Mansfield Park (Full Text with Biography, Chapter Summary, Examination of Themes, and Character Summary)

Jane Austen's classic novel, complete with short biography of Austen, plot summary, examination of major themes, and character summary.

Mansfield Park is the most controversial and perhaps the least popular of Austen's major novels. Regency critics praised the novel's wholesome morality, but many modern readers find Fanny's timidity and disapproval of the theatricals difficult to sympathise with and reject the idea (made explicit in the final chapter) that she is a better person for the relative privations of her childhood. Jane Austen's own mother thought Fanny "insipid", and many other readers have found her priggish and unlikeable.