Jane Austen-Mansfield Park

The first novel of the author's maturity <i>Mansfield Park</i> is complex highly wrought and experimental. It marks a transitional stage between the first two published novels <i>Sense and Sensibility</i> and <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> and Jane Austen's greatest achievements <i>Emma and Persuasion</i>. It has been suggested that <i>Mansfield Park</i> is the writer's most autobiographical novel and that in seeing through the eyes of Fanny Price deemed the most moralising and judgemental of her heroines we are seeing through the eyes of Austen herself. Though Fanny Price may be too virtuous for modern readers to take to their hearts in Mrs Norris Austen creates one of her best because most plausible monsters; while in the estate of Mansfield Park itself we find some of the most fully realised descriptions of domestic interiors and exteriors in Austen's fiction.This Guide traces the response to <i>Mansfield Park</i> from the opinions of Jane Austen's contemporaries through 19th century reviews and 20th century critical analyses including deconstructionist feminist postcolonial and poststructuralist to diverse 21st century approaches to the novel. Sandie Byrne selects the most useful and insightful of these responses and puts them in context providing the reader with an essential and approachable introduction to the range of critical debate on this important novel.