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Mansfield Park is highly regarded by Austen followers as a tale of character
and sensibility very much along the lines of Emma and confronting similar
issues of marriage and social class while acting as a serious critique
of Regency values. Austen began writing it in 1811 and it was published
in 1814, just as she began writing Emma. The novel is founded upon the
solid and stern but kind-hearted Sir Thomas Bertram, owner of Mansfield
Park. He is a throwback to the conservative values and beliefs of order,
principles and distance from emotion so prevalent in the 18th century.
Although he has two sons and two daughters of his own (Tom, Edmund, Maria
and Julia) he takes on the child of his sister-in-law Mrs Price who has
a large family of youngsters and, due to her marine officer husband, is
very poor. Young Fanny Price, a timid but likeable girl, is the heroine
of this tale. She represents the late-18th and early 19th century value
of sensibility, which was considered to be an intangible but very positive
trait which supposedly allowed one to feel more deeply than most. In between
the contrasting manners of Sir Thomas and Fanny are Henry and Mary Crawford
who have neither cautious values nor the newcomer's capacity for caring
and aesthetic moral sensibilities. Mansfield Park tells of the departure
of Sir Thomas and the moral decline of his household into flirtatious and
inappropriate relationships and dubious acting in forbidden theatricals
to make possible the demonstration of their illicit desires. Sir Thomas's
return from the West Indies and Fanny's exile back to poverty drive forward
events which, as ever in Austen, lead to marriage proposals and related
difficulties.
Lady Susan, Jane Austen's one full novel that was not published during her lifetime, seems to have been written during the period 1793-4. It is the only novel that Austen wrote in an epistolary (letter) form, although the first version of Sense and Sensibility ("Elinor and Marianne") was also letter-based. The fashion for epistolary novels had passed by the time Austen began to see her work published in 1811, so it is possible that she left Lady Susan unpublished for this reason (her existing fair copy was written in 1805 or later). As well as being in an unusual format for Austen, the book is also of interest because it is her only extended literary excursion into the world of aristocratic affairs. The letters - sent mainly by Mrs Vernon, her mother Lady de Courcy, Lady Susan and her friend Mrs Johnson - tell the tale of the eponymous Lady, a singularly unpleasant character whose beauty allows her to act in extremely selfish ways. A devious but attractive widow, she cruelly pushes her daughter towards an inappropriate marriage with a man she detests, and simultaneously contrives to ensnare her sister-in-law's brother romantically and keep another lover's attention. Lady Susan is a remarkable character because she is utterly without redeeming qualities, and even when her machinations lead to disastrous results we are hard pushed to sympathise. It has been suggested that she may be a veiled portrait of Mrs. Craven, a cruel society woman known to the Austen family. Her character seems not to have been wasted and to have contributed eventually to that of Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park.
Jane Austen began writing Emma in 1814, though it was not published until 1816, and then it was anonymous (as were all of her novels initially due to the prejudices of her times). Emma Woodhouse, the eponymous heroine (of sorts) is endowed with wealth, good-looks, prestige and is, moveover, well aware of how clever she is. Anne Taylor, who had been extremely close to both Emma and her father, moves out to live with Mr Weston. In the absence of this confidante, Emma looks for a new friend and becomes acquainted with the 17-year old, illegitimate girl Harriet. Emma attempts to aid Harriet with a series of disastrous schemes to prove the girl to be of worthy parentage and deserving of a good man. However, in doing so, she prevents Harriet from marrying Robert Martin who despite being an eligible young farmer is deemed by young Woodhouse to be 'beneath' Harriet. She tries to bring together the orphan and Mr Elton, a young vicar who in fact despises Harriet. Such tinkering much annoys Emma's brother-in-law Mr Knightley. He can see Emma's faults in a way in which the girl herself cannot. Emma is the story of the self-styled protagonist's gradual realisation of her own lack of self-knowledge. Along the way there is much in the way of heartbreak, romance and detailed, subtle character portraiture. It is widely considered to be Austen's finest work and the one which most fulfils her ambition to present the lives of a small community of "3 or 4 families in a Country Village" realistically and excitingly. It is often very amusing and is a wonderful depiction of the workings of a well-meaning but ill-directed mind wishing to act selflessly.
