Mr. Bennet. Sarah isn't sure what to make of the enigmatic new member of the household staff, but she's soon distracted by the Bingleys' charismatic footman, Ptolemy, who takes an interest in Sarah and regales her with his dreams of opening up a tobacco shop. Baker vividly evokes the lives of the lower classes in nineteenth-century England, from trips in the rain to distant shops to the struggles of an infantryman in the Napoleonic Wars. She takes a few liberties with Austen's characters Wickham's behavior takes on a more sinister aspect here but mostly Austen's novel serves as a backdrop for the compelling stories of the characters who keep the Bennet household running.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
BELOVED BOOKS like "Pride and Prejudice" or "Gone With the Wind," or books left unfinished like "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," have always prompted efforts to imagine a continuing life for their characters. We cling to them in hopes that some of the qualities of Austen or Mitchell or Dickens can be recaptured, restoring our sense of delight, maintaining the mysterious bond that returns us to Mrs. Bennet declaring that "Netherfield Park is let at last" or Scarlett O'Hara deciding to wait until tomorrow to think about her problems. Alas, with few exceptions, these efforts rarely satisfy. It should be said at once that Jo Baker's "Longbourn" is an exception. Neither a sequel nor a disappointment, it's an affecting look at the world of "Pride and Prejudice," but from another point of view - the servants' hall, where other lives are simultaneously lived, with very different concerns and dramas. As we know from Austen's masterpiece, the Bennet family's respectable but rundown estate at Longbourn is under threat, destined to pass out of the family, since Mr. Bennet has no sons. Downstairs, the servants are worried too. The heir, Mr. Collins, would be likely to bring in his own people and turn out the present staff. Unlike the downtrodden victims in "Les Misérables," the Longbourn servants are relatively content with - or at least resigned to - their lot. But their lives are intertwined in ways one wouldn't have learned from reading Austen, where servants are barely mentioned. Emotions seethe downstairs as familiar events unfold upstairs, notably the arrival of the delightful (and marriageable) Mr. Bingley. Wickham, the sly villain of "Pride and Prejudice," is even more vile here, planning to seduce the little scullery maid, Polly, even as he's paying court to the feckless Lydia. There are other intrigues. A secret long held between the housekeeper, Mrs. Hill, and her employer, Mr. Bennet, comes to light. The new footman, James, seems to have a secret too - and then he suddenly disappears. Here are some of the trappings of the Regency novel as practiced by, say, Georgette Heyer, but with a darker view. Baker adds some new characters to the Austen pantheon, with considerable success. "Longbourn" is delightfully audacious; after all, Jane Austen is a very tough act to follow. "Pride and Prejudice" has been read and reread by enchanted readers since its publication in 1813. George Henry Lewes, the Victorian critic and partner of George Eliot, declared Austen to be "the greatest artist that has ever written," and Virginia Woolf called her "the most perfect artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal." Today these judgments have reached something close to cultish fervor. Yet Austen's great successor, Charlotte Brontë, was baffled by all this admiration. For her, Austen's work lacked "what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and sentient target of death." It's one of literary history's most famous misjudgments. But if Charlotte Brontë had taken up the challenge of a sequel to "Pride and Prejudice," she might very well have hit upon the sort of broader, more sympathetic point of view Jo Baker has derived from the servants' quarters. Baker shares some of Brontë's qualities - a power of description, a feeling for the natural world, a regard for emotional turbulence - and she shows a comfort with the past that allows her to imagine it in a vivid way. Baker also reminds us that - of course - someone must have been up very early in the morning to lay the fires for the Bennets and must have spent all day cooking their meals and must have waited outside in the cold with the coach and horses till the girls emerged from a party. Of course, Longbourn must have had someone to stable the horses, sweep the rooms and change the sheets. Seen even more intimately, someone had to rinse, boil and bleach the huge quantity of rags required when the five Bennet daughters got their menstrual periods. (Probably all at the same time, as groups of women often do.) And then there was the washing out of perspiration stains and the bleaching of petticoats