The Bennet Wardrobe Series by Don Jacobson

Lizzy gripped Mary's hands and began her speech."Now is the time for you. Heal now. Future only, my dearest sister."Mary Bennet has spent her entire life fighting to be herself. If only she knew just what that was. For years she buried her nose in the musty musing of Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women trying to be exceptional. She hid her light brown eyes-and herself-behind useless spectacles.With both Jane and Lizzy married, it is time for Miss Bennet to emerge from her cocoon... moreLizzy gripped Mary's hands and began her speech."Now is the time for you. Heal now. Future only, my dearest sister."Mary Bennet has spent her entire life fighting to be herself. If only she knew just what that was. For years she buried her nose in the musty musing of Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women trying to be exceptional. She hid her light brown eyes-and herself-behind useless spectacles.With both Jane and Lizzy married, it is time for Miss Bennet to emerge from her cocoon. Learn how a young woman of deep faith and inquisitive mind emerges. Yet, even as Mary Bennet overcomes her troubled teenage years, she is challenged by her sudden and total love for a man who mysteriously appears on the night of a great calamity. And his secret grows out of a remarkable device-The Bennet Wardrobe!The Keeper follows the life of Mary Bennet as she matures from the prosy, moralizing caricature found in Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice into a confident young woman looking to make her mark in the rapidly changing world of the Industrial Revolution. And, discover how the amazing Bennet Wardrobe makes life interesting for all Bennets.The Keeper is Volume One of the Bennet Wardrobe Series. The Bennet Wardrobe Series was named Best Series of 2017 by More Agreeably Engaged! less

Time is once again bent in 1883 as Viscount Henry Fitzwilliam, the heir to the Earldom of Matlock, uses the remarkable Bennet Wardrobe to seek his manhood through combat as suggested by his great friend, Theodore Roosevelt. But, as Henry’s Great Grandmother, Lydia Bennet Wickham Fitzwilliam, noted, “The Wardrobe has a strange sense of humor.” The lessons the young aristocrat learns are not the ones he expected... moreTime is once again bent in 1883 as Viscount Henry Fitzwilliam, the heir to the Earldom of Matlock, uses the remarkable Bennet Wardrobe to seek his manhood through combat as suggested by his great friend, Theodore Roosevelt. But, as Henry’s Great Grandmother, Lydia Bennet Wickham Fitzwilliam, noted, “The Wardrobe has a strange sense of humor.” The lessons the young aristocrat learns are not the ones he expected. Henry travels over 30 years into the future to land in the middle of the most awful conflict in human history—World War I. His brief time at the Front teaches him that there is no longer any room on the battlefield for heroic combat. Rather he discovers the horrors of “modern” warfare—the machine gun, high explosive artillery and poison gas—and the incredible waste of young men’s lives. But, it is his two weeks spent recuperating at the Beach House in Deauville, after being temporarily blinded by chlorine gas, that irrevocably changes his life forever. There he encounters an incredible woman, one who will define his near 10-year search for the love of his life after he returns to his own time. This novella grew from the author’s efforts to sketch the events that shaped the life of one of the central characters prior to his introduction in the upcoming work “The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque,” Volume II of The Bennet Wardrobe Series. less

Longbourn, December 1811. The day after Jane and Lizzy marry dawns especially cold for young Kitty Bennet. Called to Papa’s bookroom, she is faced with a resolute Mr. Bennet who intends to punish her complicity in her sister’s elopement. She will be sent packing to a seminary in far-off Cornwall. She reacts like any teenager chafing under the “burden” of parental rules—she throws a tantrum. In her fury, she slams her hands against the doors of The Bennet Wardrobe... moreLongbourn, December 1811. The day after Jane and Lizzy marry dawns especially cold for young Kitty Bennet. Called to Papa’s bookroom, she is faced with a resolute Mr. Bennet who intends to punish her complicity in her sister’s elopement. She will be sent packing to a seminary in far-off Cornwall. She reacts like any teenager chafing under the “burden” of parental rules—she throws a tantrum. In her fury, she slams her hands against the doors of The Bennet Wardrobe. Her heart’s desire? "I wish they were dead! Anywhere but Cornwall! Anywhere but here!"As Lydia later said, “The Wardrobe has a unique sense of humor.”London, May 1886. Seventeen-year-old Catherine Marie Bennet tumbles out of The Wardrobe at Matlock House to come face-to-face with the austere Viscount Henry Fitzwilliam, a scion of the Five Families and one of the wealthiest men in the world. However, while their paths may have crossed that May morning, Henry still fights his feelings for another woman, lost to him nearly thirty years in his future. And Miss Bennet must now decide between exile to the remote wastelands of Cornwall or making a new life for herself in Victorian Britain and Belle Époque France.The Exile follows the story of Kitty Bennet as she grows from the coughing follower of her younger sister, Lydia, into a bright and engaging young woman living in the exciting world of the late 19th Century. However, she must pass through many trials before she can fully understand why the Wardrobe sent her 75 years into the future—and for her to become one of the most important fixtures in the Bennet Wardrobe Universe."The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque" is Volume 2, Part 1 of The Bennet Wardrobe Series. "The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey" is Volume 1. "Henry Fitzwilliam’s War" is a prequel novella for The Exile. less

