Mansfield Park By Jane Austen: Mansfield Park By Jane Austen

Frances "Fanny" Price, at age 10, is sent from her family home to live with her uncle and aunt in the country in Northamptonshire. It is a jolting change, from the elder sister of many, to the youngest at the estate of Sir Thomas Bertram, husband of her mother's older sister. Her cousin Edmund finds her alone one day and helps her.

She wants to write to her older brother William. Edmund provides the writing materials, the first kindness to her in this new family. Her cousins are Tom Jr. (age 17), Edmund (16), Maria (13) and Julia (12). Her aunt is kind but her uncle frightens her with his authoritative demeanour. Fanny's mother has another sister, Mrs Norris.

She is the wife of the clergyman at Mansfield parsonage. Mrs Norris has no children and takes a great interest in her nieces and nephews. Mrs Norris makes a strict distinction between her Bertram nieces and lowly Fanny. Sir Thomas helps the sons of the Price family find occupations when they are old enough.

William joins the Navy as a midshipman not long after Fanny arrives at Mansfield Park. He visits them once before going to sea, and writes to his sister. When Fanny is fifteen, Aunt Norris is widowed and moves into a cottage of her own. The frequency of her visits to Mansfield Park increases, as does her mistreatment of Fanny.

Tom Bertram incurs a large debt and to pay it, Sir Thomas sells the living of the parsonage, freed up by the death of Uncle Norris, to clergyman Dr Grant. When Fanny is sixteen, Sir Thomas leaves to deal with problems on his plantation in Antigua. He takes Tom along and trusts to Aunt Norris for the others.

Mrs Norris takes on the task of finding a husband for Maria and finds James Rushworth, with income of 12,000 a year, but weak-willed and stupid. Maria accepts his marriage proposal, subject to Sir Thomas's approval on his return. After a year in Antigua, Sir Thomas sends Tom home to Mansfield Park.

One year later, the fashionable, wealthy, and worldly Henry Crawford and his sister,