Description
Pride and Prejudice only told part of the story. If Elizabeth Bennet washed her own petticoats, Sarah often mused, she’d likely be more careful with them. In this imagined below-stairs counterpart to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, an orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing laundry, polishing floors, and emptying chamber pots for the Bennet household. Yet, there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall risks complete upheaval. Jo Baker takes us beyond Jane Austen’s drawing rooms into the often-overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and starry-eyed kitchen maid during the Napoleonic Wars, creating a vivid, fascinating world of her own.