The universe was shaken once again on Midsummer’s Day in 1801. The Bennet Wardrobe’s door to the future was opened in the book room at Longbourn. This time, the most impertinent Bennet of them all, Elizabeth, tumbled through the gateway. Except she left not as the grown women with whom we have become so familiar, but rather as a 10-year-old girl who had been playing a simple game of hide-and-seek... moreThe universe was shaken once again on Midsummer’s Day in 1801. The Bennet Wardrobe’s door to the future was opened in the book room at Longbourn. This time, the most impertinent Bennet of them all, Elizabeth, tumbled through the gateway. Except she left not as the grown women with whom we have become so familiar, but rather as a 10-year-old girl who had been playing a simple game of hide-and-seek.What/where/when was her destination? What needs could a young girl, only beginning to learn to make her way in the Regency, have that could be answered only by the Wardrobe? Or were the requirements of another Bennet, one who began as younger, but had aged into a beautiful, confident leader of society, the prime movers behind Lizzy’s journey? Is the enigmatic Lady Kate the force that shaped the destiny of Lizzy and her younger sisters left back in Hertfordshire? How do the visions of the future brought home by young Lizzy help shape her world?Answers to these and other questions raised in the Bennet Wardrobe series can be found in Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess. This is a medium-length novella that considers a slice of time between the end of The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque in 1892 (volume two of the Bennet Wardrobe) and the beginning of Henry Fitzwilliam’s War in 1915. After Lizzy is transported back to that bucolic summer day in 1801 proto-industrial Great Britain, Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess will carry all listeners forward to what may be considered the greatest writers’ workshop in history. T’was at the legendary Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva that Lord Byron gathered Mary Godwin (Frankenstein), John Polidori (The Vampyre) and Percy Bysshe Shelley for a vacation during the Year Without a Summer. Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife, Elizabeth, were there to act as catalysts that would transform vague ideas into timeless speculative fiction. less

“The world is a nasty place full of awful persons, Mr. Wickham, and does not get any lighter through complaining or blaming. ’Tis only if you confront evil with fierce resolve that you have any hopes of prevailing. — The Dowager Countess of DeauvilleThe countess: an enigma? A mystery? Or a young girl all grown up? Kitty Bennet, the fourth child of Longbourn, spent far too long as the shadow of her younger sister... more“The world is a nasty place full of awful persons, Mr. Wickham, and does not get any lighter through complaining or blaming. ’Tis only if you confront evil with fierce resolve that you have any hopes of prevailing. — The Dowager Countess of DeauvilleThe countess: an enigma? A mystery? Or a young girl all grown up? Kitty Bennet, the fourth child of Longbourn, spent far too long as the shadow of her younger sister. The all-knowing Meryton chinwags suggested that young Miss Bennet needed education—and quickly—especially after the irregular circumstances that forced the Wickham wedding.How right they were, but the type of instruction Kitty received—and the where/when in which she matriculated—is far beyond their ken. The town’s busybodies know nothing of the remarkable piece of furniture that has been part of the Bennet’s lives since the 1690s: The Bennet Wardrobe.After spending half a life in a future straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Kitty, now the eleventh Dowager Countess of Matlock, returns to Longbourn’s book room in 1811. However, Lady Kate Matlock is now sixty-three—thirteen years her father’s senior. Time can deal funny cards in the universe created by Jane Austen and the Wardrobe.The Countess Visits Longbourn offers a “fly on the wall” perspective of the touching reunion between Kitty and Thomas Bennet. Readers will also learn how the mysterious Founder’s Letters were created along with the purpose behind the Bennet Family Trust. In the process, Lady Kate will help her youngest sister find the love she craves with the unexpected hero who, as the duke said, “saved us all.”This book is the fifth volume in the Bennet Wardrobe Series. The 89,000-word novel concludes the chronicle of Kitty Bennet’s life in the Wardrobe’s Universe (begun in The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque and continued in Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess).As Joana Starnes, author of The Falmouth Connection noted after reading The Countess Visits Longbourn:“Who can resist the magic of time-travel? Pages of history rustle back and forth between Regency grand salons, Napoleonic battlefields, and more recent conflicts. Guided by Don Jacobson’s masterful pen, the Bennet sisters grow as people and come into their own. ‘The Countess Visits Longbourn’ is a wonderful new installment, and we cannot fail to revel in the excellent writing and the abundance of detail as the mysteries of the Wardrobe continue to unfold. This captivating series, that brings together real and much-loved fictional characters from all walks of life, is one to savour, and I will revisit it again and again.” less

