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    Mansfield Park
    Mansfield Park
    Mansfield Park
    Ebook569 pages13 hours

    Mansfield Park

    By Jane Austen

    4/5

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    Introduction and Notes by Dr Ian Littlewood, University of Sussex.

    Adultery is not a typical Jane Austen theme, but when it disturbs the relatively peaceful household at Mansfield Park, it has quite unexpected results.

    The diffident and much put-upon heroine Fanny Price has to struggle to cope with the results, re-examining her own feelings while enduring the cheerful amorality, old-fashioned indifference and priggish disapproval of those around her.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWordsworth Editions
    Release dateOct 1, 2011
    ISBN9781848703681
    Author

    Jane Austen

    Jane Austen was born in 1775 in rural Hampshire, the daughter of an affluent village rector who encouraged her in her artistic pursuits. In novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma she developed her subtle analysis of contemporary life through depictions of the middle-classes in small towns. Her sharp wit and incisive portraits of ordinary people have given her novels enduring popularity. She died in 1817.

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    Reviews for Mansfield Park

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    • 5/5
      Delightful
    • 3/5
      As with the Northanger Abbey, Austen’s writing and humor are all that stands between this book and a two star review. Our heroine, Fanny, is the perfect shy, obedient young woman and for that reason alone, it seems we are supposed to prefer her to Miss Crawford, her competition for Edmund’s heart. Although Miss Crawford can be superficial and even cruel, it seems her main flaw is not behaving as women were expected to behave at the time. As a modern reader, I sometimes found her more sympathetic than Fanny. Likewise, Fanny’s alternate love interest seemed a better match for her than Edmund in manys, starting with the fact that Edmund is her cousin and is sometimes very thoughtless of her feelings. My lack of enthusiasm for Austen’s romantic pairings was offset by my dislike of one particularly nasty character and my enjoyment at seeing her thwarted. That was second only my to my enjoyment at seeing the nastier characters made fun of with Austen’s characteristic wit. Overall, this book was very slow and I felt little interest in the outcome. Again, enjoyable only if you love Austen’s writing.

