Jo Baker (1) (1973–)

I remember, reading Pride and Prejudice, that Mrs Bennet once called for her maid, Hill. When Mr. Collins dined with the Bennets for the first time, he assumed that the Bennet girls had made the dinner, and Mrs. Bennet told him crossly that they had a cook and maidservants. Beyond that, I cannot recall any mention of the servants at Longbourn; they are the invisible players who got the shoe-roses from Meryton; who helped the young ladies dress, and do their hair, and pack their bags. This lovely book brings to light these invisible people, who have a life as full and interesting and dramatic as the girls upstairs do.

I loved the characters that Baker drew of Mr. and Mrs. Hill, the old carriage-driver and housekeeper; of Sarah, the young woman feeling there must be more to life than doing other people's laundry; James, the footman, on the run from a troubled past, and Polly, the girl of all work, innocent, forever tired, and an outspoken little love of a child.

I cannot fathom, even after reading this book, how hard servants in a Regency household had to work. I was astounded and horrified. The thought of washing other people's underclothes by hand, stains and all, put me off entirely. I am so grateful for washing machines right now.

Longbourn is a really good book. I thought the ending (which I am not going to spoil) was excellent. Do read it if you're an Austen fan.… (mere)

I loved this book. I had understood it was a telling of 'Pride and Prejudice' from the servants' point of view, and thought this sounded underwhelming. But no. It's a completely different story, mainly told from the point of view of Sarah, taken in as a young foundling to complement the small serving team of Mr and Mrs. Hill at Longbourn, the house and home we know so well from Jane Austen's book. The Bennets are only the bit parts in this story, their narrative only important when it affects the servants'own lives. Baker vividly brings to live the harsh toil of the servants, their close dependency on one another, and on the Bennets themselves. The tale she weaves round Sarah and the new footman, James, is believable and eventually gripping. The 'back story', which eventually comes to light towards the end of the book adds yet another dimension. I'll return to Pride and Prejudice with new eyes, and expect to enjoy it even more.… (mere)

I am passionate about Austen, so I find it difficult to judge this book. Characterization and plot were okay, seemed a bit obsessed with what, to modern readers, would be the ick factor of the age, but it seems unlikely the people of the time would have focused on it so much.

what makes me angry, and do not read further if you've not read the book, is here utter indictemnetof Mr. Bennett's character. A flwed man he was, a man who impregnates a young girl, keeps her as his servant the rest of her life while barely giving enough to his bastard to keep him from utter poverty and degradation, this man would not have raised a Jane or an Elizabeth. Then we are to admire the footman because , having overlooked the pedophilia, he is finally moved to murder due to a common if utterly barbaric act of military procedure- I'm not saying I wouldn't have wanted to kill as well, but...

Anyway, I think she does a dis-service to the original, which may not have bothered me as much had she not claimed, in her afterword, not to have "interfered" with it… (mere)

This book is told from the point of view of the servants of the Bennett family from Pride and Prejudice. It is ostensibly a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, but the events of that story only barely touch the events of this novel. If you didn't know anything about Pride and Prejudice, you probably wouldn't realize you were missing anything here. If you are a P&P purist, you probably want to avoid this book, because it paints a very different picture of Mr. Bennett. Longbourn focuses primarily on Sarah, a young servant of the household, and her potential romantic entanglements with one of Mr. Bingley's servants and with James, a footman who has recently started working in the Bennett household.

I found this to be a bit slow to get going, but the writing nicely evokes Austen-era prose without feeling stilted. It feels very authentic and well-researched. The characters are generally well-written, although I didn't find Sarah to be particularly compelling.… (mere)