dragged in the mud. There were rips to be mended and buttons to be sewn. There were no indoor toilets, so there had to be chamber pots and someone to empty them into the "necessary," and it certainly wasn't the Bennets. Remember how indignant Mrs. Bennet was when Mr. Collins wondered which of the girls had cooked the excellent dinner? She "assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen." However constrained their financial situation, the Bennets were in the upper middle class, like Austen herself, a parson's daughter, two of whose brothers were admirals. Servants were servants. With large imaginative sympathy and a detailed knowledge of early-19th-century housekeeping, Baker gives us a sobering look at the underside - or the practical side - of daily life circa 1812, where in a bourgeois household, however hard up, a staff of people, knowing their place, worked an 18-hour day, every day, to achieve for their employers even the minimum of comfort. In Baker's account, the Bennets are employers more considerate than many - Elizabeth gives the housemaid, Sarah, one of her dresses - but social distances are thoughtlessly taken for granted. Certain lines are never crossed, and certain others often are: an upperclass young man was never too grand to hang around downstairs in hopes of ruining some servant girl. Naturally, Austen knew about these particulars of daily life, as did George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, not just from books. Chamber pots were mentioned in the work of Shakespeare and Chaucer, and in the 18th-century novels Austen had certainly read. But by her day such mundane and sordid details of daily life weren't spoken of in polite novels. Baker deploys them to good effect not only for their intrinsic interest but as a moral corrective. She has also fashioned an absorbing and moving story about the servants at Longbourn: Sarah, the housemaid; Mr. and Mrs. Hill, who take charge of the stables and household; James, the new young footman; and little Polly, an orphan lucky enough to be spared the bleak fate that otherwise often awaited such girls (the streets, the poorhouse, a life of virtual slavery). The orphan is another beloved literary tradition. The defenseless child at the mercy of the world, unprotected by family or funds, is a resonant metaphor at any time. The orphan stands for the frightened waif in all of us, and here she's the central character, the novel's heroine. Like Polly, Sarah, the housemaid, is a foundling, taken in at Longbourn and fostered by Mrs. Hill. Most of the action is seen through Sarah's eyes as she grows into self-awareness and proves to have some of Jane Eyre's spunky resilience. She plans to better herself: "She bobbed a curtsy, and took her money up to her room, and put it away in her wooden box, along with the previous quarter's pay. If she could find it, and it was writ in English, she would borrow Heraclitus from the library." If part of Baker's inspiration could have come from Charlotte Brontë, there's also an aside straight out of "Les Misérables." Thanks to James, the footman, we learn something of the conditions encountered by young boys set adrift in the world, and the exploitative realities of army life and domestic service. But to mention these classics is not to condemn as pastiche a work that's both original and charming, even gripping, in its own right. ? DIANE JOHNSON'S most recent book, the memoir "Flyover Lives," will be published in January.
Guardian Review
In reimagining Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants, Baker not only creates a richly imagined story of her own, but recasts Austen's novel in a startlingly fresh light. Sarah is an orphan plucked from the workhouse to become a maid at Longbourn House. Much the same age as the Bennet daughters, Sarah shares many of Elizabeth's characteristics - a keen reader, she is quick-witted, obstinate and ferociously loyal - but unlike the Bennet girls, for whom marriage offers a chance of escape, there is little hope in her situation. It is only when a stranger arrives at the house and is unexpectedly taken on as a footman that her life is changed for ever. Baker's vivid characters pull the reader into a world that is simultaneously intimately involved with, and a million miles away from, the Bennet girls and their marital tribulations. The result is a triumph: a splendid tribute to Austen's original but, more importantly, a joy in its own right, a novel that contrives both to provoke the intellect and, ultimately, to stop the heart. Clare Clark - Clare Clark In reimagining Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants, Baker not only creates a richly imagined story of her own, but recasts Austen's novel in a startlingly fresh light. Sarah is an orphan plucked from the workhouse to become a maid at Longbourn House. - Clare Clark.
