Mansfield Park

Zusatztext "Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values."—Virginia Woolf Informationen zum Autor Jane Austen Klappentext In Mansfield Park!" " first published in 1814! when the author had reached her full maturity as a novelist! Jane Austen paints some of her most witty and perceptive studies of character. Against a genteel country landscape of formal parks and stately homes! the gossipy Mrs. Norris becomes a masterful comic creation; the fickle young suitor Henry Crawford provides an unequaled portrait of an unscrupulous young man; and the complexly drawn Fanny Price emerges as one of Jane Austen's finest achievements--the poor cousin who comes to stay with her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park and learns how the game of love can too easily turn to folly. More intricately plotted and wider in scope than Austen's earlier works! Mansfield Park continues to enchant and delight us as a superb example of a great author's craft. Chapter One 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 Rev. 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 b...

Product details

• Authors: Jane Austen
• Publisher: Bantam Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 01.06.1983
• EAN: 9780553212761
• ISBN: 978-0-553-21276-1
• No. of pages: 512
• Dimensions: 107 mm x 174 mm x 27 mm
• Series: Bantam Classics; Bantam Classics
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature