Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park is named for the magnificent, idyllic estate that is home to the wealthy Bertram family and that serves as a powerful symbol of English tradition and stability. The novels heroine, Fanny Price—a “poor relation” living with the Bertrams—is acutely conscious of her inferior status and yet she dares to love their son Edmund—from afar. With five marriageable young people on the premises, the peace at Mansfield cannot last. Courtships, entertainments, and intrigues throw the place into turmoil, and Fanny finds herself unwillingly competing with a dazzlingly witty and lovely rival. As Margaret Drabble points out in her incisive Introduction, the house becomes “full of the energies of discord—sibling rivalry, greed, ambition, illicit sexual passion, and vanity,” and the novel grows ever more engrossing right up to Mansfields final scandal and the satisfying conclusion. Unique in its moral design and its brilliant interplay of the forces of tradition and change, Mansfield Park was the first novel of Jane Austens maturity, and the first in which the author turned her unerring eye on the concerns of English society at a time of great upheaval.

With an Introduction by Margaret Drabble and an Afterword by Julia Quinn

At the novel's center is Fanny Price, the classic poor cousin, brought as a child to Mansfield Park by the rich Sir Thomas Bertram and his wife as an act of charity. Over time, Fanny comes to demonstrate forcibly those virtues Austen most admired: modesty, firm principles, and a loving heart. As Fanny watches her cousins Maria and Julia cast aside their scruples in dangerous flirtations (and worse), and as she herself resolutely resists the advantages of marriage to the fascinating but morally unsteady Henry Crawford, her seeming austerity grows in appeal and makes clear to us why she was Austen's own favorite among her heroines.

"Every moment had its pleasure and its hope."

Fanny Price has grown up acutely conscious of her inferior status as a "poor relation" living with her wealthy cousins, the Bertram family. Yet as she enters womanhood, she dares to love their youngest son, Edmund--from afar. Secret longings aside, there is peace at the Bertrams' idyllic estate, until the handsome and charming Crawford siblings arrive. Soon, Fanny finds herself unwillingly competing with the dazzling, witty Mary for Edmund's affections--and is shocked to acquire a determined new suitor of her own. With five marriageable young people embroiled in courtships, entanglements, and intrigues, it's only a matter of time before scandal reveals the true feelings of all the residents at Mansfield Park.

Unique in its moral design and its brilliant interplay of the forces of tradition and change, Mansfield Park is one of Austen's most complex and controversial works.

Includes an Introduction by Margaret Drabble
and an Afterword by Julia Quinn, author of the Bridgerton series

When the man whose proposal she rejected returns from his long military tour at sea, Anne Elliot is forced to face the decision she made eight years ago-along with the man she's never stopped loving.

As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives.

Margaret Drabble is recipient of many prestigious awards for her writing, which includes works of nonfiction as well as numerous novels.