      This review first published on Doing Dewey.
    • 4/5
      Some small spoilers lie below. As it turns out, I have never read (or listened to) Mansfield Park before, and somehow managed to know nothing about the characters or story – I don't know how I managed to remain completely unspoiled, but it was unexpected, and fun. The narration by Karen Savage lives up to the high standard she set with Persuasion: I like her work, very much. She creates a wide array of both male and female character voices which generally avoid being the least cartoonish but still manage to each be distinct and identifiable: the tone a little lighter and gentler than the narration is Fanny; Lady Bertram is breathy and indifferent; the slightly deeper, measured voice is Edmund; the pompous-sounding deeper voice is Tom. Mansfield is a leisurely tale following the Bertram family and its Price transplant through marital negotiations and trips to the country and financial threats no one seems to grasp the true dangers of. If the Antigua estates really had failed or been lost, it seems there would have been drastic repercussions; also, an ocean voyage in the 1800's was never anything to take lightly, much less travel in the third world. There was a strong underlying tone of menace to the Messrs. Bertram while they were away, but the at-home family seemed to continue perfectly sanguine. Except for Fanny, who is as gifted at Worrying as my mother, and that's pretty extraordinarily gifted. Fanny. Oh, Fanny. She's just so … nice. She's so nice I want to throw an expletival qualifier in there, and I can't; this is Jane Austen I'm talking about. She's timid and fragile and sweet, and obliging and not as delicate as she seems, and sweet. And meek, and … when I right-click on "meek", Word gives me synonyms: humble, submissive, gentle, docile, modest, compliant, and mild. And sweet. Far from a backbone, there isn't a vertebra in the girl's entire body. Her entire skeletal system seems to be made of cartilage. Jane Bennet is sweet and modest and docile too, but by golly she can stand up for herself or someone she loves if need be. I think in a confrontation Fanny might simply cry, and then faint. Not a character much admired in this day and age. But she's so sweet. I saw someone's Goodreads status update for P&P commenting on how much he appreciated the writing and the characters, but he was on such and such page and … nothing … was … happening. I have never found that with P&P. Mansfield Park, however … oh my. Fanny comes to Mansfield … nothing … Mr. Bertram and Tom go away … nothing … the Crawfords move in … nothing … Tom comes back … protracted space of nothing … Lovers' Vows and things happen for a few chapters and then Mr. Bertram comes home and everything comes to a screeching halt and … nothing … That, combined with the extreme meekness of Fanny, makes for a surprisingly leisurely and … well, dull story. For the most part we share no one's thoughts but Fanny's, and hers are so very athletically self-effacing and charitable – even to Mrs. Norris, one of the people least deserving of charity in this novel, if not ever – that events are not exactly moved along. It's a jolt when, briefly and rarely, we are made privy to conversations between Mary and Henry Crawford, laced with languorous malice.Perhaps the purpose of this day-to-day gentle unfolding of story is to focus the reader on the small things that do happen. In a modern setting, the concerns which beset Fanny would be almost nothing. Certainly the drama surrounding the play would be non-existent; it would trouble no one that a group of upper class young folk would do an amateur play, even if it was a bit racy. But given the placid pond that rock dropped into, there is a very real tension and concern about the morality of it all. And perhaps the intent in making Fanny so stunningly selfless was to make it so very ironic when Mr. Bertram berates her for selfishness. Her reasons for doing what she does are partly selfish, but only a very small part; she can't explain without telling him things he doesn't want to know, which she would consider a betrayal of others. From that moment on Fanny's life becomes a nightmare. The wrong interpretation is put on her actions, and every word she says to Edmund or her uncle is contradicted or ignored. Every. Single. Word. "I don't believe I can love him." "Certainly you can." "We are so very different." "No you're not." "I don't want to talk to you." "You say that, but what exactly do you mean? Tell me!""I don't want to talk about it." "Well, we must, and I must tell your aunts. Oh, and your cousin. His sister and their entire staff already knows. We won't talk to you about it if you wish, not above two or three times. A day.""I will never marry him!" "I wonder what we should give you as a wedding present …""No!" "You mean maybe!" It's horrifying. And, again, I've been there. You can say anything, and you might as well be speaking Aramaic from the response. Poor Fanny. My GR status update from Chapter 35: I'm 73% done with Mansfield Park: In the midst of Ch. 35; I don't know how this story ends. I've seen spoilers both ways: that she marries Edmund, and that she doesn't. And right now I can honestly say that if she marries him I ... shall be most provoked. I want to shoot him in this chapter. (Which makes a change from wanting to shake Fanny.)Oh well. A bit more is on my blog.
    • 5/5
      This girl does have a way with words.. Once you leave the 21st century and relax into the flow of of Fanny Price's world you are treated to a subtle and insightful view of the lives of the "rich and famous" albiet 200 years ago. Certainly not a fast paced story but the characters are interesting (if not always liked) and the good guys win.
    • 4/5
      A master storyteller at the height of her powers with Mansfield Park the superior textual quality of Austen's writing and her skill at distilling what possesses the heart & mind of each of her characters whilst exploring societal issues of the era alongside gracefully set out background is apparent on every page.My one reservation is this particular publication's really AWFUL Cover!
    • 3/5
      Summary: When Fanny Price was a child, she was sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle Bertram, who were much better off than Fanny's own parents, and could better afford the care of an additional child. But Fanny is never truly part of the family; constantly reminded how fortunate she is to be taken in by her relations, and constantly compared to her cousins, and without the self-possession or self-confidence to change her position, her only ally is her cousin Edmund. But even as she falls for him, he falls for a friend of the family, and if Fanny can't bring herself to speak her mind, she is in danger of finding herself married to a man she cannot love as she loves Edmund.Review: This is the last of Austen's main books that I've read, and I'm afraid to say, it's by far my least favorite. Fanny is just such a wet rag, incapable of doing or saying anything to promote her own happiness, that I had a hard time caring about that happiness myself. I mean, not that I was rooting for her to be unhappy or anything, but if you're not doing anything to help yourself, I don't have much sympathy for the "circumstances are conspiring against me!" kind of argument. I want my protagonists to have a little more spirit (or at least a little spirit, period). The one time that Fanny does have an opinion that she's willing to express - namely, that she doesn't want to marry Mr. Crawford - we're treated to several chapters of what seems like every other character trying to convince her that she's wrong, that she does want to marry him, and that she owes it to him to love him just because he's decided he loves her. It's gross, and it soured me not only on Fanny, but on most of the other characters as well. Granted, most of them were not particularly likable to begin with, but even Edmund comes off as smug and willfully oblivious to the feelings of everyone around him, even Fanny who he's "molded" to think in a way that's acceptable to him. It made the inevitable ending, in which everyone gets their just desserts, including Edmund's extremely abrupt change of heart with regards to Fanny's suitability as a romantic partner, less than satisfying. I'm sure that, if I were reading Mansfield Park on a deeper, more critical level, there's plenty of sharp satire and social commentary going on in. But since I am just reading for fun, and the main plot could be boiled down to "poor cousin is taken in by rich family and is bullied and treated badly for almost the entire book, and is too weak-willed to say or do anything about it", it wasn't something that I particularly got into. 2.5 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: Oooooh, I hate to say it for something that's as much of a classic as Austen, but: pass. Or at least pass until you've run out of Austen's better, more engaging books.
    • 4/5
      favorite austen novel
    • 1/5
      If I ever hear another word about the suitability of a particular person for marriage, it will be too soon. Yes, I know it is social commentary, but it could have been done in 100 pages. The plot was entirely predictable and the characters were completely two-dimentional.
    • 5/5
      This is Austen's version of the Cinderella story. A poor relation (Fanny Price) comes to live with rich relatives. She falls in love with her rich cousin. Meanwhile, several other romantic subplots develop between her cousins and the pair of Crawford siblings. Entertaining and classicly Austen.
    • 5/5
      Mansfield Park is easily Austen's most controversial novel. It is a book that many people (Janeites included) actively dislike. The plot deals with morality and the main characters are polarizing. Personally, I find it fascinating. I don't think it's just about morality -- I am fascinated by the choice we are offered between substance and appearance and also fascinated by which choice readers make. Some choose Mary and Henry Crawford, the characters who, in my opinion, are all about "appearance," and others choose Fanny and Edmund, whom I believe to be about substance. Fanny and Edmund are, admittedly, rather dull, but they are good and decent people who try to live good and decent lives. They don't lead other people on. They don't try to "make a hole" in an innocent's heart. They don't think it's OK to commit adultery. Edmund wants to be a priest, and I think he'd be a good one. And Fanny would be a much better priest's wife than Mary, who openly disdains religion and its practitioners. Mary and Henry may be fun to hang out with, but they are not marriage material for a person who cares about character. Mansfield Park is not my favorite Austen novel, but it rises in my estimation every time I read it.
    • 4/5
      Though arguably not one of Austen's most memorable novels, it does have its charm. The sticking point seems to be the novel's heroine Fanny Price - the reader either adores her or is annoyed by her. She has the goodness of other Austen characters like "Persuasion"'s Anne or "Sense and Sensibility"'s Elinore, but without their wit or likeability. She is, however, a sympathetic character: Born in a large, poor family, she is sent to be raised by her rich relations and is eternally an outsider. Her treatment there ranges from verbal abuse from her Aunt Norris, to a strong bond with her cousin Edmund. This bond develops into romantic love, initially just on Fanny's side, but the two are kept apart by interfering guests, the Crawfords. The beautiful Mary Crawford enchants Edmund despite her selfishness, and her playboy brother Henry has his eyes set on Fanny. Caught up in their foolishness is Edmund's sisters Julia and Maria, who disgrace themselves flirting with Henry. Though Fanny is correct in distrusting the Crawfords, she comes off (and is treated as) a Debbie Downer throughout the novel. She pines, she frowns, she warns of bad morals, there is little sunshine in her -- no wonder Edmund was so taken by Mary! In fact, when he finally turns his eye to Fanny after being disillusioned by his first love, the reader cannot wonder "Why?" Fanny is good and deserving, but the reader cannot but anticipate the dullest marriage in the world.Remarkably for a novel bent on rewarding the good and moral, it is the immoral characters who bring humor to the novel, and save it from being overbearing. Mrs. Norris is delightful in her hypocrisy, with a delicious comeuppance. The Crawfords bring life and excitement to Mansfield Park, enough to overcome Fanny's "bah, humbug"ness. Though these characters are one dimentional, they bring fresh air after Fanny's stuffiness. Austen shines when skewering the rich and foolish, and this novel is no exception. Though I may be wrong, I believe this may be the only Austen novel to bring up the subject of divorce and infidelity, or at least use it as a major plot point. I'm sure it must have been very daring of Austen to include it.
    • 4/5
      Mansfield Park opens with Austen reflecting on the virtues of marrying well, and the consequences of failing to do so. (I love a woman who knows how to get right to the point!) Fanny Price, a most unlikely heroine, is the product of one of these latter marriages; her mother, “Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a Lieutenant of Marines, without education, fortune, or connections, did it very thoroughly.” (5) Said to have been one of Austen’s favourite heroines, Fanny is the “poor cousin,” charitably taken in by wealthy relatives. But while she may be inferior to her peers by birth, fortune, and education; she is undisputedly their superior by far, save Edmund, in modesty, morals, and behaviour. Beside Fanny, the appropriately condescending Miss Bertrams appear twittering, fickle, and silly. Tom Bertram is, in equal measures, outrageously wealthy and irresponsible. The Crawfords, questionably well meaning, are idle and misguided, “thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example.” (108) Only Edmund, younger brother to Tom, and a parson of modest means but superior morals, is able to stand as Fanny’s equal. And so the stage of principal characters is set. But Austen also has great fun with the minor characters of Mansfield Park: the indolent Lady Bertram, example extraordinaire in the art of marrying well; her domineering but rich husband, Sir Thomas; the insufferable Mrs. Norris; Dr. and Mrs. Grant, the former best known for his ample appetite; and the unfortunate looking, but very wealthy, Mr. Rushforth – cuckolded in the end.I enjoyed this re-read of Mansfield Park much more than my original read some years ago. Austen is delightful in her shrewd satire of the upper crust. A sample passage, one of many, illustrating her exceptional command of her writing (a single sentence!):“The ensuing spring deprived her of her valued friend he old grey poney, and for some time she was in danger of feeling the loss in her health as well as in her affections, for in spite of the acknowledged importance of her riding on horseback, no measures were taken for mounting her again, ‘because,’ as it was observed by her aunts, ‘she might ride one of her cousins’ horses at any time when they did not want them,” and as the Miss Bertrams regularly wanted their horses every fine day, and had no idea of carrying their obliging manners to the sacrifice of any real pleasure, that time of course never came.” (34)
    • 5/5
