Quick question – can you give me the name of a single servant in Pride and Prejudice? Despite having read the book multiple times and having just finished the audio version of the book, I certainly couldn’t do it. Jo Baker has taken the classic novel and imagined what the lives of the invisible people behind the scenes, so to speak. The very essential people who wash the mud out of Lizzie’s petticoats after she’s been walking the countryside, who help the Bennett sisters do […]
The downstairs gets their turn
As an Austen fan, reading Longbourne is almost inevitable. I’ve always wondered about the story from the perspective of the servants, and what it must have been like watching Mrs. Bennett furiously attempt to marry off her daughters so that they can avoid the poverty of the servantry. How awful it must feel to watch these wealthy people parade around, attempting to catch equal or wealthier mates to avoid winding up in your own shoes. And knowing that while your own lot in life was nothing to be desired […]
Jane Austen meets Gosford Park and Downton Abbey
“The room was dull now, and meaningless, with the young ladies gone from it. They were both lovely, almost luminous. And Sarah was, she knew, as she slipped along the servants’ corridor, and then up the stairs to the attic to hang her new dress on the rail, just one of the many shadows that ebbed and tugged at the edges of the light.” (53) It’s one thing to tell a new story with the basic plot of Austen’s novels, such as Bridget Jones’s Diary […]
“Things could change so entirely, in a heartbeat; the world could be made entirely anew, because someone was kind.”
I love Jane Austen. I know she’s not for everyone, but I definitely have a soft spot for the author. Due to this soft spot I limit what I partake of in the Austen companion materials, no matter how long they’ve been a part of the Austen experience. The one that seems to have the most is Pride and Prejudice. I read Mr. Darcy’s Diary for Cannonball Read IV, but that experience and reading less than stellar reviews has kept me from reading Death Comes […]