"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favor me with your company."

Lady Catherine de Bourgh to Elizabeth Bennet
from Chapter LVI
of Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen

There are those who believe that Lady Catherine was yet again being condescending when she referred to the "wilderness" at one side of the lawn at Longbourn. But in actual fact, her condescension was in the use of the word "little" and the implication that the Bennet's lawn was not as grand as her own estate at Rosings.

The enclosed wilderness at Mr. Rushworth's estate of Sotherton Court is a point of discussion and the setting for some interesting interchanges between various characters in Chapters IX and X of Mansfield Park. The author of both these novels, Jane Austen, was well aware that a garden wilderness was not open country when she wrote these novels. She knew that a wilderness was a common feature of many of the larger English gardens during the Regency, just as it had been for at least a century prior to the publication of her books.

Many of these garden wildernesses were related to the evolution of the garden maze. For that reason, this article takes its place as another in my series on mazes. And now, a wilderness adventure ...

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