      Mansfield Park is usually tied with Emma for least-loved of Austen's books, and though the heroines of each are very, very different, the two books' lower favor with Austenites is usually due to Fanny and Emma, respectively. While Emma is an interfering, independent young woman, Fanny is her exact opposite, and loves nothing better than to hide while others receive all the attention. Many modern readers find Fanny too passive, and call her "weak." But this misses the essential point of the story — strength is not in being feisty and independent, but holding firm to your convictions under pressure. This review will contain spoilers, so proceed with caution.Mansfield Park is the story of Fanny Price, the dependent niece of Sir Thomas Bertram who is taken into the Bertram family at a young age as a favor to her parents, who are not well-to-do. From the first, Fanny is taught her inferior place in the family by her officious Aunt Norris, who dotes on Fanny's cousins, Maria and Julia. At Mansfield Park, her cousin Edmund is the only one who sees Fanny's distress and tries to make things easier for her. He quickly becomes her only confidante and comfort in the Bertram home, and this continues into Fanny's adulthood. When the charming brother and sister Henry and Mary Crawford come into the neighborhood, things begin to change — and not, in Fanny's opinion, for the better.Austen's characterizations are excellent, as always. I think she achieved something special in Lady Bertram, even though my lady is quite a background sort of person. Indeed, it may be because of her minor-character status that the execution of the character is so striking to me. The word for Lady Bertram is "indolent," and rarely has anyone exemplified it better. She is not ill-meaning, and has a good heart, but she cannot be bothered to do anything for anyone. She is comfortable, pleasant, and in many ways only half-alive. And yet I like her very well, for some unaccountable reason. Austen achieves similar things with the character of Henry Crawford. Usually I'm able to disdain the bad guys in Austen's world as cads and weaklings, but Crawford is written so well that I think I feel some of his charm even through the pages of a book. The way Austen probes his motivations and feelings is really fascinating. His main vice is not deliberate deception or evil, but rather overweening vanity and selfishness. And he is capable of good things. The other characters are also well-drawn. Sir Thomas in all his dignity and yet truly good beliefs underneath the formality. Tom, with his thoughtless profligacy and unfixed principles. Maria with her haughty pride of beauty and money, and helpless love for someone who slights her. Edmund, with his kindness and, sometimes, blindness. Julia, with her jealousy of Maria and her selfishness. Aunt Norris, with her selfish officiousness and ruthless economy. Mr. Rushworth, with his money and his ridiculous two and forty speeches. Mary Crawford, with her unsound principles and disdain for anything unfashionable. We get a clear picture even of Dr. and Mrs. Grant, who have almost no dialogue whatsoever in the story. Many readers disparage Fanny, the principal character of the story, as weak and passive. Certainly she does not have the spunk and polite sauciness of an Elizabeth Bennett or Emma Woodhouse. Constantly belittled during her formative years and made to feel her inferiority by Aunt Norris, Fanny is terrified of being singled out for any kind of special notice. She was passive and retiring by nature, and her upbringing had the effect of exaggerating these qualities. Many modern readers can't stand this in a female character; modern conventions have taught us that heroines must be sassy and spunky. But I tend to fall into the small but determined camp that appreciates Fanny for who she is. Fanny is always ready to give way for the convenience of others — but this does not stop her from observing their behavior, and venturing private judgments on it. And she is not often wrong in her assessments of the people around her. Despite her pliable nature, Fanny stops short when asked to do something against her principles. She refuses to take part in the not-quite-respectable play that her cousins put on, even though her Aunt Norris makes her feel very guilty over refusing. This foreshadows a later refusal, when Fanny dares to defy the expectations of the Bertrams on the much more serious matter of a marriage proposal. These refusals cause Fanny a great deal of wretchedness, but she stands her ground.And this is why I love her. Not because she has a witty tongue or a keen eye for the foibles of others in the mode of the usual feisty heroine, but because she holds true to her beliefs even when under pressure from every quarter to compromise them. To me, this makes her much worthier of the adjective "strong" than many another heroine who talks back to the men and dares great things. Fanny is a strong woman because she, being weak, still stands firm on her convictions. Mansfield Park is the longest and probably most complex of Austen's novels, and though there is a fair bit of pointed humor in the observations about Lady Bertram and Aunt Norris, it has a bitter edge to it. I also think the great tragedy/transgression of this story is the darkest of all Austen's stories, even worse than Lizzy's actions in Pride & Prejudice. Because of the definite lack of lighthearted wit and the seriousness of the evils committed, this is not a bubbling romance of misunderstandings and genteel follies. The denouément gives quite a lot to think about, especially regarding Fanny's probable actions had things happened differently than they did. I do NOT recommend the 1999 movie starring Frances O'Connor. It changed Fanny's personality to something more acceptable to modern tastes, involved Sir Thomas in graphic, horrific barbarism in the slave plantations of Antigua, showed the illicit affair between Crawford and Maria, had Fanny actually accept Crawford at one point (!), and generally missed the whole point of the original story. Nor can I give the recent Masterpiece Theatre version starring Billie Piper much praise; Piper, though a good actress, is completely wrong for Fanny, and the whole production lacked panache. I'm not familiar with other film adaptations of the story, but in general I've heard they are all rather lacking. Pity.In some ways this is an "ugly duckling" story, before such things became popular in the realm of chick-lit. But Fanny does not transform herself in the course of the story; she remains in many ways what she always has been. Perhaps it's more that the people around her transform slowly until they are finally able to see the beauty of her character. With fantastic characters, deft writing, probing insight, and occasional wryness, Austen's Mansfield Park is a thought-provoking story with an unusual heroine who compels respect instead of mere amusement. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      This was the last of Jane Austen's novels for me to read. I wish I could say it gave me a high note to end on but, really, I found it less attractive than any of the other Austen novels. As well, Fanny Price was less appealing than many of Austen's other heroines. Fanny's mother married down and brought more children into the world than she and her husband could support. As a consequence Fanny was sent at a very young age to her mother's sister, Lady Bertram, who lives at Mansfield Park. The term "poor cousin" might have been invented for Fanny. Her girl cousins have been indulged from birth and show little interest in meek, withdrawn Fanny. Their brother (and heir) is much more interested in carousing with his friends. Only the younger son, Edmund, shows any interest in Fanny and Fanny falls in love with him. When the vicar's wife's sister and brother, the Crawfords, come for an extended stay vivacious Mary Crawford attracts Edmund's notice immediately. Edmund is destined to become the vicar in a neighbouring area and it is patently obvious that Mary Crawford could not make a vicar's wife but, nevertheless, Edmund falls in love with her. In the meantime Henry Crawford has been flirting with both Bertram sisters. Love triangles abound.Much of the book is taken up with developing these relationships and it was hard going for me. The last part of the book, when Fanny returns to her family in Portsmouth, and scandals and troubles envelop the Bertrams, was much more interesting. Still I found the conclusion unconvincing and still couldn't warm up to Fanny.I gather from some online reviews that other people find Mansfield Park to be lacking but true Janeites find much to admire. I guess I'll never be considered a Janeite.
    • 4/5
      Lots of reviews already here, so I won't go into details.I liked it, quite a bit. I kept wondering how things would turn out, as there were many twists and turns in the plot.Mansfield Park was, imo, a bit 'deeper' than Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. It was more 'work' to read it, but well worth the effort!It is now my second favorite Jane Austen book, behind P&P.
    • 2/5
      Not one of Jane Austen's finer works. Saw the movie. Book was too boring to finish. It kept dragging on and on and on...
    • 4/5
      If I liked Fanny Price more, this would be my favorite Austen novel. As it is, I still think it is very very good and possibly the funniest of the bunch. But oh, Fanny, why didn't you marry Henry Crawford? You and Edmund bring out each other's worst and least attractive tendencies.
    • 2/5
      One of the few books I really, really hate.
    • 3/5
      You can tell this novel was written by a woman because the flashy, supposedly charismatic, superficial suitor who represents the shallow, "worldly" option is short and the stolid, boring suitor who demonstrates our heroine's good sense and solid values in choosing a man for his moral character, just coincidentally happens to be tall.Once you get over that though it's actually pretty good. I could have done with even more of the author talking shit about her characters (who are mostly realistically shallow and self-absorbed in the way that bad people actually are in real life) but what's there is frequently funny, and the protagonist is a very charming and likable figure (which is fortunate since we spend so much of the book in her head).
    • 4/5
      Poor Fanny Price! Jane really puts her through the mill in this book! But I guess "all's well that ends well." ;)IMO, there were lots of details about everyone's feelings, conversations, and correspondence through the first 47 chapters. Then, it seemed to me like, Jane just got tired and decided to sum up the story in one final chapter. And "Bob's your uncle" the book's finished! Oh well, I enjoyed it overall. A traditional Jane Austen novel :)Also, I listened on my LibriVox app and the reader, Karen Savage, did a fantastic job!
    • 5/5
      I've read this many times, but I'm still struck every time by the ambivalence of its message. We know we're supposed to latch on to the evangelical, proto-Victorian, path of Fanny and Edmund, but the case for the Crawfords' pragmatic, enlightenment morality is made surprisingly attractive. The real puzzle - for the author as much as for us, I suspect - is why a clever man like Henry Crawford should ever waste time on someone as patently vain and silly as Maria.Another thing that struck me this time is the cunning way Austen sets up the very un-Victorian idea that people live in mutual incomprehension in separate moral worlds: Mary Crawford's complete failure to understand that the duties of a clergyman might be expected to go beyond preaching in fashionable churches and attending smart tea-parties; Mr Yates's similar failure to understand why his amateur theatricals have to be scrapped on two occasions. These scenes always remind me of going to stay with my rather puritanical grandparents as a small child and discovering that all sorts of things that were perfectly legitimate at home (buying ice cream or listening to the radio on a Sunday, for instance) were regarded as shockingly depraved behaviour here.
    • 4/5
      I wasn't sure I was going to like Mansfield Park again at first. I read it some years ago and I remember liking it, but that was about all I remembered besides the name Fanny Price. Now that I've completed it I have to say I did enjoy it in the overall. I think it has most to do with Jane Austen's writing than anything, but after the first section, the story was quite absorbing.
    • 3/5
      I know that I am not alone in considering Mansfield Park Jane Austen's weakest novel, and Fanny Price her least likable heroine. This tale of a young girl who is the "poor relation" among wealthy people, always seems longer than it needs to be, with entire sections that just drag along. I recall frequently thinking that the novel would have benefited from a quicker pace.As for the heroine, I have heard it said that Fanny's moralizing is obnoxious to the reader because it is so alien - that her disapproval of the play-acting seems ridiculous to the modern eye. For my part, I was less disturbed by the seeming absurdity of Fanny's moral objections than I was by her overall lack of strength. Of all of Austen's heroines, she seems singularly lacking in a real sense of self, and even her moment of "triumph," in which she refuses to be bullied into marriage, is tinged with shades of anxiety.Ironically, it is the less-likable minor secondary characters who provide the real enjoyment in Mansfield Park, whether it be the delightfully malicious Mrs. Norris, or the charming and wicked Crawford siblings. I understand that some scholars have read this as an oblique criticism of slave-holding, while others (Edward Said among them) maintain that Austen justifies the practice by ignoring it. I myself was able to observe little social commentary of value...
    • 4/5
      I was greatly surprised by the ending!
    • 3/5
      A very good story, as expected from Jane Austen. But I have to say, it's not one of my favorites. I had a hard time finding any of the characters sympathetic - Fanny and Edmund came across as so virtuous as to be prudish, while the rest were just foolish - except for Mrs. Norris, of course, who was just plain stupid and nasty. I think had Susan been more in the story I'd have ended up liking her best. But still, I enjoyed the reading of the story and it will probably be one I revisit every few years or so.
    • 4/5
      I can't count how many times I've read, "People think Mansfield Park is Austen's best or they hate it." A bit of an overstatement there, I think. I enjoyed it but don't consider it my favorite of her works. I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice more and Sense and Sensibility less.I suspect that those kinds of reactions to this book occur because Fanny is so unlike Austen's other female main characters. She's shy, unassertive and a bit lacking in self-confidence; she doesn't burst out of the pages as does Elizabeth Bennet. I didn't find any of the prissiness or priggishness that some people ascribe to her—I perceived only that she had a set of principles to which she stuck quietly and, living as a poor relation with the Bertrams, a consciousness of not participating in activities that would offend the uncle whose charity pulled her out of poverty.One of the things I enjoyed about this story was that the characters seemed a bit more human and a bit less like Regency "Stepford" gentry. Edmund, normally perceptive, loses it over a pretty face and nice figure despite the warning signs. Fanny, normally dutiful, sticks to her guns on her perception of Henry's character despite all of society telling her what she "should" think and feel. I also like the language of this story. It had a bit more dry humor, moments of tongue-in-cheek poking through in each chapter.If you like Austen, I don't see any reason not to try this and make up your own mind.
    • 4/5
      I must give much respect to this book, as it is rather a courageous effort by Ms Austen. However, there is one problem - depending on your perspective of course. The most interesting characters are the ones who Ms Austen suggests are behaving reprehensibly, and the heroes of the title are exceedingly dull for the most part. That said, they all show far more real character development than one might ordinarily see in an Austen title.
    • 4/5
      Die Übersetzung von Angelika Beck ist nicht die beste, noch dazu wurde schlampig lektoriert.Ansonsten nette Geschichte mit vorhersehbarem Ende.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed this Austen, although Fanny needs a shot of coffee sometimes.
    • 1/5
      Easily my least favorite of Austen's. The heroine is pretty dull, no Elizabeth Bennett spirit here. My main gripe with this story is that it’s all buildup with a very unsatisfying ending. Skip this one.

