Mansfield Park

Little treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader.

Mansfield Park was written just after Pride and Prejudice, offering an opposite view of the world and bringing a very modern perspective on the relative merits of hard work vs inherited wealth. Fanny Price is a meek, downtrodden heroine who wins out in the end through sheer resourcefulness and good character. The book deals with slavery, love, betrayal, rivalry and meritocracy, highlighted by the mesmerising tension between The Crawford's metropolitan attitudes and the people of Mansfield Park who become enthralled by the illicit, seductive behaviour of their visitors. Probably Jane Austen's most ambitious novel, and worth reading again, and again for it's subtle layering of themes.

In the history of literature, few female authors have attained the enduring popularity of Jane Austen (1775–1817). Her exquisite, finely tuned novels have captivated readers for two hundred years, and her reputation shows no signs of diminishing, fuelled by high-profile TV and film adaptations of her writing. The substance of her work, and the source of her appeal, is quintessentially English. She takes the reader into the subtle cultural, linguistic and romantic codes of nineteenth-century English society, and in doing so creates some of literature’s favourite heroes and heroines.

Judith John (Glossary) is a writer and editor specializing in literature and history. She has worked as an editor on major educational projects, including English A: Literature for the Pearson International Baccalaureate series. Judith’s major research interests include Romantic and Gothic literature, and Renaissance drama.