Gender in P&P Variations

Masculine or Feminine in Austenesque Fiction

Throughout my journey as an author, I have worked to avoid “writing like a man.” That noted, I am certain that, despite my best efforts, gendered treatments have impacted my work. Yet, there also is too much of a good thing if we impose presentist gender models upon characters inhabiting the Regency or even the mid-twentieth century. Becoming blinded to how men and women acted fifty or two hundred years ago is as much a sin as casting men as self-absorbed in their personhood alongside women who never negotiated their space in an otherwise unfriendly realm.

As a male author writing in a predominantly female genre, I have been impressed and challenged by the deep understanding of the writing process that Austenesque readers, authors, and bloggers bring to the table. The questions and comments have made me consider what drives me as an author to offer authentic and relatable stories.

Outsiders to our world may react to the genre much as Ms. Austen’s contemporaries reacted to novels (see any of the countless Darcy snorts over Georgie’s taste in reading material). However, honest InspiredByAusten authors who appreciate their craft analyze their writing with the same level of intensity as le Carre, O’Brien, Ephron, or Lewis. Pick up any of the works by conscientious authors and you will discover literature that transcends the romantic formula to force you to rethink the traditional memes. Tropes are abandoned in favor of honest characters inhabiting compelling plots.

Sometimes, I become concerned that readers will become disequilibrated with some of the darker aspects of my stories.

Mary being assaulted by Collins in The Keeper is an example. Or Kitty being injured in the park in Of Fortune's Reversal. In the first case, the action establishes Collins's character in a way words could not. In the second, the attack is to set Kitty Bennet’s underlying character: bravery in the face of danger to another. The Kitty in Canon was a mouse-like follower who coughed. Her new nature exemplified one of the many reversals found in the novella. Her trials in The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque, while disturbing, are neither gratuitous nor unnecessary, but rather are intentionally offered.

This is something upon which I reflect as I write. This angst is often derived from reading other authors' works and seeing that the crux-stresses are frequently emotional rather than physical. See Ola Wegner's deft use of emotional crises. But, as a counter-balance, consider Melanie Schertz, who uses physical danger to great effect.

Is this a question of my gender? Am I predisposed to action rather than reflection because I am a man? Is a woman author more likely to be contemplative?

This question is something I have revisited over the years since I returned to university in 1990 to discover that the study of history had dramatically changed since I had earned my first degree in 1975. Social scientists of the caliber of Clifford Geertz highlighted what we today would call observational bias.

Wealthy anthropologist hobbyists would write of the primitive and uncivilized natives. That they also were of a darker hue was an accepted prerequisite for lands suitable for colonization and exploitation, which accorded with the needs of the prevailing power structures. Pre-1950 white American historians would write of the intellectual inferiority of freed slaves by sourcing white patriarchy accounts. University departments could never find women or minority candidates as qualified as those who looked like the men on the hiring committees. No questions were asked until after the Vietnam War.

When I first began writing Austenesque fiction ten years ago, there were perhaps five identifiable male authors of what was then still JAFF. One or two more may have been men hiding behind initials.

Today, the ranks are not teeming with testosterone, but there are more gentlemen, even with the lamentable passing of C.P. Odom. Barry Richman, Jeff Bigler, and J.P. Garland have published some remarkable Austenesque fiction. Benjamin Fife and Harry Frost are both stepping out of their recording studios to try their hand at their own tales.

When Barbara Tiller Cole interviewed me for her fantastic blog, Darcyholic Diversions, she alluded to the question of gender when she noted the paucity of male writers in the Austenesque genre. Her question led me to reflect not upon the biological distinctions that separate men and women, but rather the cultural and social forces that shape gender. Here is an excerpt of my response:

“…why should there not be a hundred women writing Napoleonic sea sagas…or spy novels? Why should there not be a hundred men writing Austenesque Fiction? Oddly enough, while novels were seen as not ‘serious’ writing in the Regency, we must recall that one of Ms Austen’s biggest fans was the most important man in the kingdom!

If the writing is honest and does not reflect the male or female ego in its structure, can it not transcend biases and reach an even broader audience? I found Austen’s original stories to resonate as truthful examinations of human behavior. Her honesty spurred me forward to try to offer my own variations on her efforts.”

As part of my preparation for the interview, I re-read one of the best discourses on writing—Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Writing in 1929, Woolf discusses how problematic it is for "regular" male authors to discuss women's subjects. She points out that the male ego ("The Shadow of ‘I’) is prevalent on every page, making it obvious—and subsequently oppressive—that it is a man opining.