    Book preview

    Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

    Trayler

    general introduction

    Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal to the general reader and students. We commissioned teachers and specialists to write wide ranging, jargon-free introductions and to provide notes that would assist the understanding of our readers rather than interpret the stories for them. In the same spirit, because the pleasures of reading are inseparable from the surprises, secrets and revelations that all narratives contain, we strongly advise you to enjoy this book before turning to the Introduction.

    General Adviser

    Keith Carabine

    Rutherford College

    University of Kent at Canterbury

    introduction

    Mansfield Park was published in three volumes by Thomas Egerton in 1814. The first edition, though it was badly printed and strewn with errors, sold out within six months. To many of the readers who had enjoyed Pride and Prejudice the year before, this new novel must have come as something of a shock. It still does. ‘What Became of Jane Austen?’ asked Kingsley Amis in the title of a much anthologised article on the book, and his question echoes the perplexity of generations of readers. To put it at its most basic, how could the same author create one heroine like Elizabeth Bennet and then go on to create another like Fanny Price?

    In the first place, the sequence of composition was not quite as straightforward as this suggests. Early versions of Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice were all written in the second half of the 1790s at a time when Jane Austen, born in December 1775, was still in her early twenties. She had lived since birth with her family at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire. Her father, George Austen, was a clergyman in only moderately comfortable circumstances, but the family had wealthy connections. (Indeed, much as Fanny Price is borne off to live with her aunt’s family at Mansfield Park, one of Jane Austen’s older brothers had left home to be adopted by Thomas Knight, a rich cousin of their father.) The cheerful tenor of life at Steventon during these years is reflected both in Jane’s surviving letters, which start in January 1796, and in the prevailing tone of the first three novels. But this period came to an abrupt end in 1801 when, to Jane’s dismay, the family left Steventon and moved to Bath.

    In the years that followed, first at Bath and later at Southampton, Jane Austen wrote little apart from the first stages of a novel called The Watsons which was never finished. This was a troubled time. As far as we can tell from the scraps of information available, she fell in love with a young clergyman in the summer of 1801 only to receive news of his death shortly afterwards. Later the same year another chance of marriage came to nothing: having accepted an advantageous proposal from a somewhat unappealing young man, she almost immediately changed her mind and withdrew the acceptance next morning. The death of her father in 1805 added to the unhappiness of these years. It was only when Mrs Austen and her family returned to Hampshire in July 1809 and settled in the village of Chawton that Jane’s life recovered enough stability for her to turn back to her writing with a will. She revised the early drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, arranging for them to be published in 1811 and 1813 respectively.

