If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
Longbourn is what happens when Pride and Prejudice gets hit head on by Upstairs Downstairs. While the Bennet sisters are busy trying to find suitable husbands, obsessing over the militia or just aiming to continue with their lives, their existence is maintained by the servants of Longbourn, who are often less than impressed with their 'betters'. Sarah the housemaid in particular chafes against the boundaries of her class, and when a new footman arrives at the house under mysterious circumstances, her carefully structured world is rocked.
This book contains examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: Though to be fair, who's to say all this wasn't going on in Pride and Prejudice without Elizabeth noticing?
- Mr. Bennet had an illegitimate son with Mrs. Hill (before she was Mrs. Hill) and brings him to be a servant in Longbourn. He also treats Hill and the other servants not exactly with cruelty, but certainly fairly callously. For instance, his neglecting to announce that Mr. Collins would be paying a visit until the day of his arrival creates a lot of inconvenience for Mrs. Hill and the other servants; they have to rush to prepare a room for Collins to stay in, and make sure there's enough food for the guest as well as the family.
- Wickham, more than running off with Lydia when she's only fifteen, is now a straight up paedophile who shows unsettling interest in the underage maid Polly, trying to bribe her with sweets.
- Deconstruction : The antics of all the upper class characters - yes, even Elizabeth - aren't nearly so funny and quirky when their servants have to wash their muddy petticoats after they've been tramping around the countryside, go out in the pouring rain to buy shoe-roses for their outfits for a ball, prepare rooms and food for Mr. Collins at a moment's notice, etc.
- Genre Deconstruction: Everything that happens in Pride and Prejudice is deconstructed here, to show how the whims and minor quibbles of the upper classes have much more serious, or tedious, consequences for those who have to maintain the style to which they're accustomed.
