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Zusatztext "Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values." --Virginia Woolf Informationen zum Autor Jane Austen (1775-1817) was extremely modest about her own genius but has become one of English literature's most famous women writers. She is also the author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. Kathryn Sutherland is a reader in English at St Anne's College, Oxford. Tony Tanner was a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Cambridge. Klappentext Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Chapter I About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon,with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luckto captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park,in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raisedto the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comfortsand 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 leastthree 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 MissFrances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scrupleto predict their marrying with almost equal advantage.But there certainly are not so many men of large fortunein the world as there are pretty women to deserve them.Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, foundherself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris,a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely anyprivate 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 ableto give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield;and Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugalfelicity 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 lieutenantof marines, without education, fortune, or connexions,did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have madea more untoward choice. Sir Thomas Bertram had interest,which, from principle as well as pride—from a generalwish of doing right, and a desire of seeing all that wereconnected with him in situations of respectability,he would have been glad to exert for the advantageof Lady Bertram's sister; but her husband's professionwas such as no interest could reach; and before hehad 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 neverwrote to her family on the subject till actually married.Lady Bertram, who was a woman of very tranquil feeli...