    The two novels remain essentially the products of an earlier stage of Jane Austen’s life. By contrast, Mansfield Park, which she had written between February 1811 and the summer of 1813, bears all the signs of an increased seriousness that had come with age, with the experience of tragedy and with what must have been a growing awareness that in her mid-thirties and without fortune she was never likely to marry. Of all her novels Mansfield Park is the most sober. ‘Now I will try to write of something else,’ she declared in a letter to her sister Cassandra, ‘& it shall be a complete change of subject – ordination.’ Whether or not we think this is an accurate account of the novel’s subject, it points to a new solemnity of purpose that has an unmistakably religious colouring. Mansfield Park is the one novel by Jane Austen that has been clearly influenced by the Evangelical movement, which was calling at the time for moral reform and attempting to infuse the religious life of the country with some of its own earnestness. The author who had scoffed at Evangelicals a few years earlier can write to her niece in 1814 that she is ‘by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals’.

    What are the consequences of this new seriousness? The world of Mansfield Park is not markedly different from that of her other novels. The focus is again on a small section of the landed gentry, their neighbours, their visitors and the social texture of their lives. But to talk of the social texture of life at Mansfield Park is at once to highlight the novel’s difference from its immediate predecessor. What Jane Austen is primarily concerned with here is less the social than the moral texture of life at Mansfield Park. Or rather, she is concerned to show how the one is dependent on the other. And this concern is clearly figured in the presentation of the various characters.

    Running through the central sections of the book is the tension between Henry and Mary Crawford on one side and Edmund and Fanny on the other. The Crawfords are rich, witty, socially adept; they have all the graces that make for pleasing company; they are full of life. Fanny and Edmund, on the other hand, can claim none of these graces. When Fanny is introduced at the start of Chapter 2, it is almost entirely in terms of negatives – not much in her appearance to captivate, nothing to disgust, no glow of complexion, no other striking beauty, etc. – and this emphasis continues through the greater part of the novel. Life, the physical business of living, always seems slightly too much for her, whether it is a question of gathering roses or riding a horse. Edmund fares little better. ‘There is not the least wit in my nature,’ he says, and few readers would be inclined to disagree. No other hero and heroine in Jane Austen have quite so little humour, quite so awkward a social presence. If she was worried that Pride and Prejudice had been ‘rather too light & bright & sparkling’, as she suggested to her sister, she has found a sufficient antidote in Edmund and Fanny.

    The distance we have travelled from Pride and Prejudice can be measured in the repeated use of the single word ‘lively’. It would be an instructive exercise to trace it through the novel. When applied to Elizabeth Bennet, it had carried the full force of the author’s approval, but in the case of Mary Crawford, the connotations are altogether different. ‘Your lively mind can hardly be serious even on serious subjects’ (p. 70), Edmund tells her in one of several exchanges that draw attention to the conflict between liveliness and moral propriety. It comes as no surprise towards the end of the novel to hear that Maria’s disastrous liaison with Henry Crawford began after she had gone to Twickenham with ‘a family of lively, agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit’ (p. 361). To have lively, agreeable manners in this novel is no recommendation. The phrase neatly sums up the opposition at the heart of Mansfield Park between what is socially agreeable and what is morally right.

    Ranged around the central quartet are all the other characters who manifest in one form or another the besetting sin of Mansfield Park – a concern for social proprieties that is unsustained by any moral foundation. There is Lady Bertram, a picture of elegant decorum, but too enervated to have any sort of moral existence at all; Mrs Norris, surely the nastiest of Jane Austen’s creations, who voices the appropriate sentiments for every occasion but whose words bear no relation to her actions; Julia and Maria, the Bertram daughters, who have acquired grace of manner but not of character. It is Sir Thomas himself, in an important passage at the end of the novel, who finally acknowledges what has been wrong with his daughters and, by implication, with his own direction of Mansfield Park. ‘He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting’:

    They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments – the authorised object of their youth – could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition. (p. 372)

    If readers end up asking what became of Jane Austen in Mansfield Park, it is because she has raised the uncomfortable possibility, which was to be more and more widely canvassed in the nineteenth century, that social style might be crucially at odds with moral substance. The Crawfords are intended to be attractive, Fanny and Edmund are intended to lack sparkle. That’s the whole point. To choose virtue may mean choosing the less attractive option. One could divide the book’s characters into those, the majority, who are governed by their wishes and those who are governed by their obligations. For Jane Austen there is an iron law of moral obligation that cuts clear across considerations of personal desire or social attraction. Again and again the book sets what people want to do against what they ought to do and judges them according to their response. Fanny alone consistently makes the right choice.

    This is the main thematic link between two of the novel’s most celebrated episodes, the visit to Sotherton and the project to put on a play at Mansfield. There is no better example than the Sotherton outing of the way Jane Austen can charge the trivialities of commonplace social events with a weight of significance that turns them into moral drama. The couples pass through the rooms of the old house, pause for a few minutes to look at the chapel, then go out to wander in the grounds. Nothing could be more ordinary, and yet by the end of the visit Sotherton has become a moral map on which we can chart with grim precision the course of the various characters as they take a serpentine path through the woods, or edge round a locked gate into the park, or allow themselves to be tempted by an unfastened side-gate into the wilderness. Actions that seem the merest small change of social life resonate with moral implications.

    The same is true of the theatrical fiasco. We know that private theatricals were an accepted form of entertainment at Steventon Rectory in Jane Austen’s childhood, so why all the fuss about them at Mansfield Park? To some extent, no doubt, it can be attributed to changing moral fashions. Jane Austen’s was an eighteenth-century childhood. By 1814 not only had she herself changed, so had the climate of the age. Though the reign of Queen Victoria was still over twenty years away, the Evangelical movement heralded many of the values that were later to be associated with Victorianism. It would hardly be surprising if Jane Austen’s views had changed by the time she came to write Mansfield Park. But the novel is not really concerned with the rights and wrongs of private theatricals in themselves, any more than in the earlier episode with the rights and wrongs of squeezing round a locked gate into a park; it is concerned with what they mean here, to this group of characters in this particular context. In both cases they represent an attempt to bypass the permissible limits of expression, to find a way of doing what you ought not to do or saying what you ought not to say. As such, they are condemned. It is this steely refusal to countenance the pleasurable at the expense of the proper that governs the tone of Mansfield Park. And it is this that perhaps makes it a book more often admired than loved.

    But though Mansfield Park stands out from Jane Austen’s other novels by the sternness of its moral emphasis, there is much else that it shares with them. We have only to read the first sentence to recognise the familiar lines of force that run through each of the books:

    About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

    With practised economy we are given in a few lines the crucial details that define a character’s place in the scheme of things: social rank, marital status, income and place of residence. It’s a sentence that perfectly expresses the social contours of Jane Austen’s world. Much of the criticism directed against her in later years has taken this as its starting point. When she wrote to her niece that ‘3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on’, she summed up the aspect of her novels that has most often been attacked. The charge, in brief, is that her world is too narrow, that its interests are too petty, that it takes too little account of what was going on outside the Country Village. It’s of course true that one looks in vain for much evidence of the Napoleonic Wars that were being waged on and off through most of the time she was writing her novels; but that is a naïve complaint. To those who deplore the absence of large political events in her work, there are two points to be made. First, the sort of social issues with which Jane Austen was dealing are by no means trivial. They have to do with the vital questions by which our lives are determined. Far from being unimportant, the minutiae of social behaviour are for the most part the only evidence on which we can base our judgements of other people – whom to love, whom to trust, whom to marry. If we are to chart our way through the intricacies of everyday social life, then we must know how to read the signs. And reading the signs correctly is what Jane Austen is all about.

