The Other Bennet Sister: the Janice Hadlow novel

Cover of the U.S. edition of The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, Holt Paperbacks, 2021. Image source: Bookshop.org

In Pride and Prejudice, Mary Bennet is the overlooked and scorned Bennet sister. Using the first edition as digitized by Project Gutenberg, I did a word count: Elizabeth is mentioned 768 times, including forms of her name such as Lizzy (used by family members), Eliza (used by Charlotte Lucas), and Miss Bennet (used by social acquaintances when Jane is not present); Jane is mentioned 331 times (including as Miss Bennet); Lydia, 171; Kitty (also as Catherine), 81; and Mary, a mere 37. While I make no claims for the absolute accuracy of these numbers, their relative magnitude is notable: Elizabeth is mentioned 20 times more than Mary.

On those rare occasions when Mary is referenced, the narrator's descriptions are not kind; words associated with her include "moraliz[ing]," "plain," "pedantic," "conceited," and "affected." She is the object of several cutting narratorial remarks. At her very first appearance, in fact, we learn that "Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how" (Vol. I, Ch. I). Later, we are told that she "piqued herself on the solidity of her reflections" (Vol. I, Ch. V); that her "vanity" (rather than her love for music) makes her "always impatient for display" although she "had neither genius or taste" (Vol. I, Ch. VI); and that "an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her" although her musical performances are greeted with "derision" by her younger sisters—hardly paragons of taste, but (like many teenagers before and since) unsympathetic connoisseurs of the ridiculous (Vol. I, Ch. XVIII).

When Jane and Elizabeth return home from Netherfield after Jane's illness, "They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough bass and human nature; and had some new extracts to admire, and some new observations of thread-bare morality to listen to" (Vol. I, Ch. XII). Later we hear an example of that threadbare morality when the Bennets learn that Lydia has eloped with Wickham, but there are no signs that a marriage has taken place. At the dinner table Mary says to Elizabeth,

"Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable—that one false step involves her in endless ruin—that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful,—and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex."

Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil before them. (Vol. III, Ch. V)

Mary's self-consolation is misplaced. Elizabeth understands that Lydia's "endless ruin" will encompass all of her sisters, who, due to the ineradicable stain of their sister's disgrace, will be viewed as pariahs by eligible men.

Janice Hadlow's brilliant conceit in The Other Bennet Sister (Henry Holt, 2020) is to view the action of Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the neglected, isolated, and awkward Mary. Hadlow's novel became the basis of the excellent 2026 BBC television series. Like the series, Hadlow's novel far exceeded my expectations: I thought it was well-structured, well-written and engaging, and would recommend it to readers open to imagining the lives of Austen's characters outside of the action of her novels. [1]

Janice Hadlow in 2013, when she was controller in charge of programming for BBC 2. Image source: BBC Radio 4

Inevitably, there are small and large differences between the novel and series. Some changes made for the series have the evident intention of heightening the drama which, in a visual medium, must be shown. Novels, of course, can give us greater access to the characters' thoughts and feelings, and it is in the relation of Mary's interior world that Hadlow's novel is most vividly imagined.

Among the more significant differences: in the novel Mary does not go to the Gardiners' house as governess to their children as she does in the series, and so there are no painful scenes of the "governess-trade" (as Jane Fairfax calls it in Austen's Emma). Tom Hayward's character in the novel is less awkward and more at ease in company, but still slow to express his feelings. The explanation of his reticence in the novel is not his understanding with another woman, as it is in the series, but rather his own feelings of constraint due to his precarious position as a barrister just starting his career.

The series aligns Tom strongly with Sense and Sensibility's Edward Ferrars, while the novel suggests parallels with another Austen hero, Captain Frederick Wentworth of Persuasion. Like Wentworth when he first meets Anne Elliot, Tom has "no hopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertain profession" (Persuasion, Ch. IV). It is only after the successful resolution of his first important case that Tom is in a financial and reputational position that would enable him to approach Mary as a suitor rather than a friend.

When Tom accompanies the Gardiners and Mary on their visit to the Lakes, he and Mary are drawn closer together, and she begins to anticipate, and hope, that he may make a declaration. But when they are joined by a party consisting of Tom's free-thinking friend William Ryder, together with Mary's nemesis Caroline Bingley, Caroline's snooty sister Mrs. Hurst and her sot of a husband, Tom withdraws emotionally and behaves towards Mary with greater coolness and reserve.

