Sunday, September 11, 2011

Ten of the best housekeepers in fiction

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best housekeepers in literature.

One entry on the list:
Mrs Reynolds

"What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?" Elizabeth Bennet asks herself in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She knows that she has got Mr Darcy very wrong when she is shown around his Derbyshire home by his housekeeper, Mrs Reynolds, and is compelled to listen to a list of his virtues. Can this be the tyrant she thought she knew?
Read about another housekeeper on the list.

Pride and Prejudice also appears on Simon Mason's top ten list of fictional families, Catghy Cassidy top ten list of stories about sisters, Paul Murray's top ten list of wicked clerics, John Mullan's lists of ten great novels with terrible original titles and ten of the best visits to Brighton in literature, Luke Leitch's top ten list of the most successful literary sequels ever, and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Norman Mailer. Richard Price has never read it, but it is the book Mary Gordon cares most about sharing with her children.

The Page 99 Test: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

--Marshal Zeringue