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  • Published: 15 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9781448170159
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 448

Longbourn




A gorgeous new paperback edition to mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, Longbourn is a reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice below stairs – the story of romance, intrigue, and drama among the servants of the Bennet household.

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOKCLUB PICK
'Utterly engrossing' Guardian

It is wash-day for the housemaids at Longbourn House, and Sarah's hands are chapped and raw. Domestic life below stairs, ruled with a tender heart and an iron will by Mrs Hill the housekeeper, is about to be disturbed by the arrival of a new footman, bearing secrets and the scent of the sea.

What readers are saying:

'A novel to be savoured'
'Highly recommended'
'Very enjoyable exploration of the background to Pride and Prejudice'

  • Published: 15 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9781448170159
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 448

About the author

Jo Baker

JO BAKER is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling LONGBOURN and A COUNTRY ROAD, A TREE. Her new novel, THE BODY LIES, is a thrilling contemporary novel that explores violence against women in fiction but is also a disarming story of sexual politics. Jo Baker lives with her family in Lancashire.

Also by Jo Baker

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Praise for Longbourn

A reimagining of Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the servants . . . A joy

Guardian

A genuinely fresh perspective on the tale of the Bennet household . . . Baker confronts the darker elements of eighteenth century life . . . The result is engrossing - and a lot of fun

Sunday Times

A really special book, and not only because its author writes like an angel

Daily Mail

Delightfully audacious . . . a work that's both original and charming, even gripping

New York Times Book Review

Intoxicating . . . A joy in its own right, a novel that contrives both to provoke the intellect and, ultimately, to stop the heart

Guardian

To twist something so familiar into something quite fresh is impressive . . . Baker takes ownership of this world without mimicking Austen's style, asserting instead her own distinctive voice . . . An engrossing tale we neither know nor expect

Sunday Telegraph

An Austen lover has the satisfaction of matching the novel chapter for chapter

Observer

Just enough Darcy to delight, as well as being a fascinating insight into the harsh working conditions of life in a grand house two hundred years ago

Good Housekeeping

Jo Baker takes the reader on a journey back to a version of Regency England that is as much about poverty and war as social comedy and romance

Metro

This clever glimpse of Austen's universe clouded by washday steam is so compelling it leaves you wanting to read the next chapter in the lives below stairs

Daily Express

Pride and Prejudice re-imagined as a mysterious manservant stirs up passions in the Bennet household both upstairs and down

Woman & Home

Superb . . . The lightest of touches by a highly accomplished young writer of whom more, surely, will be heard

Mail on Sunday

Jo Baker takes a fresh angle on a story that millions of diehard fans know inside out

Sunday Express

The well-loved Pride and Prejudice is shaken up and given the grit that Jane Austen could never include

Evening Standard

Longbourn is a fantastic feat of imagination, unflinching in its portrayal of war and the limitations of life for a servant - a novel you will want to shelve with the original classics you plan to read again and again

Psychologies

Painstakingly researched, it captures the atmosphere of Austen's England perfectly and is delivered in beautiful prose

Sunday Mirror

If you are a Jane Austen fan, you will devour Jo Baker's ingenious Longbourn as the ambrosia from the gods it is

O Magazine