Yet, that failing is not pre-ordained—if the author is conscious of its possibility.

Consider John le Carré’s book. While most of his work concerns male spies, his oeuvre deals with men of emotion and thought. George Smiley is a ruthless spymaster, but the opposite of everything we have been conditioned to expect from a male lead. Smiley is preternaturally quiet and placid. He has depths of sensitivity that enable him to prevail precisely because he is NOT a man of action.

In fact, the care with which Smiley is written convinces me that le Carre wrote with Coleridge's "Androgynous Mind"—or as Woolf suggests, man-womanly or woman-manly. Le Carre uses both halves of his mind. He expresses human emotions in a non-gendered manner, to brilliant results.

I am conversant with both sides of my mind—the male and the female. As such, I believe that the work that grows on my computer is an organic result of both parts of me.

Not all writing about a female character needs to be structured in soft, gentle, and other commonly established (by men?) feminine characteristics. However, for any writing to be meaningful, the gendered natures of the actions must be erased. If Darcy throws a crystal decanter into the fireplace...is his expression of anger more acceptable than when Caroline Bingley smashes a vase against her sitting room wall? Is Caroline being a virago while Darcy is a man in extremis?

Consider how Annie Reynolds surprises Henry Wilson and General Fitzwilliam in The Maid and The Footman by suggesting actions more suitably proposed by a man.

“We cannot allow Miss Margaret to drink anything prepared by Winters’ hand. I think you understand what I am saying, my Lord.”

Fitzwilliam’s eyes widened. He whistled below his breath and said, “Sergeant, take this woman’s words to heart. They say that the female of the species is deadlier. Your Miss Reynolds has just argued that we ourselves must drug the child tomorrow evening.” (M&F, Ch. 18)

Conversely, 6’ 3” Henry Wilson drops to his knees and screams in anguish moments after Annie takes matters into her own hands and dives upon the sword held by an existential threat to the British nation.

“Great cris de coeur shook the big man. He could feel the slickness that had spread through her gown. He knew that if it were daylight his hands would be stained, covered as they were with the seep that had enveloped her body.” (M&F, Ch. 25)

We might look at either set of actions through gendered lenses—yet is Annie Reynolds acting manly and Henry Wilson womanly? Or are they taking the best and most humanly expressive paths for their characters?

I cannot answer whether or not it is easier for a woman to write woman-manly. I can argue that it is difficult for me, a male author, to set aside my decades of immersion in the socially-constructed discourse that asserts that men who act with bluster and loudness are being assertive, but that a woman who does the same is being shrill and a B#@%&. The voices ingrained in us can stand in the way of the truthful development of the characters we populate our stories.

I can only hope that I successfully step beyond the socially constructed fences to normalize and explain the unfamiliar. It will be up to you, dear readers, to decide my success or failure.

&&&&

In Ghost Flight: A World War II Pride and Prejudice Variation, I counted upon readers being able to set aside their preconceived notions of a Regency tale in favor of the structures that would shape a story set in 1944 Europe. After Elizabeth told the colonel she wanted to join the Special Operations Executive to kill Nazis, she went through training to turn her into a deadly operator fighting to survive in Occupied France. Darcy was a maimed warrior who gladly accepted SOE’s offer to coordinate with the Resistance in Normandy.

This excerpt refers to how Darcy and Elizabeth played off gendered notions in their escape.

Use this link worldwide for the novel:

https://mybook.to/GhostFlightPandPVar

&&&&

This excerpt from “Ghost Flight: A World War II Pride and Prejudice Variation” is ©2025 by Donald P. Jacobson. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America.

Chapter Fifty-four

Von Wattenwyl House, Bern, Switzerland, June 5, 1944

The housekeeper led Darcy and Elizabeth from the streetside twilight and through a first-floor darkened by drawn drapes. Wall sconces cast yellow pools on richly stained balustrades and floorboards. To the couple, this was not unusual. Blackouts had been part of their lives in Britain and France for five years.

In neutral Switzerland, though, there were no restrictions about showing lights after dark. Walking from the train station across town toward the great cathedral and Herrengasse 23, they passed cafés and restaurants packed with patrons enjoying their evening meal. Music and wine flowed in a city untouched by war.

Perhaps the nature of their host’s business required circumspection. Uncovered windows might invite scrutiny from the wrong kind of people, although neither doubted their arrival had gone unnoticed by Axis agents. After all, while the American equivalent of SOE—the Office of Strategic Services—conducted its business in the dark, the fact that Allen Dulles was OSS’s chief European coordinator was no secret. And, they had been summoned to Bern by Dulles as soon as they stepped onto Swiss soil in a message handed to them by a nondescript man wearing a black suit concealed beneath a dark mackintosh. Their trusty bicycles leaned against the outer wall of the Basel train station, left for someone who needed them more.[i]

The factotum knocked on a door, and a muffled voice bade them to enter.

