A: I always knew I was going to write Brontë’s Mistress in first person. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is written in the first person, and my novel is in some ways an answer to hers. Jane is poor, plain, young, and virginal. Lydia is wealthy, beautiful, older, and sexually experienced. But both characters have limited options open to them just because of their gender.
Because Lydia has so often been blamed for Branwell Brontë’s demise, I thought it was important for readers to understand her position (even if they don’t always agree with her actions). Lydia can be incredibly selfish. For instance when any of her servants are ill, she thinks first of the inconvenience to her. And she can be blind to just how good her life is (e.g., she compares herself to a slave going to the galleys when forced to endure an awkward Easter luncheon!).
But many people, whether they admit it or not, spend their lives obsessing over the petty and failing to see the bigger picture. In the last chapter, Lydia says, “There were women from here to England, crying over curtain fabric.” Curtain fabric isn’t just curtain fabric: it’s being trapped in a system where women have no property, power, or recourse to divorce and limited, superficial education. Flawed as Lydia is, I have empathy for her impossible position, and I hope others do too.
Q: Do you have any favorite books or movies that inspired you as you were writing Brontë’s Mistress?
A: I was of course inspired by the works of the Brontë sisters in writing the novel, especially Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, which was based in part on her time working at Thorp Green Hall, and Charlotte Brontë’s iconic Jane Eyre. Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina were important models for literary adulteresses. And I was also inspired by nineteenth-century American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and by the 2016 film Lady Macbeth, both of which deal with the psychological impact of women’s limited choices during the Victorian period.
Q: Do you have a next project in mind? If so, can you share anything about it?
A: I am working on a new book! It’s also historical fiction, but set during a different time period and in a different country from Brontë’s Mistress, which has been a fun challenge. In both novels, I was inspired by the true stories of real women, though in this case, my main character was an artist in her own right, unlike Lydia.
More in Historical Fiction
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The Kitchen House
Gone with the Wind
The Accidental Empress
The German Girl
The Dovekeepers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FINOLA AUSTIN, ALSO KNOWN as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland–raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the nineteenth century. By day, she works in digital advertising. Find her online at www.finolaaustin.com and www.secretvictorianist.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Finola Austin
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First Atria Books hardcover edition August 2020
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Jacket design by Kerri Resnick
Jacket painting: De Agostini Picture Library/D. Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images; Getty Images (background)
Author photograph by Nina Subin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN 978-1-9821-3723-6
ISBN 978-1-9821-3725-0 (ebook)
Bronte's Mistress Page 30