She is at a loss to understand why he has suddenly become more remote, but is determined to have the chance to find out by joining him and the others on a hike up the high peak of Scafell. Despite Mrs. Gardiner's repeated hints that she and Mary might be more comfortable remaining at the inn, having tea and reading books, "Mary was not to be persuaded" (p. 370). And it is on the expedition up Scafell that a bitter remark of Tom's about Ryder brings enlightenment to Mary about the reasons for Tom's change of manner:

As Mary stood watching him walk away, it burst upon her quite suddenly that Mr. Hayward was jealous—jealous of his friend. It was such an extraordinary idea that it took a moment for her to absorb it. At first it seemed preposterous, presumptuous even—who was she, after all, to imagine two men could feel strongly enough about her to arouse such a sensation?. . .But she could think of no other way to account for Mr. Hayward's behaviour over the past few days. His discomfort had been very marked when he had seen her in Mr. Ryder's company. His silent withdrawal when he met them walking from the inn—his obvious ill humour just now, so unlike his usual open, frank disposition—what else could it imply but displeasure with what he regarded as his friend's overtures to her? (p. 374)

Mary's thoughts, expressed in free indirect style, echo those of Persuasion's Anne Elliot when she attends a concert at the Bath Assembly Rooms in a family party that includes her cousin, William Elliot. Mr. Elliot pays her marked attentions, which are observed by an increasingly unhappy Captain Wentworth, who abruptly informs Anne that he is leaving the concert.

"Is not this song worth staying for?" said Anne, suddenly struck by an idea which made her yet more anxious to be encouraging.

"No!" he replied impressively, "there is nothing worth my staying for;" and he was gone directly.

Jealousy of Mr Elliot! It was the only intelligible motive. Captain Wentworth jealous of her affection! Could she have believed it a week ago; three hours ago! For a moment the gratification was exquisite. But, alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed. How was such jealousy to be quieted? How was the truth to reach him? How, in all the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he ever learn of her real sentiments? It was misery to think of Mr Elliot’s attentions. Their evil was incalculable. (Ch. XX)

The Other Bennet Sister is filled with allusions to Austen's novels, and to the 1995 BBC series of Pride and Prejudice adapted by Andrew Davies. (Hadlow's representation of the character of Mrs. Bennet in particular seems to draw significantly on the indelible performance of Alison Steadman in the 1995 series.) To my occasional annoyance, some famous passages in Pride and Prejudice are given weaker paraphrases in The Other Bennet Sister, and when they are recognizably quoted they are often placed in the mouths of different characters or given different meanings or contexts.

One example must serve for many. The opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice is one of the most famous in all English literature: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." In the 1995 BBC series Andrew Davies gives this line (shorn of the first phrase) to Elizabeth, who speaks it archly to her sisters as their mother informs Mr. Bennet of the arrival in their neighborhood of a rich unmarried man, Mr. Bingley. In The Other Bennet Sister, that first phrase missing from the 1995 series finds a place in a conversation between two other characters, and is given a different context: here it is asserted not that everyone knows that rich single men must be looking for marriage partners, but that women should not aspire to matches above their station:

"Confine yourself to your proper sphere, Miss Bennet. Do not trespass where you cannot hope to succeed. . .Presumption of that kind leads only to disappointment and humiliation where matters of the heart are concerned."

Mary had promised herself she would not allow Caroline Bingley to provoke her, that she would not sink to exchanging insults—but she could contain herself no longer. . .

"You seem to know a great deal about rejection. Is this a lesson you have learnt from extensive study? Or do you perhaps owe it to experience of a more personal nature?"

. . ."I speak only from what I have observed. It is a truth universally acknowledged, I believe." (p. 306) [2]

But these minor incongruencies with Austen's novel are, in the end, not too bothersome a flaw, and may be the author's way of signalling the reader not to expect any attempt at exact duplication of Austen's characters. What I said of the series—that it is "much more than a pastiche of characters and scenes from Austen"—is true also of the book. We follow Mary as she grows and takes chances she would not have dared before. And we see her learn the bitter lesson that it's not only true that, as her reading of Aristotle tells her, we can make our own happiness, but we can also, through misunderstanding and false pride, make our own misery. The Other Bennet Sister stands on its own as a nuanced and imaginative expansion of Austen's characters and their world.

For my post on the 2026 BBC series, please see The Other Bennet Sister.

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1. As I mention in my post on the BBC series (link immediately above), Jane Austen herself was not averse to imagining the continuing lives of her characters after the end of the novels—including Mary.
2. Of course, Mary's reference to Caroline's "extensive study" of romantic disappointment is a faint echo of a conversation among Darcy, Caroline Bingley and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice where Darcy asserts that in addition to dancing, drawing, music, and a smattering of French and Italian, a truly accomplished woman "must yet add something more substantial in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading” (Ch. VIII).