Persuasion was Austen's final completed novel and was written between
1815 and 1816, and published incompletely revised immediately after her
death with Northanger Abbey. As so often in Austen's novels, Persuasion
concerns the social issues of her time and particularly the matter of class.
The story begins with the letting of Sir Walter Elliot's seat, Kellynch
Hall, to his annoyance as a man of self-aggrandising and showy tendencies.
Persuasion is the tale of the romance between his pretty and friendly younger
daughter Anne who meets the novel's hero, Captain Wentworth and in spite
of social barriers and the rival Musgrove sisters - Louisa and Henrietta
- pursues his affection having once turned him down as a spouse. Accidents
and various engagements ensue leading to what the reader hopes will be
another finale of poetic justice and requited love.
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey was written in 1798, although it was not published
until after her death when it was compiled with her final novel, Persuasion.
It is notable for being a fierce parody of the late 18th century Gothic
style's fainting heroines, 'terror' (giving hints of something fantastic
but dreadful, only to quash it later with mundane truth) and haunted medieval
buildings. Austen targets with particular venom Ann Radcliffe's extremely
popular The Mysteries of Udolpho and has her characters reading and mimicking
it whilst the author undermines it at every opportunity. Austen's comparatively
thin novel as good as destroyed Radcliffe's reputation for almost two centuries
and the exciting gothic writ large of Udolpho is only now being reassessed.
Northanger Abbey itself concerns a typical Austen heroine, the young Catherine
Morland who is taken to the fashionable resort of Bath with the her friends
the Allens. From there she travels to the eponymous medieval abbey, the
seat of the Tilneys. As an impressionable girl, Catherine becomes obsessed
with the possible atrocities going on at Northanger Abbey, inspired by
Radcliffe's novel. As ever, Austen cannot resist injecting a little romance
into proceedings and she puts Captain Tilney under the spell of the unpleasant,
scheming Isabella Thorpe. The novel's central theme, common to Emma and
Sense and Sensibility is the peril of confusing life and art: in this instance
literature.
Pride and Prejudice is the story of Mr and Mrs Bennet (minor gentry), their five daughters, and the various romantic adventures at their Hertfordshire residence of Longbourn. The parents' characters are greatly contrasted: Mr Bennet being a wise and witty gentleman; while Mrs Bennet is permanently distracted by the issue of marrying off her daughters at any cost. The reason for Mrs Bennet's obsession is that their estate will pass by law after Mr Bennet's death to his closest blood relative: his cousin, the Reverend William Collins (a fatuous, tactless and pompous man). Austen's tale is spurred on by the arrival of the young and wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is the story of the various affections, affectations and engagement shenanigans that develop due to Mrs Bennet's relentless matchmaking and the dashing Darcy's tempestuous relationship with Elizabeth Bennet who Jane Austen claimed was favourite amongst her literary offspring. Its 1797 earlier version was turned down for publication and it appeared in this form in 1813
This novel contrasts two sisters:
Marianne, who, with her doctrines of love at first sight, fervent emotions
overtly expressed, and admiration of the grotesque "picturesque", represents
the cult of "sensibility"; and Elinor, who has much more "sense", but is
still not immune from disappointments. Despite some amusing characters
and true Jane Austen touches, it is not generally
considered to be her best novel. According to Cassandra, it was probably
the first of the novels to be started (sometime before
1797, under the early name Elinor and Marianne); it was worked on in
1797, and probably again heavily revised before
publication in 1811.
It was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be published, and appeared
without her name on the title page (only "By a Lady"). It
was advertised as an `Interesting Novel', which meant (in the jargon
of the day) that it was a love story. Jane Austen pledged
herself to cover her publisher's losses, if necessary, but actually
realized £140 in profit. It was one of only two novels that Jane
Austen revised after publication, when a second edition came out in
1813. The first and second editions were probably not
more than a thousand copies each, but the readership would have been
very much larger, due to the institution of "circulating
libraries" (book rental shops), and also the fact that the novel was
published in three separately-bound volumes (as was the
usual practice).
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