    Moreover, and this is the second point, the business of social and moral discrimination does not take place in a vacuum. Jane Austen may have nothing to say about the victories of Napoleon or the execution of Louis XVI, but this does not mean that they had no impact on her work. Given that two of her brothers were on active service in the navy and the husband of a much loved cousin was guillotined during the Terror, it would be absurd to imagine her living and writing in seclusion from the great events of the time. Her concern with manners, with propriety, with convention was intimately related to what was going on in this wider world, and much recent critical debate has centred on the question of where her political and social allegiances actually lie. She was, as Marilyn Butler has demonstrated, one of the combatants in an ideological battle, but on which side? Was she a conservative or a revolutionary? Did she offer a radical critique of women’s social position or did she acquiesce in it? Do her novels support the traditional status of landowners like Sir Thomas Bertram or do they subtly undermine it?

    Butler’s own arguments, persuasively put in Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, suggest that if the Romantic movement and the cult of Sensibility reflect a positive response to the radical political ideas that were sweeping through Europe, Austen’s social conservatism, imbued with the sort of ideas that had been expressed by Edmund Burke, reflects an equally clear negative response. Other critics have seen in her a writer whose contempt for marriage as a property market, whose stress on the precarious economic situation of women, whose insistence on their equal moral status with men, set her alongside Mary Wollstonecraft as a proponent of feminist ideals. For these critics, Mansfield Park embodies, in Margaret Kirkham’s words, ‘Jane Austen’s most ambitious and radical criticism of contemporary prejudice in society and in literature’ (Kirkham, p. 119).

    One issue above all has focused this debate. Sir Thomas’s absence from Mansfield is dictated by the need to look after business interests in Antigua, which would presumably have been related to the sugar plantations worked by slaves. Austen, it seems, has depicted Sir Thomas as a slave-owner at just the time when slavery was a highly controversial political issue. Much has been made of this by a number of critics, who see in it both an indictment of the social structure that is maintained by slavery and a caustic analogy between Sir Thomas’s role as owner of a colonial slave plantation and his role as patriarch of Mansfield. More subtly, Edward Said has written in Culture and Imperialism about the significance Antigua would have had for a contemporary readership, arguing that Austen’s choice of it as the source of Sir Thomas’s income brings into play a whole web of connections between British power overseas and domestic affairs within the Bertram estate. On this reading, Mansfield Park becomes ‘part of the structure of an expanding imperialist venture’ (Said, p. 114). It’s a usefully provocative argument, but Said sometimes has a cavalier way with textual detail. Take, for example, his interpretation of the ‘dead silence’ that greets Fanny’s attempt to ask Sir Thomas about the slave trade. To Said, this is symptomatic of the novel’s attempt to exclude a historical reality which its own honesty none the less prevents it from completely hiding. And yet if we go back to the scene he is referring to, the picture is surely rather different. In response to Edmund’s plea that she should talk more to his father, Fanny protests that this is exactly what she has been doing:

    ‘ . . . Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?’

    ‘I did – and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.’

    ‘And I longed to do it – but there was such a dead silence! And while my cousins were sitting by without speaking a word, or seeming at all interested in the subject, I did not like – I thought it would appear as if I wanted to set myself off at their expense, by showing a curiosity and pleasure in his information which he must wish his own daughters to feel.’ (p. 157)

    The dead silence has nothing to do with any ideological resistance to making a connection between the two worlds – both Fanny and Sir Thomas would be keen to pursue the subject; it’s simply that his daughters are making it plain that they are bored stiff by their father’s conversation. In other words, the dynamics of the scene are social rather than political. It is certainly true that Austen’s much loved brother Frank had returned from St Helena some years earlier with a marked dislike of slavery and that she herself had read Thomas Clarkson’s History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade, but what the reader must decide is how deeply these issues of slavery and colonial exploitation actually penetrate the text of Mansfield Park. The risk, as always, is that we end up learning more about the concerns of the critic than of the novelist.

    There is clearly a case, made most recently in David Nokes’s biography, for seeing Jane Austen as a much more vital, subversive figure than the traditional picture of her as everyone’s maiden aunt allows, but the case for seeing her as a radical critic of social traditions and political institutions is much harder to make. Sir Thomas’s management of Mansfield is explicitly criticised, but this is not the same as criticising the social order that has put him in control of it. On the contrary, he is criticised for failing to instill the necessary moral safeguards against what threatens that order. And it is in terms of these threats that the political and social context of the novel becomes so important. The preoccupation in Mansfield Park with stability and order has a significance that we can only understand if we set the novel against its contemporary background of war and revolution in Europe. The contrast between Fanny’s passivity and the Crawfords’ restlessness gains a new dimension from this context. That Henry should be hostile ‘to anything like a permanence of abode, or limitation of society’ (p. 32) sets him clearly, and damningly, on the side of change and commotion. By the same token, when Fanny goes back to her family’s home in Portsmouth and finds it ‘the abode of noise, disorder, and impropriety’ (p. 312), her revulsion is not mere priggishness; the three nouns define it as an image of everything the values of the novel stand against.

    The tensions reflected in Mansfield Park are not only the ideological conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they are the social tensions of a country that was on the verge of tremendous change. The world of Mansfield Park over which Sir Thomas has presided is essentially an eighteenth-century world. The Crawfords who come from London to threaten it with their city ways and their passion for movement and variety are harbingers of a century of change. Mansfield Park itself resists them successfully, but they are a sign of things to come. England had just begun to see the emphasis of national life shifting decisively from the country to the city, and the nineteenth century was to usher in, thanks to the railway, the steamship and the telegraph, an age of relentless movement.

    In this, as in other respects, Mansfield Park is poised between the two centuries. The novel’s social allegiance is to the old order of the eighteenth-century landed gentry, to the values of rural tradition and stability which stand in opposition both to the radical ideas that have been hatched on the Continent and to the stirrings of social change in England. But at the same time the book’s moral perspective looks forward to that strand of Victorianism which tends to oppose style to substance, to be suspicious of social charm, to respect depths rather than surfaces, to value earnestness above all. The novel’s heroine, too, though she has antecedents in the eighteenth century, has more in common with the physically frail but morally righteous heroines of many Victorian novels.

    Mansfield Park is in several ways a towering achievement. Its uncompromising moral vision, the clarity of its social observation, the command of tone that can keep figures as diverse as Lady Bertram, Mrs Norris and Mr Yates within the range of the author’s humour and yet prevent them from escaping into a separate comic world – all this is brilliantly managed. To take one instance, Mrs Norris is a comic hypocrite of Dickensian proportions – ‘but you know I am a woman of few words and professions. Do not let us be frightened from good deeds by a trifle . . . My dear Sir Thomas, with all my faults I have a warm heart: and, poor as I am, would rather deny myself the necessaries of life, than do an ungenerous thing . . . My own trouble, you know, I never regard . . . ’ etc. (pp. 5–6) – and yet such is Austen’s control that the comedy never prevents her from being taken seriously either in her malignity or in the unexpected act of self-sacrifice that makes her Maria’s companion at the end of the novel. That she can reflect the author’s moral and social concerns while at the same time working so successfully as a figure of comedy is a measure of what Austen achieves in the book.

    But has anyone ever been quite satisfied with the brisk resolution of Fanny and Edmund’s love story? Reading Mansfield Park in 1836, the actor William Macready complained that ‘it hurried with a very inartificial and disagreeable rapidity to its conclusion’ (Southam 1968, p. 119). It is easy to see what he means. ‘Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery,’ says Austen at the start of the final chapter, confessing herself ‘impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest’ (p. 370). In pursuit of this aim, she consigns Fanny and Edmund to felicity with remarkably little ceremony. The brief paragraph that announces their prospective marriage is almost dismissive.

    At one level this highlights a strain of authorial ambivalence that colours the whole narrative. In Fanny Price, Austen has created the most morally impressive of her heroines but also the one who is most remote from the wit and irony of her own narrative voice. Her comments nowhere suggest the sort of personal affection she seems to have felt for the heroines of other novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma. In these two books there is a clear enough gap between the narrator and the heroines – it is the space within which we see and judge their faults – but it is not a gap that throws up any conflict of tone. In Mansfield Park the gap is apparently minimal, and yet we sense a vividness and bite in the narrator’s tone that is quite outside the heroine’s reach. The narrator who tells us that Mrs Norris ‘consoled herself for the loss of her husband by considering that she could do very well without him’ (p. 18) has just the sort of sardonic wit that shines through Jane Austen’s letters, but if any of the characters in Mansfield Park could make that comment, it would be Mary Crawford not Fanny Price.

