Beyond Pride and Prejudice : Lydia’s Lives

From an early age – a very early age – Lydia, the youngest of the five Bennet sisters, was suspected by the neighbours of being the naughtiest member of the Bennet family. The recent discoveries of her memoirs, diaries and other documents have shown their suspicions were not entirely without foundation. Elizabeth Bennet settled for tall, handsome and wealthy Darcy. For sister Jane it was Mr Bingley – first, last and always. Lydia was not so easily satisfied. She had a wider world to explore and conquer. In the first volume of Lydia’s Lives the hot-blooded, warm-hearted Lydia proves that being naughty as well as nice (spiced with a little luck) can lead to good fortune – not the gallows as predicted by so many kindly neighbours. At 16 she and Wickham enjoy wedded bliss without benefit of clergy. Lydia celebrates her 18th birthday with Napoleon in Paris and two days later meets the Duke of Wellington in Brussels. (The Duke, who was invigorated by the very brief affair with his young countrywoman, went on to defeat the French leader. Napoleon, for whom the encounter in Paris was not brief, was said by his aides to be physically weary and mentally distracted throughout the battle of Waterloo – as though his thoughts were constantly elsewhere). And those were just the early days …. in Lydia’s Lives.