A bespoke suit modestly hugged a prosperously built frame, appropriate for a gentleman in his early fifties, but not so padded as to suggest indulgence in unseemly tastes. Ice-blue eyes, enhanced by frameless spectacles, perpetually dissected the world or, in this instance, visitors. His face, although distinguished by a well-trimmed mustache, was not remarkable, well-suited for a lawyer, diplomat, or spy. The paneled room was a study, classroom, confessional, and lair. Allen Dulles had long inhabited the back corridors of power, aligning his interests with those of the nation while sending men and women into thickets filled with piercing thorns.

For all the danger he could command, Dulles impressed less as chief saboteur—Darcy doubted the man had ever used a weapon in malice except on a pheasant—and more like an Oxford don meeting students for their tutorial in Medieval Literature.

The director closed the buff-covered folder he had been reading and meticulously placed it on a stack of similar dossiers. Although General Donovan had tasked him with creating the same chaos as SOE, Dulles’s demeanor was orderly, that of a planner, not someone who would go off half-cocked. He was a collector of information and people, a human calculator who found solutions for his missions in the legions of bodies populating his world’s gray realm.[ii]

Dulles stood and pointed toward three leather-covered armchairs grouped around a mahogany occasional table. As Elizabeth and Darcy sat, Dulles caught their eye, lifted the pipe he caressed, and raised an eyebrow. Elizabeth chuckled and looked at Darcy, who nodded in response. The idea that the OSS’s European chief would ask permission of two lowly agents in such a courtly way was instantly disarming and pulled worry’s fangs. Permission given, the gentleman lit the pipe and enveloped the three in an aromatic cloud.

This meeting was his to open. Dulles’s voice was well modulated, showing his Princeton education, not plummy with affectation. “You may wonder why you, our ally’s people, have been brought before your Cousin Jonathan. I have always found amusing the distaste some in your aristocracy have for those who would get their hands dirty in their country’s service.”

“The disdain for gentlemen,” he looked apologetically at Elizabeth, “who read other gentlemen’s mail has lost more wars than it saved reputations for proper behavior.”

While Dulles continued his preamble, the couple sat neither at attention nor at ease. “Many long-term diplomats hold tight to antiquated notions of behavior. They are more suited to morning suits and winged collars. They refuse to entertain innovative ideas.

“For you Brits, the Bern posting is not unlike Madrid, important, indeed, but not demanding a man blessed with great ability. It’s ideal to turf out someone with inconvenient inclinations, such as appeasement. Sir Clifford Norton is a gentleman of the first order. He, though, is not an operator who could be counted upon to do more than appear at the Swiss President’s yearly reception for ambassadors and their wives.

“Sir Clifford categorically refuses to allow any representatives of Churchill’s Bureau of Ungentlemanly Warfare in his demesne. Thus, London has deemed it expedient to ask OSS to coordinate SOE’s bomb-throwing here in Central Europe while MI-6 engages in more traditional espionage.

“Your exploits over the past week intrigued me, so I exercised my prerogative to ask you to visit.”

Dulles pulled in a smoky lungful before releasing it in a great puff. “My ambassador also craves some distance from our activities. Hence, I receive you at my apartment rather than the embassy. Oh, the diplomatic pouch is mine for longer reports, and the radio room ensures that only the General reads my mail and I his.”

He set his pipe in a cut-crystal ashtray. The lawyer’s tone shifted from declamation to command. Dulles could not have been more direct if he had been Fighter Command’s Air Vice Marshal Park at 11 Group ordering his squadrons to fly one more sortie into the far blue four years ago. “Now that I have prepared the ground and before I call for refreshments, fill in the blanks inconveniently left in the file sent to me when we knew you were coming.”

The pair snapped to, with each detailing specific activities undertaken out of the other’s sight—Darcy's arrival, his recent meeting with Preacher, Elizabeth's movements around the Auge, and the night on Winter when she was wounded. They canvassed the reasons behind creating a romantic relationship between Héloïse and Will. If he could see that fiction had since become a reality, the OSS chieftain said nothing. Instead, his questions looked for nuance and clarity. His lack of curiosity about their assignments intentionally avoided minutiæ. Dulles wanted the broad view rather than a focus on individual brushstrokes.