Kirkus Review
An irresistible retake on Pride and Prejudice alters the familiar perspective by foregrounding a different version of events--the servants'. Daring to reconfigure what many would regard as literary perfection, Baker (The Undertow, 2012, etc.) comes at Jane Austen's most celebrated novel from below stairs, offering a working-class view of the Bennet family of Longbourn House. While the familiar drama of Lizzie and Jane, Bingley and Darcy goes on in other, finer rooms, Baker's focus is the kitchen and the stable and the harsh cycle of labor that keeps the household functioning. Cook Mrs. Hill rules the roost, and maids Sarah and Polly do much of the hard work, their interminable roster of chores diminished a little by the hiring of a manservant, James Smith. Sarah is attracted to James, but he is mysterious and withdrawn, and soon, her eye is caught by another--Bingley's black footman, Ptolemy. James, though trapped in his secrets, has noticed Sarah too and steps in when she is on the verge of making an impulsive mistake. And so, the romance begins. Baker is at her best when touching on the minutiae of work, of interaction, of rural life. James' back story, though capably done, offers less magic. But a last episode, moving through grief and silence into understated romantic restoration, showcases a softly piercing insight. Sequels and prequels rarely add to the original, but Baker's simple yet inspired reimagining does. It has best-seller stamped all over it.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
This brilliant and inventive novel brings Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice's below stairs to life, in the process creating as much intrigue and romance as the original. Baker (The Undertow) fleshes out the lives of the servants, footmen, and cooks to create a classic tale of love lost, perseverance, and early 19th-century life that will please even the most critical of Janeites. The story centers on the Bennets' maid, Sarah, a naive, likable young girl. When a new footman, James, joins the Longbourn staff, life is turned upside down and may never be the same again. Emma Fielding brilliantly narrates this novel with her smooth English accent and does a fantastic job bringing the characters to life using accents and inflections in all the right places. Verdict A must listen for fans of historical fiction, Austen, and Downton Abbey. ["...[D]ensely plotted and achingly romantic. This exquisitely reimagined Pride and Prejudice will appeal to Austen devotees and to anyone who finds the goings-on below the stairs to be at least as compelling as the ones above," agreed the starred review of the Knopf hc, LJ 8/15/13.-Ed.]-Erin Cataldi, Franklin Coll. Lib, IN (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter II 'Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.' They were lucky to get him. That was what Mr B. said, as he folded his newspaper and set it aside. What with the War in Spain, and the press of so many able fellows into the Navy; there was, simply put, a dearth of men. A dearth of men? Lydia repeated the phrase, anxiously searching her sisters' faces: was this indeed the case? Was England running out of men? Her father raised his eyes to heaven; Sarah, meanwhile, made big astonished eyes at Mrs Hill: a new servant joining the household! A man servant! Why hadn't she mentioned it before? Mrs Hill, clutching the coffee pot to her bosom, made big eyes back, and shook her head: shhh! I don't know, and don't you dare ask! So Sarah just gave half a nod, clamped her lips shut, and returned her attention to the table, proffering the platter of cold ham: all would come clear in good time, but it did not do to ask. It did not do to speak at all, unless directly addressed. It was best to be deaf as a stone to these conversations, and seem as incapable of forming an opinion on them. Miss Mary lifted the serving fork and skewered a slice of ham. 'Papadoesn't mean your beaux, Lydia - do you, Papa?' Mr B., leaning out of the way so that Mrs Hill could pour his coffee, said that indeed he did not mean her beaux: Lydia's beaux always seemed to be in more than plentiful supply. But of working men there was a genuine shortage, which is why he had settled with this lad so promptly - this with an apologetic glance to Mrs Hill, as she moved around him and went to fill his wife's cup - though the quarter day of Michaelmas was not quite yet upon them, it being the more usual occasion for the hiring and dismissal of servants. 'You don't object to this hasty act, I take it, Mrs Hill?' 'Indeed I am very pleased to hear of it, sir, if he be a decent sort of fellow.' 'He is, Mrs Hill; I can assure you of that.' 