How the other half lives
Longbourn by Jo Baker
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.
There are many cheap Jane Austen knock-offs and sequels not worth a minute of your time; happily, this isn’t one of them. Perhaps capitalizing on the Downton Abbey craze, Longbourn is a poignant look at life at the Bennet household-not from the perspective of Elizabeth, Jane, and other beloved characters upstairs, but from the hitherto unknown and mysterious servants downstairs. It’s a bold stroke, but Jo Baker skillfully fleshes out the less savory realities of Regency England. Major events affect the two classes in very different ways: While the Bennet girls are preoccupied with the arrival of Mr. Bingley, for instance, the help are burdened with the extra wave of time-consuming (not to mention physically demanding) washing that needs to be done, or else the girls won't have respectable clothes to wear at their numerous social events. In another example, when Elizabeth raises eyebrows for walking to Netherfield in spite of the mud, Sarah, the housemaid, only thinks: “If Elizabeth had the washing of her own petticoats…she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them” (5). From the disposal of chamber pots to menstrual rags, Baker also delves into other necessities of daily life that have to be performed by the servants, since no one else will. Although of course Longbourn closely follows the events of Pride and Prejudice, reading it like discovering an alternate universe in a story you think you already know inside out.
However, all these details about the lives of servants would be meaningless if they seem merely like a dry dissertation; in Sarah, a young orphaned housemaid, the servant class gains a voice. With her at times backbreaking work and punishing long hours, Sarah illuminates the vast gulf between the gentry and their servants, despite the fact they both lived in the same house. With the exception of Jane and Elizabeth, who take care to be considerate towards Sarah (but even that has its limits), the rest of the Bennets barely acknowledge her existence. As a servant, Sarah’s autonomy is continually frustrated; when she befriends a more worldly servant from Netherfield, she finds herself longing to explore more of the vast world beyond Longbourn.
Longbourn is an engaging, absorbing read in its own right, not just as an Austen-inspired novel, but it does have imperfections. I found the last quarter of the novel to be a dubious, too-modernized stretch; as much as I wished for a happy ending, I found myself doubtful that the ending would’ve been possible for the time period. Also, the way the new servant’s backstory was handled seemed clumsy and hastily inserted; it felt more like an info-dump rather than an integrated part of the overall narrative. Still, I would recommend Longbourn to other Janeites-which is rare praise, indeed.
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.
There are many cheap Jane Austen knock-offs and sequels not worth a minute of your time; happily, this isn’t one of them. Perhaps capitalizing on the Downton Abbey craze, Longbourn is a poignant look at life at the Bennet household-not from the perspective of Elizabeth, Jane, and other beloved characters upstairs, but from the hitherto unknown and mysterious servants downstairs. It’s a bold stroke, but Jo Baker skillfully fleshes out the less savory realities of Regency England. Major events affect the two classes in very different ways: While the Bennet girls are preoccupied with the arrival of Mr. Bingley, for instance, the help are burdened with the extra wave of time-consuming (not to mention physically demanding) washing that needs to be done, or else the girls won't have respectable clothes to wear at their numerous social events. In another example, when Elizabeth raises eyebrows for walking to Netherfield in spite of the mud, Sarah, the housemaid, only thinks: “If Elizabeth had the washing of her own petticoats…she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them” (5). From the disposal of chamber pots to menstrual rags, Baker also delves into other necessities of daily life that have to be performed by the servants, since no one else will. Although of course Longbourn closely follows the events of Pride and Prejudice, reading it like discovering an alternate universe in a story you think you already know inside out.
However, all these details about the lives of servants would be meaningless if they seem merely like a dry dissertation; in Sarah, a young orphaned housemaid, the servant class gains a voice. With her at times backbreaking work and punishing long hours, Sarah illuminates the vast gulf between the gentry and their servants, despite the fact they both lived in the same house. With the exception of Jane and Elizabeth, who take care to be considerate towards Sarah (but even that has its limits), the rest of the Bennets barely acknowledge her existence. As a servant, Sarah’s autonomy is continually frustrated; when she befriends a more worldly servant from Netherfield, she finds herself longing to explore more of the vast world beyond Longbourn.
Longbourn is an engaging, absorbing read in its own right, not just as an Austen-inspired novel, but it does have imperfections. I found the last quarter of the novel to be a dubious, too-modernized stretch; as much as I wished for a happy ending, I found myself doubtful that the ending would’ve been possible for the time period. Also, the way the new servant’s backstory was handled seemed clumsy and hastily inserted; it felt more like an info-dump rather than an integrated part of the overall narrative. Still, I would recommend Longbourn to other Janeites-which is rare praise, indeed.