The American smiled when Darcy and Elizabeth mentioned the multitude of Schmidts throughout the Alsatian highlands who had rendered them aid and comfort. His blue eyes assumed a Nordic, glacial quality when they reflected on yesterday’s events. “That you are sitting here and not in Mulhouse’s cells says the elimination remains hidden and that these Hemsaths are trustworthy.

“Based upon what you’ve said, the wing commander found his cycling legs, or at least enough to make it the last miles to the border. Tell me about the crossing.”

Elizabeth grinned. “Oddly, sir, I did not feel much fear. By then, we had endured every circumstance—fair or foul—short of Biblical plagues. Our papers withstood multiple inspections at Wehrmacht checkpoints and by the Milice. We were secure in our legends.

“Our only fear this morning was that the invasion would have started before we could cross.”

Darcy slid in. “However, that worry fell by the wayside after about nine o’clock. Even though we are both RAF, we know the Navy would rather approach a coast and launch boats in the dark.”

Dulles grunted. “Invasion timing is half science and half magic. It's best to hit the enemy when their energy is low, usually just before dawn. Mid-morning is too late.”

“And at the border?” he prompted.

Darcy nodded. “We both took on our personas—me, the bluff and breezy Irish smuggler, and Elizabeth, Héloïse...”

Lizzy adopted a wide-eyed innocence and peppered her English with a broad, pouty French accent. “Oooh, M’sieur Dull-eeze, my ’ead ees one or two feathers short of being a complet fluff brain. My ’oosband knows everything I need to know. Anything more, and you weel ’ave to ask ’eem.”

“My pianist ought to be treading the boards in Covent Garden.” Darcy looked admiringly at Elizabeth, “If anyone can act contrary to character better than her, I have yet to meet them.

“We have been playing to the German and French prejudices about women—not in Lisieux, of course, because Héloïse Lopinat built a reputation for shrewdness. Strasbourg’s Bicycle Schmidt saw behind her mask. The Gestapo in Altkirch took one look at her vacant, if pretty, face, ignored her, and concentrated on me.”

Dulles looked at the bandage wrapping Darcy’s pate. “How did you explain your injury?”

Darcy smiled. “I stuck to a version of the truth. I will never make friends with a bicycle. I told them I had taken a header when I caught my front wheel in a rut. My limp is real, but I may have winced a bit more theatrically when I moved. I must have laid it on just right because they never looked twice at my skull.

“Once satisfied, I got them to countersign von Ribbentrop’s travel documents.”

Elizabeth added, “The Gestapo almost pulled their guns to have the pride of position to lay their signature next to that of one of Hitler’s circle. We ended up with three signatures once they decided on the pecking order.

“We played on their expectations of fugitives. Anyone dodgy would want to hide their papers and sneak through quickly. Once we approached the checkpoint, William sought out the highest-ranking officer he could find—a major, I think—and showed him our documents. Darcy’s humble request, sweetened by one hundred Reichsmarks, that he assist us at the crossing was contrary to a spy’s assumed behavior.

“Who does that?”

Dulles smiled in admiration. “A VC, apparently. Fortune favors the bold, something my boss, General Donovan, is aware of. You acted like a German industrialist with a gold party pin stuck in his lapel. Everybody was there to serve you. The jackal allows the lion his portion.

“I have a clear picture of this caper. We must toast your safe arrival. I hear from the North that you favor a fine Alsatian, well-chilled, unless, of course, you require greater fortification?”

***

Both Darcy and Elizabeth assured Mr. Dulles that the wine was sufficient. A wry smile twitched his lips as he retreated to his desk and pushed a button. Returning to his seat as the door opened, he said, “Please place the tray on the table.”

A friendly accent filled the room. “The Americans claim they have no aristocrats. Who but a member of the, how do you term it, the White Anglo-Saxon Patriarchy would insist that a lieutenant colonel play barman?”

The raspy voice brought Elizabeth and Darcy to their feet with exclamations of “Preacher! Richard!”

“That’s WASP to you, Preacher. Leave the wine and pull up a pew, Colonel Barraclough,” ordered Dulles. “Our travelers may find it wearisome to turn their heads constantly.”

Lizzy’s demure kiss on Fitzwilliam’s cheek replaced Darcy’s bear hug. Dulles poured four glasses and handed one to his guests before relaxing behind an elegantly crossed leg whose cuff slid up to reveal a blue silk stocking.

Fitzwilliam smiled at his cousin and Elizabeth. “You two are a sight for sore eyes. Your escape will become the stuff of legend, taught at The Nursery and The Farm for years!”

Darcy cast a chary eye at the colonel. “How do you know the ins and outs of our hegira?”