    This may seem to be suggesting, as Blake did of Milton’s Paradise Lost, that Austen is of the devil’s party without knowing it. That would be quite wrong. There is indeed a sense in which Austen is of the devil’s party, but she knows it all too well, and in condemning Mary Crawford she condemns those aspects of herself that are implicated in Mary’s malicious wit and irreverent frivolity. Unfortunately, they are precisely the aspects responsible for much of what is most attractive in her novels, for what is ‘light & bright & sparkling’. Of course she relented again in Emma, giving us a heroine as different from the timid, unassuming, verbally unadventurous Fanny as anyone could wish, but in Mansfield Park there remains the sense of an author to some extent writing against the grain of her talent, endeavouring to suppress some of the sources of her own artistic energy. Throughout the novel Austen has been helping Fanny along, lending her a supportive commentary that is far more intrusive than anything she felt the need for elsewhere, and it is hard to believe that she does not sometimes weary of this. Could anyone with an ear as sharp as Austen’s fail to be aware of the whining note of self-pity in Fanny’s reflections during preparations for the play: ‘She alone was sad and insignificant; she had no share in anything; she might go or stay, she might be in the midst of their noise, or retreat from it to the solitude of the East room, without being seen or missed’ (p. 127)? In the end, it may be that Jane Austen found it almost as hard to love her heroine as many of her readers have done. In hurrying her into happiness, the author perhaps shows a pardonable hint of impatience.

    Or should we put it down to loss of conviction rather than loss of patience? There is in most of Austen’s novels (Emma is the obvious exception) a recurring pattern which shows us a heroine undervalued by those around her. The unfolding narrative is in one sense a Cinderella story of how her worth is recognised by the hero who, in spite of obstacles, carries her off at the end of the novel. No other of the heroines is quite so undervalued as Fanny, no other so nearly approximates to the fairy-tale paradigm. And in the final pages Jane Austen comes close to acknowledging that a fairy-tale is what it is. ‘I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion,’ she writes, ‘that everyone may be at liberty to fix their own’ (p. 378). She merely urges us to believe that all turned out exactly as it should, and that at just the natural moment Edmund ‘became as anxious to marry Fanny, as Fanny herself could desire’ (ibid.). Her tone playfully advertises the unreality of the conclusion. It is perhaps a final mark of the unflinching honesty of this book that Jane Austen, situated as she was and knowing what she knew, could not quite put her heart into the business of happy endings.

    Dr Ian Littlewood

    University of Sussex

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    Nokes, David, Jane Austen, A Life, London 1997

    Poovey, Mary, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer, Chicago 1984

    Poplawski, Paul, A Jane Austen Encyclopedia, London 1998

    Roberts, Warren, Jane Austen and the French Revolution, London 1979 (reprinted 1995)

    Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism, London 1993

    Southam, B. C. (ed.), Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, two volumes, London 1968 and 1976

    Southam, B. C., Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist’s Development through the Surviving Papers, London 1964

    Tanner, Tony, Jane Austen, London 1986

    Watt, Ian (ed.), Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1963 (includes D. W. Harding’s essay, ‘Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen’ and Kingsley Amis’s ‘What Became of Jane Austen?’)

    Woolf, Virginia, ‘Jane Austen’ in The Common Reader, First Series, London 1925

    Chapter 1

    About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them. Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, found herself obliged to be attached to the Revd Mr Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse. Miss Ward’s match, indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible, Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield, and Mr and Mrs Norris began their career of conjugal felicity with very little less than a thousand a year. But Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a Lieutenant of Marines, without education, fortune, or connections, did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have made a more untoward choice. Sir Thomas Bertram had interest, which, from principle as well as pride, from a general wish of doing right and a desire of seeing all that were connected with him in situations of respectability, he would have been glad to exert for the advantage of Lady Bertram’s sister; but her husband’s profession was such as no interest could reach; and before he had time to devise any other method of assisting them, an absolute breach between the sisters had taken place. It was the natural result of the conduct of each party, and such as a very imprudent marriage almost always produces. To save herself from useless remonstrance, Mrs Price never wrote to her family on the subject till actually married. Lady Bertram, who was a woman of very tranquil feelings, and a temper remarkably easy and indolent, would have contented herself with merely giving up her sister, and thinking no more of the matter: but Mrs Norris had a spirit of activity, which could not be satisfied till she had written a long and angry letter to Fanny, to point out the folly of her conduct, and threaten her with all its possible ill consequences. Mrs Price in her turn was injured and angry; and an answer which comprehended each sister in its bitterness, and bestowed such very disrespectful reflections on the pride of Sir Thomas, as Mrs Norris could not possibly keep to herself, put an end to all intercourse between them for a considerable period.

    Their homes were so distant, and the circles in which they moved so distinct, as almost to preclude the means of ever hearing of each other’s existence during the eleven following years, or at least to make it very wonderful to Sir Thomas, that Mrs Norris should ever have it in her power to tell them, as she now and then did in an angry voice, that Fanny had got another child. By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one connection that might possibly assist her. A large and still increasing family, an husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which spoke so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity of children, and such a want of almost everything else, as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation. She was preparing for her ninth lying-in, and after bewailing the circumstance, and imploring their countenance as sponsors to the expected child, she could not conceal how important she felt they might be to the future maintenance of the eight already in being. Her eldest was a boy of ten years old, a fine spirited fellow who longed to be out in the world; but what could she do? Was there any chance of his being hereafter useful to Sir Thomas in the concerns of his West Indian property? No situation would be beneath him – or what did Sir Thomas think of Woolwich? or how could a boy be sent out to the East?

    The letter was not unproductive. It re-established peace and kindness. Sir Thomas sent friendly advice and professions, Lady Bertram dispatched money and baby-linen, and Mrs Norris wrote the letters.

    Such were its immediate effects, and within a twelvemonth a more important advantage to Mrs Price resulted from it. Mrs Norris was often observing to the others, that she could not get her poor sister and her family out of her head, and that much as they had all done for her, she seemed to be wanting to do more: and at length she could not but own it to be her wish, that poor Mrs Price should be relieved from the charge and expense of one child entirely out of her great number. ‘What if they were among them to undertake the care of her eldest daughter, a girl now nine years old, of an age to require more attention than her poor mother could possibly give? The trouble and expense of it to them, would be nothing compared with the benevolence of the action.’ Lady Bertram agreed with her instantly. ‘I think we cannot do better,’ said she, ‘let us send for the child.’

    Sir Thomas could not give so instantaneous and unqualified a consent. He debated and hesitated, – it was a serious charge; – a girl so brought up must be adequately provided for, or there would be cruelty instead of kindness in taking her from her family. He thought of his own four children – of his two sons – of cousins in love, etc.; – but no sooner had he deliberately begun to state his objections, than Mrs Norris interrupted him with a reply to them all whether stated or not.

