Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park is the third published novel by the English writer Jane Austen, published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton, with a second edition in 1816.

The Bertram household runs on order: Sir Thomas manages the estate and its business abroad, Lady Bertram occupies a sofa, and Mrs Norris organises other people's lives while making sure that Fanny is reminded of her place. The children, Tom, Edmund, Maria and Julia, have been raised to expect comfort, and when Sir Thomas goes away to see to his affairs in Antigua, they take the opportunity to stage a play in the house he would never have allowed. The decision about whether to take part in the theatricals is the first of several tests the novel sets, and Fanny's judgement, kept to herself, is consistently better than anybody else's. The other test arrives with the Crawfords, half-siblings whose charm is real and whose principles are not, and whose attentions force Fanny to refuse the most comfortable future offered to her. Austen finished the book in 1813 after moving to Chawton, and its reception was slow: no public reviews appeared until 1821, though the novel has since been adapted for stage and screen several times and argued over at least as often.