Historical Context in The Bennet Wardrobe
Nuance to create the world in which the characters exist--and which they know
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Jane Austen was a young lady and, later a mature woman, of her time. Like most authors, Austen’s work rose from a clear understanding of the social milieu that had begun to mature by the time the industrialization of Great Britain was entering its second half-century at about 1805. As such, Austen was writing for an equally-informed audience, albeit one that was awfully content to cling to the old ways.
Every one of the Canonical books is informed by their own historical contexts. The history was not necessarily overt but was akin to the wash a painter applies to the canvas prior to beginning work.
In Pride and Prejudice variations, while he is seeking to become a gentleman by purchasing an estate, Bingley, nonetheless, retains ownership of his textile mills because the British Army needed uniforms, tents, and other woven goods. Pemberley (in both the Canon and #Austenesque works) was a money machine for Darcy because the price of grain was skyrocketing as that same army demanded food. Captain Wentworth ranged the high seas seizing French warships (when captured would be bought into the British navy with a two-eighths bounty going to the captain) and Spanish gold. Colonel Fitzwilliam was often off-stage fighting Napoleon’s hordes. The Bertram fortune, rooted in sugar grew, exponentially as rum was the easiest way to concentrate and transport sugar from the Carib. The British Navy consumed an immense amount of rum…and likewise did the general population when not imbibing street-corner gin (there is a reason why gin is flavored with juniper). The Methodist Dissent runs throughout the background whenever a young, but sensible, clergyman appears.
As a historian, I habitually seek to establish context to add a deeper layer of understanding to events and personalities. Thus, when I began to compose the Bennet Wardrobe stories, it was a natural activity to utilize historical references to establish the meaning of character motives and actions.
For instance, while I could have had Mary find her own way to grow beyond the moralizing woman, I preferred to have her emerge by reading Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In the climax of her book—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey—the 1819’s Peterloo Massacre reshaped both Mary and Lydia’s lives
One of my favorite scenes from both The Keeper and The Countess Visits Longbourn has Kitty as an elderly lady addressing Georgiana Darcy in the chocolaterie of two French émigrés. She mentions the Deauville of 1812…a Breton resort that will grow over the next 150 years. Again, a bit of context that resonates throughout the next five books.
Historical personages also can be found throughout the books. From Pierre-Auguste and Aline Renoir to Sigmund Freud in Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque to Lord Byron, Mary Godwin, and Percy Shelley in Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess, those who stood astride the times logically join in our story to help advance the plot and allow the characters to grow.
My most audacious insertion of historical figures appears in The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament. From the United States High Commissioner overseeing the American Zone of Occupation, General Lucius Clay, to the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Winston S. Churchill, key historical figures offer context to forward the deeper—and often noir—themes of the broader story. I have also appropriated a hero of the hidden war, the famous SOE agent Miss Eileen Nearne, to be a love interest in the novel. Finally, a few royal personages play an important role in my little drama.
In the seventh book, I offer a fictionalized appreciation of the Occupation of France (1940-44). The final book offers a scene changer (required to extend the Zen parallels of the Series) when the entire clan hies off to the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
As part of the world-building, I ask readers to suspend disbelief and accept that the Universe of the Wardrobe is a loose parallel to the reality which we experience. I have adopted Robert A. Heinlein’s concept of solipsism which asserts that the act of writing fiction creates the universe in which the story exists as a reality: essentially, all myth is reality and all reality is myth.
Thus, readers will note a few references made by characters to “the biography of the Bennets written by Miss Austen.” I have chosen to treat Pride and Prejudice as a fictionalized account of persons—the Bennet Family, the Darcys, and the Bingleys—who truly existed. This allows Mrs. Bennet to carp about Pride and Prejudice in Chapter 30 of The Avenger:
“That impertinent Miss Austen who wrote of our family certainly did not help my cause in any manner: showing me in just one light, and the worst one, at that. Of course, she never met me and only drew her portrait based upon second-hand information, probably supplied by jealous mamas of the ton.”
I hope that my readers will allow my slight bending of some closely-held and loved notions about the Canon as The Bennet Wardrobe continues. I look forward to your comments.
Please enjoy this excerpt from The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy where a story about bourbon (yes, the spirit) is told.
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This excerpt from Chapter 24 of “The Grail: The Saving of Elizabeth Darcy” is ©2022 by Donald P. Jacobson. Any reproduction without the expressed written consent of the author or publisher, Meryton Press, is prohibited.
“Good evening, Johnson.” At Cornelius’s nod, Darcy reached into his topcoat’s tail pocket and produced a hip flask. “Bourbon. Mrs. Caroline vows it represents the pinnacle of the distiller’s art: aged ten years and supplied only to her and William Henry Harrison. I know the lady well, and I imagine this is one of her famous exaggerations.”
Cornelius laughed. “No, Darcy. Mrs. Caroline is not overstating the case. She and Mr. Tom used to travel down to Clermont in Kentucky to visit the Beam family and check on the barrels they’d bought years before and to purchase new ones right after they’d been sealed. I remember when Tippecanoe—that’s what they called the general, sort of like Jackson’s moniker Old Hickory—” He spat over the railing. “Forgive me, but after what Jackson pulled on the Five Tribes, I have to clean out my mouth whenever I say his name.[i]
“Anyway, Harrison breezes into the distillery just as Mrs. Caroline is marking her selection with a big chalk cross right on top of the bung. Harrison was fit to be tied because she had claimed his favorite, but earlier he had wandered off to sample some other whiskey in a different part of the warehouse. Being a bit of a high-horse sort of feller, he didn’t bother to mark any barrels, figuring he could have the pick of the litter because he was”—Johnson assumed a river minstrel cant—“Gen-ll Will-um Hen-ray Hair-i-son.”
After a quick chuckle, Cornelius continued. “Since you’ve been acquainted with Mrs. Caroline so long, you know that she can take the meat off a man and never nick the bone; Tom could not tell the story without laughing his fool head off. So, she informs Harrison in no uncertain terms that Johnson money was as good as his—better, in fact, because the Beams used Johnson boats to get their whiskey up to Pittsburgh and down to New Orleans.”
Cornelius straightened and peered down his nose. “The story always ended with Tom pretending he was Caroline. Putting on her best English accent, which had faded over the years, she scorched the general with those eyes of hers and said, ‘General Harrison, you may be a great killer of red savages, but this redhead is no savage. I did not fall off the turnip wagon yesterday. You were wandering around rather than attending to business. I placed my mark on that barrel. If you wish to enjoy it, visit Miami House in about six years.’”
Darcy gaped and then broke into a roar. He passed the flask to Johnson and waited his turn to drink the perfectly aged bourbon.
[i] Johnson is referencing the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears.