Lieutenant Bennet's Visit

Lieutenant Bennet's Visit is a popular short story by Beatrice Otter, which is a crossover or fusion between Pride and Prejudice and Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. It is significantly AU for P&P. It was written for Yuletide 2010 as a treat for Pentapus.
The story centres around Elizabeth Bennet, a lieutenant in the Aerial Corps who fights in the Napoleonic Wars as a member of a dragon-riding team. It envisages her visiting her home in Meryton for the first time in many years, and also features most of the rest of her family – particularly Jane, who is on the eve of marrying Charles Bingley – as well as Fitzwilliam Darcy.
No Temeraire characters appear and, apart from Elizabeth, the P&P characters remain within the conventional P&P universe. It can be enjoyed without knowledge of Temeraire beyond the broad premise. The Temeraire universe gives the author the opportunity to voice a feminist critique of Austen's world without seeming anachronistic, and this gives the story much of its impact. The contrast between the alternative-Elizabeth and her sisters, as well as the reader's imagined canon-Elizabeth, provides a source of humour.
Darcy & alt-Elizabeth fail to have any romantic interest in each other. Background pairings include the canonical Jane/Bingley, which occurs differently in the absence of Elizabeth, as well as mention of the non-canonical Mary/William Collins.
The story was first posted at Archive of Our Own within the Yuletide collection, and is also archived at Dreamwidth & FanFiction.Net. The author's summary is Elizabeth’s reality is far different from her sisters’. The story is rated teen by the author, but there is no explicit content.
==Writing Process==
Beatrice Otter writes:
=="Lieutenant Bennet" series==
There is a 2011 sequel, Darcy's Surprise, set more in the Temeraire universe, in which Darcy finds out Elizabeth's secret; the two stories form an open-ended series entitled "Lieutenant Bennet". Beatrice Otter created a Dreamwidth community (lieutenant_bennet) and an AO3 collection (Bennet's Covert) for the series, which are open to others who wish to create in the fusion verse. She writes:
==Reception==
"Lieutenant Bennet's Visit" was very well received and was among the hits of Yuletide 2010. It is one of the most popular P&P stories that does not pair Elizabeth with Darcy, as well as one of the more popular crossovers with a fandom outside Austen. As of 30 January 2014, it has 148 comments, 306 kudos & 62 bookmarks on AO3; it is the second most popular Temeraire work on that archive by number of kudos, as well as the 6th most popular P&P story. The story has been recommended at Fancake and elsewhere.
Reviewers praise the original premise and the seamless fusion of the two very different universes, and in particular the way that it gives Elizabeth a better outlet for her intelligence & energy than the novel. The thoughtful way in which the consequences of the AU are worked out for all of the P&P characters is also frequently highlighted, and readers enjoy the fixes for several characters. Many reviewers felt the story worked well without a Darcy/Elizabeth romance, although a few begged for D/E sequels.
==Recs & Reviews==
==References==
Category:Pride and Prejudice
Category:Temeraire
Category:Crossover Fanfiction
Category:2010 Fanfiction‎
Category:2011 Fanfiction‎