Longbourn

by Jo Baker

Hardcover, 2013

Status

Available

Call number

Ba

Tags

Fiction

Genres

Publication

Alfred A. Knopf (2013), 352 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML: �?� 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 p… (more)

Original publication date

2013-08-15

Media reviews

The Guardian
Like Austen, Baker has written an intoxicating love story but, also like Austen, the pleasure of her novel lies in its wit and fierce intelligence. Longbourn is a profound exploration of injustice, of poverty and dependence, of loyalty and the price of principle; running through the quiet beauty of
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 much of Baker's writing is the unmistakable glint of anger.
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Washington Times
Jo Baker’s interesting novel focuses on the downstairs life at Longbourn, the house where the Bennets of “Pride and Prejudice” live. The author makes no attempt to imitate Austen’s style, and pays relatively little attention to Austen’s major characters...Jo Baker’s thoroughly
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 researched description of the servants’ toil expands the tiny piece of ivory that Jane Austen worked on by showing how the lives of the middle and upper classes depended on work that’s now hard to imagine...Certainly, of the many literary rethinkings of Austen’s work, “Longbourn” is one of the most engaging and rewarding
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New York Times
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...If part of Baker’s inspiration could have come from Charlotte Brontë, there’s also an aside straight out of
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 “Les Misérables... 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.
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