• 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 … 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.
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For anyone who needs more Jane Austen.
Books set in the past, especially historical romance (which this is only tangentially), always focus on the top rungs of society’s ladder. I’ve always wanted to know more about the servant’s stories. After all, my ancestors were likely servants or small farmers, perhaps craftsmen of some kind—people scraping out a living with the work of their hands. It’s doubtful that anyone in my past had a life of ease and plenty, sitting at their leisure on a silken cushion!
So, for a long time, I’ve been waiting to know more about the lives of the invisible multitudes that served “the quality,” and Jo Baker has given me all I wished for and more. The characters are so real. They bring you right into the real Regency Britain—not the glittering drawing rooms and lively banter, but the real texture and soundscape and even the rich world of scents that we have long left behind.
I was so immersed in this book, I found myself—more than once—thanking my lucky stars that I was not a housemaid in 1812 or so. Has a book ever made you grateful for your toilet? For central heating and electricity and refrigerators and washing machines? You’ll love the characters and story, of course, but the chance to experience life in the Regency period is priceless.
I’m probably biased since I love all things Austen. This is an unusual perspective from the “help” with its own romantic challenges.
Loved it.
Interesting. But not wonderful
A clever plot well written. A must read for fans of Pride and Prejudice.
So- so book.
Well researched. Engaging characters. If you liked Downton Abbey you will love this book.
If you love Pride and Prejudice, you’ll enjoy Longbourn. It’s the behind the scenes story of tbe Bennet familytold from the point of view of one fascinating servant. It’s a very fast read. I didn’t want the story to end.
This book made grateful for the luxuries of our lives. These servants had to learn to work through all kinds of weather and the hardships of their times.
Having read Pride & Prejudice and watched various movies of it over and over, I was interested in seeing the circumstances from a different perspective. A servant’s day to day reality–just the labor it took to keep a house running–and the way lives could be turned upside down by a casual decision or action by the most well meaning master/mistress were recurring points. The characters were developed appropriately, and the plot meshed and complicated the well known story. The author presented twists on some of the characters, particularly Mr. Bennett and Mr. Wickham, that made very good sense, and frankly made me detest Wickham even more. I enjoyed the novelty of the book, but did not find it nearly as captivating as the original.
Calling all Jane Austen fans!!
Though I’m not a Jane Austenite, I did enjoy this very readable peek into the Pride and Prejudice world through the servants’ eyes. And I liked the ending, even though it seemed a little unlikely.
Regency England was not all about swirling gowns, handsome suitors, and endless balls. None of that could have occurred without the efforts of an army of servants to cook the food, launder the clothes, take care of the horses and just open the doors for visitors. This bird’s eye view of Jane Austen’s England is a strong dose of the reality so many people lived in that period. Highly recommended.
Any Janeite– a Jane Austen fan– will love this fabulous book, a look behind the curtains at Longbourn, the Bennet’s home in Pride and Prejudice. The story features the servants, Mrs. Hill, Mr. Hill, but mostly the housemaid, Sarah. I recently read it for the second time; the writing is so compelling. As a fan of Austen I wrote a series of books about the Bennett Sisters– two t’s– not as a pastiche but as a reimagining of five contemporary sisters. Love, love, love this book.
I love works that shift the point of view, that tell a familiar story but from another character’s perspective. This is Pride and Prejudice from the servants’ pov.
I loved this novel. Mrs. Hill and Sarah will forever remain with me, especially when a housemaid so much as enters the room or a cook serves dinner in any future novel. Just wonderful.
I am one of those people who enjoys new novels which reuse classic characters. That being said, I found Longbourn to be a fascinating read because of the angle it took. This is not another novel about Jane Austen’s leading men and leading ladies. Instead, this novel looks at the servants who work for Elizabeth Benner’s family in Pride and Prejudice. It is refreshing to see the leading characters in the peripherals while the minor characters from Austen’s classic work take center stage.
As for the writing, Jo Baker has crafted and beautiful work of fiction. The style feels different enough from Jane Austen so that it does not feel like a copy, but at the same time is true enough to the original material so that it fits perfectly beside it. Two halves of the same incredible world.
While there were a few things about this novel’s structure that I did not like, as a whole I found it to be as charming, mysterious, and delightful as I had hoped it would be. I highly recommend it for both Jane Austen fans and readers of historical fiction. It is definitely an interesting novel.