Bennet looked at his wife’s swollen lips, softly bruised from several deeply loving kisses, and her flushed complexion, as alluring when gracing the countenance of a woman of forty-four as that of a girl of nineteen. He was one of the lucky few to have fallen in love with the same woman at both ages. The elder had, after all, learned all that the younger could only begin to imagine... moreBennet looked at his wife’s swollen lips, softly bruised from several deeply loving kisses, and her flushed complexion, as alluring when gracing the countenance of a woman of forty-four as that of a girl of nineteen. He was one of the lucky few to have fallen in love with the same woman at both ages. The elder had, after all, learned all that the younger could only begin to imagine.Thomas Bennet, master of Longbourn, has always counted himself amongst the few educated gentlemen of his acquaintance. But he has to travel over a century into the future to discover how little he knows about the woman sharing his life.Once again, the amazing Bennet Wardrobe proves to be the schoolmaster. Tom Bennet’s lesson? Mrs. Bennet has been formed especially for him.Fanny Bennet also uncovers deep wells of courage and inspiration as she stands by her man’s side in the bleak years after World War II. Together they lead their descendants in pursuit of the beast who has wronged every member of the Five Families.In The Avenger, the Bennet Wardrobe emerges into its own as a lead character—one with a greater purpose than simply being a teacher or a city bus. The cabinet needs to instruct Bennets in that which they need so they can play the role it wants in the greater arc of the series.Readers are introduced to the forces that power the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis’s Fourth Love, agape; Jacobson’s Fifth Love, exagoras agapis, the love that redeems; and the Sixth Love, Synchotikí agape, the love that forgives.The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament is the sixth volume of the Bennet Wardrobe series and chronicles Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s journey through the Wardrobe to visit their daughter, the Countess of Matlock, in her own where/when. This novel is about 131,000 words in length. less

“My life has been very much like an unfinished painting. The artist comes to the portrait day-after-day to splash daubs of color onto bare canvas, filling in the blanks of my story. Thus grows the likeness, imperfect as it may be, which you see today.” Lydia Fitzwilliam, Countess of Matlock, letter to her sister Elizabeth Bennet Darcy, March 14, 1831. Does it matter how a man fills out his regimentals? Miss Austen never considered that query... more“My life has been very much like an unfinished painting. The artist comes to the portrait day-after-day to splash daubs of color onto bare canvas, filling in the blanks of my story. Thus grows the likeness, imperfect as it may be, which you see today.” Lydia Fitzwilliam, Countess of Matlock, letter to her sister Elizabeth Bennet Darcy, March 14, 1831. Does it matter how a man fills out his regimentals? Miss Austen never considered that query. Yet, this question marks the beginning of an education…and the longest life…in the Bennet Wardrobe saga. Lydia Bennet, Longbourn’s most wayward daughter, embarks on her quest in The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion. This biography reveals how the Wardrobe helps young Mrs. Wickham learn that honor and bravery grow not from the color of the uniform—or the gender of its wearer—but rather from the contents of the heart. In the process, she realizes that she must be broken and repaired, as if by a kintsugi master potter, to become the most useful player in the Bennet Wardrobe’s great drama. The Pilgrim explores questions of love, loss, pain, worry, and perseverance. All of these are brought to bear as one of the silliest girls in England grows into the Dowager Countess. This 151,000-word novel is the seventh, and next-to-last, volume in the Bennet Wardrobe Series. Each book along the way has revealed more about how the mysterious Wardrobe has led Miss Austen’s Bennets to learn that which they need in order to take part in its ultimate mission. As Mirta Ines Trupp, author of The Meyersons of Meryton notes: “Multifaceted and nuanced, The Pilgrim: Lydia Bennet and a Soldier’s Portion, speaks to the verities of life. Once again, Don Jacobson has combined the essence of Pride and Prejudice with an esoteric storyline and the universal themes of redemption and forgiveness in this well-crafted narrative.” less