Easily my least favorite of Austen's. The heroine is pretty dull, no Elizabeth Bennett spirit here. My main gripe with this story is that it’s all buildup with a very unsatisfying ending. Skip this one. ( )

1031 Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen (read 2 Nov 1969) In June 1954 I read Pride and Prejudice with greatest delight. In May 1965 I read Sense and Sensibility , Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion with similar appreciation. Quite by accident--I found a copy for 10 cents--I have now read this work. Fanny Price goes to live with her maternal aunt, Mrs. Thomas Bertram. who lives at Mansfield Park. Another maternal aunt, Mrs. Norris, is there--and she is a caricature of the evil aunt. Fanny is all goodness. She falls in love with her cousin Edmund, who is in love with Mary Crawford. Mary's brother, Henry Crawford, woos Fanny. But Fanny cannot stand him. Edmund's sisters, Maria and Julia, are worthless. Fanny of course triumphs. First, the story drug--much to-do over amateur acting, etc. But in time the craftsmanship caught me up--as Jane Austen has always done. So deft, so carefully done. One cannot but be impressed. Edmund is a prig, but since Fanny loves him one can forgive him much. One continues to be struck by the fact that the rich in Austen's time apparently did nothing. Even Fanny's poor parents have two servants besides all their children. One cannot be sorry for poor people so lazy as to need servants. The only major Austen novel I now have not read is Emma. I will read it sometime. [I did 20 Aug 1972.] ( )

I have recently rediscovered Austen, not having enjoyed her works at all in my youth, and this book is responsible for my different perspective and fresh enjoyment.

It is a darker book and more serious in tone than I had imagined. The protagonist Fanny is far less appealing superficially than many of Austen's other female leads: passive, sickly, dully dutiful and always right, but oddly I grew to like her very much. She is certainly not as attractive and likeable as Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice, for example. She is a stoic and endures rather than actually *doing* anything; she is the moral centre while all the other characters are in flux, even her beloved Edmund, who supposedly instilled in her all that is of value. She is not immune to pressures or temptations, but she recognises them for what they are and does not succumb.

It's classic Austen territory with town and country values at odds, while taking a more complex and nuanced approach to her usual themes than other of her works led me to expect.

It was a surprise to me how much I enjoyed the novel, and it has meant that I have begun to revisit her other works. Pride and Prejudice was an awful lot funnier than I remembered it, so there's definitely something to be said for going back to those books that you couldn't get on with first time around. I wonder if it's that I'm older or that I'm reading for my own pleasure rather than for a school or college course?

Really enjoyed it and the ending is great. A nice read and my second favourite of Jane Austen's books. The main character is realli ordinary and suffers unknowingly through injustices. Good display of the social hierarchy in britain at that time, and another good insight into a different kind of love story. ( )

Fairly enjoyable, but my least favorite of Jane Austens books. ( )