Ariadne Gordon
| Ariadne | |
 | |
| Name | Ariadne Gordon |
| Race | Human |
| Age | Middle-aged |
| Occupation | Dowager |
| Physical appearance | |
| Residence | |
| Death | |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | An Aunt Marigold |
| Children | Six children named:
|
| Marital Status | Husband deceased |
| Appearances | |
| Books | Snuff |
| Cameos | |
Ariadne Gordon is a good friend of Lady Sybil. She has had six children with an unnamed husband. Her children are Mavis, Emily, Fleur, Jane, Amanda and Hermione:
- Mavis is very devout.
- Emily is an excellent cook but is very conscious of her enormous bosom.
- Apparently Fleur makes lovely bonnets.
- Amanda apparently is a very strange girl who likes frogs though that may have been a misunderstanding.
- Hermione is considered by the family to be rather scandalous due to the fact that she is a lumberjack.
- Nothing is said about Jane. (Apart from the fact she is keenly observant and wants to be a writer. Sam Vimes advises her to write about what she knows best and has experience of... hmm...)
In what is almost an epilogue at the end of the book, we discover that, under the indirect patronage of the Duke and Duchess of Ankh, who have provided accommodation, the girls are prospering in Ankh-Morpork. Emily is engaged to be married, while Fleur and the others have a thriving bonnet-making business, which sets up an intricate multilevel pun. Mrs Gordon's daughters here, remember. Gordon Bonnets evokes the cry of awed disbelief down the Multiverse - Gordon Bennett!. In the novel being parodied, and indeed in the early 1800's in England, wearing a bonnet was de rigeur. Jane Austen and her characters are always depicted as bonnet-wearing, by some ancient by-law. And her family, of widowed mother and six daughters, was called Bennett.
And young Jane's first novel, dedicated to the Duke of Ankh, is called Pride and Extreme Prejudice...