To have just realised that Mr Collins got Mrs Collins in the family way.

[squoosh]

Have just re-read Pride & Prejudice for the first time in yonks and at the end Mr Collins mentions 'dear Charlotte’s situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. How had I not noticed that before?

I'd always imagined dear Charlotte avoiding that messy business by keeping him occupied with his sermon writing and his gardening and his pash on Lady Catherine.

But she was a woman who knew what she wanted so I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who took conjugal matters in hand.

Good old P&P, the book that keeps on giving.

For those mentioning David Bamber as the 'original' Mr Collins - I give you THE original BBC Mr Collins from the 1980 version - Malcolm Rennie.

Physically he was closer in appearance to JA's Mr Collins but as usual - too old. He was far more pompous than slimy like David Bamber.

For me the 1980 version was leagues better than the Colin Firth version, which I loathed. The casting was near perfect, though good lord, it looks dated now. You can see the walls wobbling when someone closes a door!

I hated the casting of the 1995 version, especially Jennifer Ehle, who was far too arch and smug, and Alison Steadman who shrieked her way through all her scenes.

There's theoretical idea and then theres knowledge abfab - different

I wasn't born when the 1980 version was screened

How's that for arch and smug?

takes criticism of 1995 masterpiece personally

Alison Steadman is on my dream dinner party guest list. 🍷🍷🍷🍾

dear lord, that makes me feel old - I was pregnant when I was watching the 1980's version .....

Oh a clutch of children all in a tight run, then no more, was common enough.

I've just had a look at some of my trees. My gt-gt-gt-gt-grandmother had her 5 DC from 1793 to 1800. And my gt-gt-grandmother a similar run 80 years later.

Of course for broods of 10 children, a 25 year spread is common. One every year or two to start, then more sparse. But obviously, we only see the survivors...

Something that's long puzzled me about birth control in JA.

When Mrs Jennings learns that Edward has been cut off by his mother for his engagement to Lucy, and will be poor, she exclaims, "Then they will have a child every year!"

Eh? Does she mean Edward wouldn't have so many children as son and heir? What's that about?

The thing I don't get is how when Edward is cut off for being engaged to Lucy, Robert marries Lucy yet still inherits it's a huge plothole.

Maybe if they are poor it's because they won't have separate bedrooms?

Anyway Sense and Sensibility chat is over in the Reading Circle now,

Are you a Lady Mr Feynman?

Ai am on mai refained way over to join you Ladies as I type, Every. Ai merly wait upon the arrival of mai coachman.

merely, even

Songbird- Mrs Ferrars had intended to settle property worth £1000 a year on Edward when he married Miss Morton. When she found out about his engagement to Lucy, she settled the estate on Robert instead.That meant Robert had an independent income which his mother couldn't cut off when he married Lucy.

Who the hell is Miss Morton????????????????????

Mind you I last read S and S 16 years ago

But if he was secretly engaged to Miss Steele but had Miss Morton on the go, what the fuck did he think he was doing raising Miss Dashwood's hopes?

Cad.

That's bloody Hugh Grant for you!

The Hon.Miss Morton was the only daughter of the late Lord Morton, who had thirty thousand pounds. Mrs Ferrars wanted Edward to marry her, Edward didn't want to, but presumably didn't have the courage to tell his mother.

Noooo! Edward had no interest in Miss Morton at ALL. That was all his mother's flannel.

And when the revelations of Lucy burst forth, she thought then of Robert's marrying Miss Morton.

Ha! And what did that come to, yer scheming, manipulative little snob?

As for Edward having lots of children if he's poor - 1. Same bedroom. 2. Poor people had less ability to control their urges - being refined gave one more self control, obviously. 3. If you can't afford servants & dinner parties, you have to find your entertainment elsewhere.

I interpret Mrs Jennings comment about the ten children as being a 'sod's law' sort of comment. Everything will go wrong, they'll have nothing to live on and they'll probably end up with ten children to feed! I don't think it's a rationale comment about the likelihood of children vs income, just now he's made a 'bad' decision everything's bound to go to the dogs.

Re GWTW & Melanie. I guess the miscarriage and infection makes sense. I just assumed she'd died during the miscarriage but thinking about it she could have had that before & only when the resulting infection started did she actually appear Ill. She certainly had some sort of ongoing gyno problem though as there's mention of doctors bills. Probably as a PP mentions, damage from the birth that never heals. Totally agree that Ashley was an awful drip!

On the "is Lizzie a suitable chatelaine for Pemberly" question, where she has an advantage is in having a already-competent household that understands how to run things, even when Darcy is away, or distracted. And the housekeeper, who has quite a measure of power, likes Darcy, very much. Unless Lizzie actively sets out to antagonise her, which seems unlikely, she has ready-made allies who will help her take the reins, and the house won't fall apart in the meantime.

And Lizzie has shown, above all, that while she can be impetuous and passionate, she is also pretty grounded in the realities of society life. Unlike most of the rest of her family, she understands what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. She may not have been born to it (quite like Bingley's recent ancestors may not have been born to it), but she's perfectly capable of learning.

Songbird not a plot hole - S&S is very much a novel about primogeniture and inheritance, and the power of the older generation to control their dependents. John Dashwood's inheritance of Norland is an important framing device, but what's interesting is how the male characters behave under the same system.

When Willoughby is disinherited by his aunt, he immediately makes it his business to find a rich wife and marries Miss Grey for her fifty thousand pounds. Meanwhile, Edward honours his engagement to Miss Steele when he is disinherited; the irony that Robert later gets both his mother's settlement and Lucy is, I think, a wry comment on the hypocrisy of such a system. Edward is only able to marry once Colonel B offers him the parish at Delaford. Really, the young men in the novel aren't much less powerless than the Dashwood women but their behaviour in these situations shows us who is the more honourable, and worthy of our heroines.

As an aside, if you haven't seen the 2008 BBC S&S then I do recommend it. It isn't perfect but David Morrissey as Colonel Brandon is most satisfactory.

I think it's easy to just view women from that era through the lens that the society of the time viewed them.

So middle class women like the Bennett and Bingley sisters are 'accomplished' because they can sing and sew and paint, and have something altogether in their manner, etc, etc. The temptation is just to write them off as air heads, effectively - not educated, or good for anything actually useful or productive.

But Lizzy is obviously a sensible, capable women. She may not have been raised explicitly to be mistress of a great estate, and taking that role on would have been a steep learning curve. But hardly beyond the realms of possibility. I think she would've thrived on it. Way more satisfying than wandering around Longbourne embroidering and drying flowers.

Great thread, and many thanks to many posters.

My own theory on Mrs B's failure to go on producing is that she had an infection after popping out No5 which wasn't bad enough to kill her but left her infertile.

I've just finished reading Longbourne, I cried. It was lovely!

I think that once they both knew there wasn't going to be another baby, they stopped sharing a bed.

Did see BBC s and s but oddly have very low recollection didn't remember it was David Morrissey and i loves a bit of David Morissey

Sorry to leap forward in time, but I'm reading Dorothy L Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon - where Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane joke spoiler alert go on their honeymoon. I was quite sad in a way that they have separate rooms set up straightaway, rather than it just being assumed that they will generally sleep together. Obviously that's just what was done with people of that class (I'd guess?), and they are very much in love and choose to sleep in the same room anyway, but - you know. It's weird to read that now.