Book Review – Longbourn

I’ve always hated Pride and Prejudice. I was assigned it once in AP English Lit in high school and couldn’t stand it.  I’ve had to sit through various TV and movie adaptations to it, too, and couldn’t stand them.  The gaggle of girls and their silly melodramas were too much for me. But I have enjoyed other Jane Austen books; Northanger Abbey, for instance, was a great read. I also reviewed Death at Pemberley by P.D. James last year and thought it was terrible.  Anything P&P-related doesn’t seem to go over well with me.  But then along came Longbourn, which has the subtitle, Pride and Prejudice: The Servants’ Story. Halleluja, something P&P-related I could finally enjoy – and enjoy it I did!

If you like period stuff like Downton Abbey, Gosford Park, and Upstairs, Downstairs, this will be right up your alley. It tells the story of the Bennett girls’ home, Longbourn, from the servant’s perspective, and follows mainly the story of young Sarah, who is the housemaid. Written by Jo Baker, this is one impeccably researched piece of historical fiction I could not put down.

Longbourn is not a posh place by the standards of the time, a modest house with a modest staff of four. Elderly Mr. Hill and his middle-aged wife,  Mrs. Hill, are the butler and housekeeper respectively, though Mr. Hill is definitely getting too old and decrepit to do his job properly.  Rounding out the servantry is Polly, a young girl with a sad past who was put into service at the house, learning the ropes from Sarah. Mysteriously, one day, a fifth servant arrives in the form of James Smith, who says nothing but works very hard, trying to make Sarah and Polly’s rather drudge-laden lives a little easier. No one explains this stranger’s appearance; one day he is just there. Sarah doesn’t like him at first because he comes off as distant and hard to reach, and instead she starts falling for Mr. Bingley’s footman, Ptolemy Bingley, a black man from one of Bingley’s properties in the West Indies.

Now, the book follows closely the timeline and events of Pride and Prejudice. Events, parties, visitors, and all the the goings-on in P&P happen in Longbourn, only from the servant’s point of view.  I certainly do not remember Bingley having a black footman, and I liked this detail a lot because it speaks of the historical setting the book is placed in.  Ptolemy is a free man and has big plans, which he shares with Sarah and which she becomes caught up in; she even plans to run off after him to London at one point, but that dream comes to an abrupt end.

The militia parked in the village near Longbourn, Meryton, is quite heavily featured in the book, too, because at this time England is a country at war with Napoleon. Because we have access to the militia through the eyes of the servants, we get a glimpse of what it was like to be a soldier in the militia at that time.  And it’s not pretty.  Class distinctions are also at the forefront, obviously, but not just with the servants, but within the military and general society as well.

Eventually, we find out a lot about James Smith, and a larger secret is revealed. Sarah and James fall in love, but because of some darkness in his past, he feels the need to flee Longbourn.  Sarah is devastated and trots off to Derbyshire with Elizabeth when she marries Mr. Darcy, but Sarah dislikes her new job as lady’s maid and quits to go after her true love. You have to admire her bravery because such things were just not done by servants in that era. They had expectations placed upon them, and going against those expectations was fraught with all kinds of risks.

Longbourn gives excellent insight and details into the live of servants in the Regency period, and Baker’s attention to detail is uncompromising.  I learned a lot of new vocabulary words from reading this book, too. “Scrofulous” is a great word, for example. I found myself totally immersed in this world of day in, day out drudgery and picking up after those silly Bennett girls, who were not painted in the most flattering of lights at times.  Mr. Bennett and his wife certainly were not, either, and this appealed to the P&P grouch in me a lot.

Loved this book, a definite recommend if you like historical fiction and P&P.  Especially recommended if you don’t like P&P and you would like to see the nitty gritty details of this family’s other side!