'Who is he, Papa? Is he from one of the cottages? Do we know the family?' Mr B. raised his cup before replying. 'He is a fine upstanding young man, of good family. I had an excellent character of him.' 'I, for one, am very glad that we will have a nice young man to drive us about,' said Lydia, 'for when Mr Hill is perched up there on the carriage box it always looks like we have trained a monkey, shaved him here and there and put him in a hat.' Mrs Hill stepped away from the table, and set the coffee pot down on the buffet. 'Lydia!' Jane and Elizabeth spoke at once. 'What? He does, you know he does. Just like a spider-monkey, like the one Mrs Long's sister brought with her from London.' Mrs Hill looked down at a willow-pattern dish, empty, though crusted round with egg. The three tiny people still crossed their tiny bridge, and the tiny boat crawled like an earwig across the china sea, and all was calm there, and unchanging, and perfect. She breathed. Miss Lydia meant no harm, she never did. And however heedlessly she expressed herself, she was right: this change was certainly to be welcomed. Mr Hill had become, quite suddenly, old. Last winter had been a worrying time: the long drives, the late nights while the ladies danced or played at cards; he had got deeply cold, and had shivered for hours by the fire on his return, his breath rattling in his chest. The coming winter's balls and parties might have done for him entirely. A nice young man to drive the carriage, and to take up the slack about the house; it could only be to the good. Mrs Bennet had heard tell, she was now telling her husband and daughters delightedly, of how in the best households they had nothing but manservants waiting on the family and guests, on account of every- one knowing that they cost more in the way of wages, and that there was a high tax to pay on them, because all the fit strong fellows were wanted for the fields and for the war. When it was known that the Bennets now had a smart young man about the place, waiting at table, opening the doors, it would be a thing of great note and marvel in the neighbourhood. 'I am sure our daughters should be vastly grateful to you, for letting us appear to such advantage, Mr Bennet. You are so considerate. What, pray, is the young fellow's name? 'His given name is James,' Mr Bennet said. 'The surname is a very common one. He is called Smith.' 'James Smith.' It was Mrs Hill who had spoken, barely above her breath, but the words were said. Jane lifted her cup and sipped; Elizabeth raised her eyebrows but stared at her plate; Mrs B. glanced round at her house- keeper. Sarah watched a flush rise up Mrs Hill's throat; it was all so new and strange that even Mrs Hill had forgot herself for a moment. And then Mr B. swallowed, and cleared his throat, breaking the silence. 'As I said, a common enough name. I was obliged to act with some celerity in order to secure him, which is why you were not sooner informed, Mrs Hill; I would much rather have consulted you in advance.' Cheeks pink, the housekeeper bowed her head in acknowledgement. 'Since the servants' attics are occupied by your good self, your husband and the housemaids, I have told him he might sleep above the stables. Other than that, I will leave the practical and domestic details to you. He knows he is to defer to you in all things.' 'Thank you, sir,' she murmured. 'Well.' Mr B. shook out his paper, and retreated behind it. 'There we are, then. I am glad that it is all settled.' 'Yes,' said Mrs B. 'Are you not always saying, Hill, how you need another pair of hands about the place? This will lighten your load, will it not? This will lighten all your loads.' Their mistress took in Sarah with a wave of her plump hand, and then, with a flap towards the outer reaches of the house, indicated the rest of the domestic servants: Mr Hill who was hunkered in the kitchen, riddling the fire, and Polly who was, at that moment, thumping down the back stairs with a pile of wet Turkish towels and a scowl. 'You should be very grateful to Mr Bennet for his thoughtfulness, I am sure.' 'Thank you, sir,' said Sarah. The words, though softly spoken, made Mrs Hill glance across at her; the two of them caught eyes a moment. 'Thank you, sir,' said Mrs Hill. Mrs Bennet dabbed a further spoonful of jam on her remaining piece of buttered muffin, popped it in her mouth, and chewed it twice; she spoke around her mouthful: 'That'll be all, Hill.' Mr B. looked up from his paper at his wife, and then at his housekeeper. 'Yes, thank you very much, Mrs Hill,' he said. 'That will be all for now.' Excerpted from Longbourn by Jo Baker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