    ‘My dear Sir Thomas, I perfectly comprehend you, and do justice to the generosity and delicacy of your notions, which indeed are quite of a piece with your general conduct; and I entirely agree with you in the main as to the propriety of doing everything one could by way of providing for a child one had in a manner taken into one’s own hands; and I am sure I should be the last person in the world to withhold my mite upon such an occasion. Having no children of my own, who should I look to in any little matter I may ever have to bestow, but the children of my sisters? – and I am sure Mr Norris is too just – but you know I am a woman of few words and professions. Do not let us be frightened from a good deed by a trifle. Give a girl an education, and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without farther expense to anybody. A niece of ours, Sir Thomas, I may say, or, at least of yours, would not grow up in this neighbourhood without many advantages. I don’t say she would be so handsome as her cousins. I dare say she would not; but she would be introduced into the society of this country under such very favourable circumstances as, in all human probability, would get her a creditable establishment. You are thinking of your sons – but do not you know that of all things upon earth that is the least likely to happen; brought up, as they would be, always together like brothers and sisters? It is morally impossible. I never knew an instance of it. It is, in fact, the only sure way of providing against the connection. Suppose her a pretty girl, and seen by Tom or Edmund for the first time seven years hence, and I dare say there would be mischief. The very idea of her having been suffered to grow up at a distance from us all in poverty and neglect, would be enough to make either of the dear sweet-tempered boys in love with her. But breed her up with them from this time, and suppose her even to have the beauty of an angel, and she will never be more to either than a sister.’

    ‘There is a great deal of truth in what you say,’ replied Sir Thomas, ‘and far be it from me to throw any fanciful impediment in the way of a plan which would be so consistent with the relative situations of each. I only meant to observe, that it ought not to be lightly engaged in, and that to make it really serviceable to Mrs Price, and creditable to ourselves, we must secure to the child, or consider ourselves engaged to secure to her hereafter, as circumstances may arise, the provision of a gentlewoman, if no such establishment should offer as you are so sanguine in expecting.’

    ‘I thoroughly understand you,’ cried Mrs Norris; ‘you are everything that is generous and considerate, and I am sure we shall never disagree on this point. Whatever I can do, as you well know, I am always ready enough to do for the good of those I love; and, though I could never feel for this little girl the hundredth part of the regard I bear your own dear children, nor consider her, in any respect, so much my own, I should hate myself if I were capable of neglecting her. Is not she a sister’s child? and could I bear to see her want, while I had a bit of bread to give her? My dear Sir Thomas, with all my faults I have a warm heart: and, poor as I am, would rather deny myself the necessaries of life, than do an ungenerous thing. So, if you are not against it, I will write to my poor sister tomorrow, and make the proposal; and, as soon as matters are settled, I will engage to get the child to Mansfield; you shall have no trouble about it. My own trouble, you know, I never regard. I will send Nanny to London on purpose, and she may have a bed at her cousin, the saddler’s, and the child be appointed to meet her there. They may easily get her from Portsmouth to town by the coach, under the care of any creditable person that may chance to be going. I dare say there is always some reputable tradesman’s wife or other going up.’

    Except to the attack on Nanny’s cousin, Sir Thomas no longer made any objection, and a more respectable, though less economical rendezvous being accordingly substituted, everything was considered as settled, and the pleasures of so benevolent a scheme were already enjoyed. The division of gratifying sensations ought not, in strict justice, to have been equal; for Sir Thomas was fully resolved to be the real and consistent patron of the selected child, and Mrs Norris had not the least intention of being at any expense whatever in her maintenance. As far as walking, talking, and contriving reached, she was thoroughly benevolent, and nobody knew better how to dictate liberality to others: but her love of money was equal to her love of directing, and she knew quite as well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends. Having married on a narrower income than she had been used to look forward to, she had, from the first, fancied a very strict line of economy necessary; and what was begun as a matter of prudence, soon grew into a matter of choice, as an object of that needful solicitude, which there were no children to supply. Had there been a family to provide for, Mrs Norris might never have saved her money; but having no care of that kind, there was nothing to impede her frugality, or lessen the comfort of making a yearly addition to an income which they had never lived up to. Under this infatuating principle, counteracted by no real affection for her sister, it was impossible for her to aim at more than the credit of projecting and arranging so expensive a charity; though perhaps she might so little know herself, as to walk home to the Parsonage after this conversation, in the happy belief of being the most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world.

    When the subject was brought forward again, her views were more fully explained; and, in reply to Lady Bertram’s calm inquiry of ‘Where shall the child come to first, sister, to you or to us?’ Sir Thomas heard, with some surprise, that it would be totally out of Mrs Norris’s power to take any share in the personal charge of her. He had been considering her as a particularly welcome addition at the Parsonage, as a desirable companion to an aunt who had no children of her own; but he found himself wholly mistaken. Mrs Norris was sorry to say, that the little girl’s staying with them, at least as things then were, was quite out of the question. Poor Mr Norris’s indifferent state of health made it an impossibility: he could no more bear the noise of a child than he could fly; if indeed he should ever get well of his gouty complaints, it would be a different matter: she should then be glad to take her turn, and think nothing of the inconvenience; but just now, poor Mr Norris took up every moment of her time, and the very mention of such a thing she was sure would distract him.

    ‘Then she had better come to us,’ said Lady Bertram with the utmost composure. After a short pause, Sir Thomas added with dignity, ‘Yes, let her home be in this house. We will endeavour to do our duty by her, and she will at least have the advantage of companions of her own age, and of a regular instructress.’

    ‘Very true,’ cried Mrs Norris, ‘which are both very important considerations: and it will be just the same to Miss Lee, whether she has three girls to teach, or only two – there can be no difference. I only wish I could be more useful; but you see I do all in my power. I am not one of those that spare their own trouble; and Nanny shall fetch her, however it may put me to inconvenience to have my chief counsellor away for three days. I suppose, sister, you will put the child in the little white attic, near the old nurseries. It will be much the best place for her, so near Miss Lee, and not far from the girls, and close by the housemaids, who could either of them help dress her you know, and take care of her clothes, for I suppose you would not think it fair to expect Ellis to wait on her as well as the others. Indeed, I do not see that you could possibly place her anywhere else.’

    Lady Bertram made no opposition.

    ‘I hope she will prove a well-disposed girl,’ continued Mrs Norris, ‘and be sensible of her uncommon good fortune in having such friends.’

    ‘Should her disposition be really bad,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘we must not, for our own children’s sake, continue her in the family; but there is no reason to expect so great an evil. We shall probably see much to wish altered in her, and must prepare ourselves for gross ignorance, some meanness of opinions, and very distressing vulgarity of manner; but these are not incurable faults – nor, I trust, can they be dangerous for her associates. Had my daughters been younger than herself, I should have considered the introduction of such a companion, as a matter of very serious moment; but as it is, I hope there can be nothing to fear for them and everything to hope for her, from the association.’

    ‘That is exactly what I think,’ cried Mrs Norris, ‘and what I was saying to my husband this morning. It will be an education for the child said I, only being with her cousins; if Miss Lee taught her nothing, she would learn to be good and clever from them.’

    ‘I hope she will not tease my poor Pug,’ said Lady Bertram; ‘I have but just got Julia to leave it alone.’

    ‘There will be some difficulty in our way, Mrs Norris,’ observed Sir Thomas, ‘as to the distinction proper to be made between the girls as they grow up; how to preserve in the minds of my daughters the consciousness of what they are, without making them think too lowly of their cousin; and how, without depressing her spirits too far, make her remember that she is not a Miss Bertram. I should wish to see them very good friends, and would, on no account, authorise in my girls the smallest degree of arrogance towards their relation; but still they cannot be equals. Their rank, fortune, rights, and expectations, will always be different. It is a point of great delicacy, and you must assist us in our endeavours to choose exactly the right line of conduct.’

    Mrs Norris was quite at his service; and though she perfectly agreed with him as to its being a most difficult thing, encouraged him to hope that between them it would be easily managed.

    It will be readily believed that Mrs Norris did not write to her sister in vain. Mrs Price seemed rather surprised that a girl should be fixed on, when she had so many fine boys, but accepted the offer most thankfully, assuring them of her daughter’s being a very well-disposed, good-humoured girl, and trusting they would never have cause to throw her off. She spoke of her farther as somewhat delicate and puny, but was sanguine in the hope of her being materially better for change of air. Poor woman! she probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children.

    Chapter 2

    The little girl performed her long journey in safety, and at Northampton was met by Mrs Norris, who thus regaled in the credit of being foremost to welcome her, and in the

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