Mansfield Park

I can't quite believe it, but I have now read all six of Jane Austen's novels. I feel quite proud of myself.

Mansfield Park is my final Austen read. It's the story of a poor girl, Fanny, who is sent to live with her affluent relatives. She grows into a refined and beautiful young woman, despite her treatment as a second-class person by the rich members of her family. Fanny is captivated by her resolute cousin, Edmund, while in true Austen-ish fashion, Edmund is drawn to a beautiful neighbor, Mary Crawford, and Mary's brother, Henry, becomes infatuated with Fanny.

It's a wild ride of a romantic triangle, with all sorts of triangles within triangles. At the same time, Austen takes us out of the drawing room, into the corners of lives lived in poverty, into the lives of those who are involved in slave trade, into lives of the idle and morally uncertain rich, and leaves her readers with lots to think about.