As I was finishing the book today, I came across an answer to a question we has last night. My copy of the book has some Endnotes that explain some of time-period specifics referred to in the novel. When Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle visit Darcy's house, we questioned the custom of visitors to the house when the owner was away. Here's what my notes say: "Domestic tourism, which included visits to stately country manor houses listed in guidebooks as well as the picturesque countryside, had come into vogue in England during the eighteenth century. A touring party of the gentry class might be admitted to one of England's great homes at certain stipulated times, often for a fee. The craze for visiting great privately owned estates coincided with the increasing tendency of the upper gentry and aristocracy to enclose for exclusive, private use what had previously been common lands, on which the lower classes has been able to farm and hunt for food."
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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As I was finishing the book today, I came across an answer to a question we has last night. My copy of the book has some Endnotes that explain some of time-period specifics referred to in the novel. When Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle visit Darcy's house, we questioned the custom of visitors to the house when the owner was away. Here's what my notes say: "Domestic tourism, which included visits to stately country manor houses listed in guidebooks as well as the picturesque countryside, had come into vogue in England during the eighteenth century. A touring party of the gentry class might be admitted to one of England's great homes at certain stipulated times, often for a fee. The craze for visiting great privately owned estates coincided with the increasing tendency of the upper gentry and aristocracy to enclose for exclusive, private use what had previously been common lands, on which the lower classes has been able to farm and hunt for food."
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