Mansfield Park

Begun in 1811 at the height of Jane Austen's writing powers and published in 1814; Mansfield Park marks a conscious break from the tone of her first three novels; Northanger Abbey ; Sense and Sensibility ; and Pride and Prejudice ; the last of which Austen came to see as 'rather too light.' Fanny Price is unlike any of Austen's previous heroines; a girl from a poor family brought up in a splendid country house and possessed of a vast reserve of moral fortitude and imperturbability. She is very different from Elizabeth Bennet; but is the product of the same inspired imagination.