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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.7
EAN num: 9780141439808
ISBN number: 0141439807
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 480
Printing Date: April 29, 2003
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Release Date: April 29, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 66118
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
New chronology and further reading; Tony Tanner's original introduction reinstated
Edited with an introduction by Kathryn Sutherland.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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The very first half of the book was kind of slow, but by the middle I couldn't put it down! It was wonderful and had a few surprises. I am trying to read all of Jane Austen's books...so far I have only read this, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma. I would have to say I like both P&P and Emma better than Mansfield Park, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy this book!
Rated by buyers -
I just finished this novel after having read Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. It took me a while to get pulled into this novel because I really was not expecting that much from reading other opinions. Slowly I became absorbed by the personality of Fanny. She was doing an incredible job of turning Fanny gradually toward Henry Crawford and you were starting to like him when all of a sudden it was like she just got tired of the story and decided to contrive an ending. It did not fit into the ending she was developing. Edmund was starting to look like milk toast and Crawford and Fanny's relationship was starting to warm up. I think it was by far her best writing but how disappointing an ending. Someone should rewrite it.
Rated by buyers 
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I ordered all the books at once and they came in in a very timely matter. Not to mention the books were in excellent shape as if I just picked them up from Books a Million down the street.
Rated by buyers -
Jane Austen finished "Mansfield Park" in 1813, after "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejudice." It is a more complex novel than either of its precedessors or its successors ("Emma", "Persuasion", and "Northanger Abbey"). Its heroine, Fanny Price, is rather the middle child in Austen's sisterhood, often overlooked when compared to her more attractive older sisters or more interesting younger sisters. Still, Fanny Price is worth getting to know.
One of a growing brood of children in a lower middle class family in Portsmouth, Fanny is placed for raising with her much wealthier Aunt and Uncle Bertram at Mansfield Park in the English countryside. The ten year-old Fanny is painfully shy, physically sickly, and less educated than her Bertram cousins, who mostly ignore or make subtle fun of her. Her Aunt Norris, responsible for the day-to-day raising of her cousins, thrives on tormenting Fanny. Only her cousin Edmund takes an interest in her. Under his guidance, she begins to catch up to her cousins as she matures into an attractive young woman. Most importantly, she fortifies a strong sense of morality.
The prolonged absence of Fanny's Uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, to tend to his estates in Antigua, leaves the household under the uncertain leadership of Aunt Norris, just as the wealthy Mary and Henry Crawford arrive from London. Mary and Henry are the same age as the older Bertram children, but worldly, manipulative, and less grounded in solid values. Henry flirts shamelessly with Fanny's engaged cousin Maria and trifles with Maria's younger sister Julia, while Mary flaunts her considerable charms at Edmund. The Bertrams are tempted into inappropriate behavior, which only Fanny resists.
Sir Thomas re-imposes order upon his return from the Caribbean. Maria is married off to a wealthy if rather stupid neighbor. Edmund courts Mary Crawford, to the distress of Fanny, who has an interes in Edmund and who sees Mary for the shallow manipulator she is. Fanny herself is courted by Henry Crawford, who starts by trifling with her emotions but comes to seek her as a wife. Great pressure is placed on Fanny by Sir Thomas, by Edmund, and by Mary to accept Henry as an advantageous match.
The anguished Fanny holds her ground, and is effectively exiled to Portsmouth, where she finds little to love in her vulgar birth family except a promising younger sister. In her absence, the Bertram family falls to pieces in sickness and scandal. Fanny will be summoned back to Mansfield Park, with a final opportunity for personal happiness.
As Tony Tanner's excellent introduction makes clear, Fanny is unique among Austen heroines in her invariably good moral sense. Her attraction as a character is based less on the personal growth and maturation we expect in a Austen heroine and more on her perseverence in the face of very attractive temptations and seemingly reasonable pressures. It is Austen's genius to insert complex characters into the subtle relationships between four families in the story. The story provides a fascinating venue for social commentary and compelling domestic drama. The witty and enthusiastic but morally flawed Crawfords, for example, seem more attractive than the shy, vulnerable, and withdrawn Fanny or the understated Edmund.
"Mansfield Park" is very highly recommended to fans of Jane Austen's romances. Its complex characters and storyline may ultimately be as rewarding to the reader as the more popular novels.
Rated by buyers -
If all the Austen books were sisters, Mansfield Park would be the quiet, pensively courageous sibling of the six. Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion all seem to glow like ladies at a ball. (Northanger Abbey would, I guess, be the sister who plays piano and can't really sing...although she tries...)
I felt this novel to have a wonderfully theatrical feel, a closet drama of sorts. The above novels are like social epics whereas Mansfield Park appears stately, stoic and unto itself, thoughtful in a way the others aren't. I still think the other novels are excellent but there is something reserved about this one in particular. I am not a dedicated Austen lover but I would chose this one over the others simply because it is the less popular and to me, the most fascinating. The social-relationship dynamics are similar to the other novels - i.e. learning that the pretty face doesn't always have a pretty soul.
Let's put it this way, I'll probably read this novel again before the others. This is the sister I would like to know, to talk with and share philosophy with. The other sisters, in my opinion are great to dance with and they'll certainly entertain you. Nothing wrong in that.
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