“Longbourn” - Jo Baker

 🧺 “Pride and Prejudice” gets the upstairs/downstairs treatment in this novel. Janeites will thoroughly enjoy this clever retelling. If you grab a copy, I should warn you, you’d better buckle up because you’re about to hear all the dirt on the Bennets — especially since they, like others of their class, were accustomed to never noticing servants in the background, though they were very present in every moment of their lives.

🧺 While PP was filled with lamentations over the Bennet’s comparable penury vis-a-vis the Bingleys, Darcys, etc., this novel considers their position from those who serve them. I was fascinated by the consideration of the working conditions for servants in an aristorcratic home of meager means where extravagant pretenses had to be kept up, but with a threadbare staff to do it. 

Work would have been evenly distributed in a wealthy household. At Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet must keep up appearances the Bennets could ill afford, thus the two housemaids were overburdened. Baker’s descriptions of the laundry day alone, was eye opening! Cleaning the undergarments of five women on their cycles - this alone is backbreaking work. Baker puts a fine point on the amount of manual labor managed in the household and kitchen before the first Bennet has even awoken.

🧺 It was interesting to read about all of the events from PP from the POV the Bennet’s butler, Mr. and Mrs. Hill, and the housemaids Sarah and Polly. Baker begins each chapter with a line from PP describing events. We see everything anew. As Baker notes - when shoe decorations must be had, it is a housemaid trudging out in the pouring rain. When Mrs. Bennet schemes to strand Jane and Lizzie at Netherfield, it is the servants running back and forth, while their normal tasks pile up at home. 

🧺 Baker steps outside the Austenian bubble of aristocracy and manners, and takes a harder look at society as it existed. In “Longbourn” - Mr. Bingley’s footman, Ptolemy Bingley, is a mulatto ex-enslaved person. In the Regency Era, a mulatto servant was considered a status symbol. Beyond Ptolemy, persons of color make fleeting appearances on city streets, which would make sense for the time period. India was, after all, a jewel in the imperial crown at this point. There is also whisperings of the abolition movement and a reference to the fact that slavery was abolished in England by this time.

Baker also digs into the ugly side of the militia mustering in Meryton. In PP it is only seen as a source of Lydia’s unmitigated joy for sheer numbers of men with whom she could flirt. The ugly side is in connection to the war effort that these militia were to support. James Smith’s backstory, told in Volume III, is a major departure from the rest of the novel. Told realistically, his experiences are gory and graphic. The gentile environs of Regency England are nowhere to be seen.

Amidst all the realistic depictions, one point stuck out as incongruous: where on earth are Mr. and Mrs. Bennet when their youngest daughters are hosting raucous gatherings of militia officers at Longbourn?!

🧺 PP told us what Mr. Collins meant to the male heir-less Bennets. We see in “Longbourn” that the servants wanted the Lizzie-Mr. Collins match to succeed every bit as much as did Mrs. Bennet. As Mrs. Hill elaborates, they know the kind of mistress Lizzie would be, and Mr. Collins was a fair man, therefore their marriage meant the staff could keep their positions after Mr. Bennet’s death. Collins is a bumbling fool in PP. In “Longbourn” he commits the same gaffes, but he keenly observes the realities of the Bennet household — that the girls have been brought up on hobbies and idle chit chat. Given the size of the household, and Mr. Bennet’s meager income, Collins is shocked that the girls are totally impractical.

The tenuous position of the staff puts a new, sharp perspective on Lizzie’s decision to decline Collins’ proposal. In PP we cheer her on, for she must put her own happiness first. “Longbourn” shows us there were a great many other considerations beyond even her family’s fate. Mrs. Hill muses, “if Elizabeth was not going to be happy, she may as well have married Mr. Collins, and then they all would have been safe.”

We also see a bit of Mary pining for the life she could have had if Collins had noticed her after the fiasco with Lizzie. Sarah can see that in terms of practicality and suitability, Mary would be his ideal choice, and certainly an equally excellent outcome for the Longbourn servants. We see Mrs. Hill immediately rally her troops when Collins announces his engagement to Charlotte Lucas. She is determined that her staff be presented to their future mistress in the very best light.

🧺 While Lizzie doesn’t emerge in the most flattering light, I found new sympathy for Mrs. Bennet. She was scheming for survival itself. And the Bennet’s fortunes affected their staff directly. The flashpoint issue of respectability is compounded for the servants as they must uphold their own as well as their employer’s. A letter of reference from a non-respectable family, would render future employment for the staff impossible. 

Without giving anything away, I’d say the original PP characters whom you might see in a different light after reading “Longbourn” are Mrs. Bennet, Lydia, Mr. Collins, and Mr. Bennet. Wickham, however, is as vile as ever.

🧺 As far as the ending goes, I won’t give anything away, but I’ll say that Mrs. Hill’s was satisfying. Sarah’s required a suspension of disbelief at the sheer probability for a woman traveling alone; it was nonetheless satisfying too, just surprising given the hyper realism elsewhere.