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When it comes to women, Charles Dickens could only present the eccentric, the imbecile or the shrew, said the Victorian writer George Gissing, a trifle tartly, though with perhaps a modicum of accuracy.

But there is more to Dickens’ challenging, smart, and yes, deranged women, who suffer in various ways.

They know they are victims of other people’s actions, of society’s expectations or of their own desires, but cannot find a way of dealing with this knowledge other than becoming trapped in a pattern of destructive behaviour.

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Jane Austen’s Flawed Women

So, Caroline Bingley, you’re a privately-educated, good-looking posh girl and you’ve inherited a bit of dosh, £20,000 to be exact, which might be a lot of money for the time, but actually not quite enough to enable you to live the high life.

You and your family are at the top of the social tree in your home town area in the North of England, but you know you’re not quite top rank, not like Darcy, for example. But he’s the one your sights are set on. You’ve got it all worked out. You and Darcy, and your brother Charles and Darcy’s sister. Double wedding, maybe?

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Think Lizzie: It takes a while but even Lizzie Bennet comes to realise that George Wickham is a lying bounder

It may not be a truth, and it may not be universally acknowledged, but I have a growing feeling that things in Pride and Prejudice aren’t quite what they seem.

Not only do the characters we are directed to despise and ridicule evoke some grains of sympathy, but those we are led to like and admire also aren’t always what they are cracked up to be.

I’m talking about you, Elizabeth Bennet. Yes, your faults are presented charmingly and we enjoy watching you learn not to judge too hastily, and we are delighted when you are rewarded with the alpha-male, but, you know, there are a few things along the way that remain unresolved.

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Hats off to Retro Reads

Enid Blyton School Stories

The category of musical ‘guilty pleasures’ is something of a misnomer. The lists of songs we can’t quite admit to loving contain some classic and cult gems which we are, in fact, proud to hold dear.

Brian Protheroe’s quirky, noir-ish Pinball, anyone? Or Carole Bayer Sager’s cheeky, offbeat, You’re Moving Out Today? They don’t belong anywhere in the ‘so bad they’re good’ field. They’re ultimately cool.

But with books, it’s a little bit different. Some writers are just irredeemably uncool, and Enid Blyton has always been one of them. Not that we realised it at the time.

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In our English class at school, we studied an anthology of poetry called Rhyme and Reason, edited by Denys Thompson and Raymond O’Malley.

In retrospect, the book was packed with a wonderful variety of poems, some of which I can still recite by heart. At the time, of course, we didn’t appreciate the richness we were being offered, and grudgingly worked our way through the sections – Countryside and the Seasons (yawn), Time and Mortality (who, us?), Love Poetry (not a pop lyric in sight).

Then we came to the selection of war poems. We read the first line, ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks’, and stillness descended as we read the whole of Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’.

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What do you do when you are the plain, dull, unimaginative and socially awkward one of five sisters, the one most likely to be overlooked and dismissed not only by your family but also by any eligible movers and shakers in your social circle?

You could sink quietly into the corner, resigned to your lot as an invisible woman, or you could throw yourself into developing skills and attributes which will bring you some recognition.

Mary Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Perjudice chooses the latter course, immersing herself in the study of books, music and human nature. And much good it does her.

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