“If Mr. Dulles will not object,” Richard looked at the older man, who shrugged his assent, “I heard every word. That painting of Reichenbach Falls adjacent to the door is a scrim. On the other side is a dark alcove. Someone—me, for instance—can hide there and overhear conversations in the study.”[iii]

Dulles raised an eyebrow. “The original owners would use trusted servants to transcribe private exchanges. In our business, an extra pair of ears can be useful. A true copy of something only ‘known’ by two people can be invaluable.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Our American friend is like one of those Russian nested dolls. There is always something hidden.”

She turned to Fitzwilliam. “I heard Darcy’s slip. He called you Richard. Since this must be the highest council of the hidden war, ought we not be formally introduced?”

Darcy lifted his eyebrows and looked innocent. “I agree with Elizabeth. We are long past compromising operational security. Elizabeth and I are away from the tender ministrations of either the Gestapo or the Abwehr. Mr. Dulles is, I am sure, fully versed about your childhood illnesses and the name of your first pony.”

With a moue, Preacher bowed to the inevitable. “Miss Bennet, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Lieutenant Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, and I am the cousin of that disreputable son of Derbyshire.

“We are treading on safe ground, as you noted. You have both done your bit and will not be ordered into the field again.

“Darcy, you have been promoted to Group Captain and placed on the Retired-Injured list. You will have enough to deal with once the government explains that your premature death was an unfortunate mistake, one of those ‘fog of war’ things.

“We have ample pilots and volunteers to man Ghost Flights.”

Darcy’s broad smile split his tan. “I would love to strap on a Mosquito just once.”

Fitzwilliam scanned a dyspeptic expression. “I think the King would be most irritated if one of his earls tempted Fate and pranged a kite going four hundred knots! Leave the flying to the youngsters.

“And, lest you look at me like Dorothy did at the Wizard, I have something in my bag for you, Bennet. You have been awarded the DSO and promoted to Squadron Officer, which means you outrank your sister. You, too, will leave active service, perhaps to give occasional lectures in Kent. I think you have grown far beyond flight controller duties.”

Héloïse giggled before Elizabeth spoke. “My sister, Lydia, is always going on about precedence when entering the dining room. A Squadron Officer even trumps my father’s army captain.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Colonel, His Majesty pins on the DSO, am I correct?” Fitzwilliam confirmed that. Elizabeth reddened. “Oh my! Mama will be beside herself knowing that a trip to the Palace is in the offing!”

The quartet smiled, imagining how their mothers would have burst their corsets in pride if their king or president had recognized their child.

Empty goblets floated. Dulles glanced at his wristwatch. “Mr. Darcy, Miss Bennet: our business here is complete.

“The colonel was correct that you have both retired from the field with honor. The conflict, though, is less than fifty miles away, so you must make good your escape by returning to England.

“Switzerland, our little haven where spies of different countries may sit at adjacent restaurant tables or attend the same reception without plunging knives into one another, is no different than other neutral states. Everyone knows everyone’s business.

“You could remain here to recover, but our friends from the north might be inclined to forget their manners and use you as an example of their spite’s reach. I would be surprised if they identify you so soon after the Fitzgeralds departed their thousand-year paradise. However, I would not want to leave anything to chance.

“Outside this office or our limited company, you must maintain your cover until you go feet dry in England.

“Enjoy the evening. You have busy days ahead of you. Colonel Fitzwilliam and I have some other matters to address.”

Dulles handed Darcy an envelope. “The Hotel Goldener Schlüssel is quite pretty, old school gingerbread and all that. Our security people like it. I took the liberty of reserving a room for you.”

Preacher smiled. “I have your British passports. If you resolve matters, as I imagine you will, meet me at the embassy in the morning, where we can put them to good use. I can offer a service that provides some compensation for earlier inconveniences.

“Go now. Enjoy your dinner before you must endure that classic oxymoron, English cuisine, next week.

“And talk.”

***

As the door clicked shut, Dulles glanced at Preacher. “You suspect what I do?”

Richard smiled. “Oh yes. The question is, though, do they?

“And if they do, what will they do about it?”

---

[i] Allen Welsh Dulles (1893-1969) was the son of a Presbyterian Minister and part of a family of diplomats and lawyers who served the United States government from the latter half of the Nineteenth Century into the middle of the Twentieth Century. He served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1951 to 1961.

[ii] William “Wild Bill” Donovan had been named to head the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Donovan had been awarded the Medal of Honor in World War I.

[iii] This was inspired by a similar device used by American detective Nero Wolfe in Rex Stout’s books.