Mansfield Park is an ambitious and difficult novel, the first composed and published exclusively in Jane Austen's adulthood. She was proud of it. Inclined to consider Pride and Prejudice, which she had just published, "rather too light & bright & sparkling," Austen wrote a novel with all the "shade" her earlier comic masterpiece lacked. Of course,she knew full well that Mansfield Park was different from her previous work--"not half so entertaining," as she put it--but she was confident it would "sell well" and contribute to the modest but growing commercial success of her previous novels, a success which, as she confided to her brother Frank, "only made [her] long for more. She had reason to suppose herself right. Within six months of its publication by Thomas Egerton in May 1813, Austen wrote her niece, "You will be glad to hear that the first Edit: of M.P. is all sold. Naturally Austen supposed that Egerton would agree to a second edition. But Egerton declined.

This Norton Critical Edition of Jane Austen's most ambitious and controversial novel is based on a new authoritative text, which closely follows the one Austen oversaw when the novel was revised and reprinted in 1816. Sutmorting materiais include an introduction, textual annotations, and a contemporary map of England.

"Contexts" provides readers with a rich selection of contemporary materials on such issues as the slave trade, religion, the conduct of women, and landscape design that illuminate Austen's dark and often disturbing novel. Elizabeth Inchbald's adaptation of Lovers' Vows (the play staged by the characters in Mansfield Park) is included, as are writings by Humphry Repton, Thomas Gisborne,Hannah More, and Mary Wollstonecraft, among others.

"Criticism" includes essays on the novel by Jan Fergus, Lionel Trilling, Alistair Duckworth, Nina Auerbach, Claudia L. Johnson,Joseph Litvak, Edward Said, Brian Southam, and Joseph Lew.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Jane Austen and Mansfield Park

A Note on Money in Austen's Novels

A Note on Austen and the Text of Mansfield Park

The Text of Mansfield Park

Map of England

Facsimile title page

Mansfield Park

Textual Notes

Contexts

Elizabeth Inchbald · Lovers' Vows (1798)

Jane Austen · Opinions of Mansfield Park (1814, 1815)

  · Evening Prayer No. I

A Companion to the Altar

   On Family Prayer

Humphry Repton · Sketches and Hints on Landscape

    Gardening (1795)

   From Chapter III. Proper Situations for a House

  · Observations on the Theory and Practice of

 _  Landscape Gardening (1803)

   From Chapter VII. Farm and Park Distinct Objects

William Cowper · The Task (1785)

   From Book I. The Sofa

   From Book III. The Garden

John Gregory · A Father's Legacy to His Daughter (1774)

   From Conduct and Behaviour

   From Amusements

Mary Wollstonecraft · A Vindication of the Rights

    of Woman (1792)

   From Chapter II. The Prevailing Opinion of

    a Sexual Character Discussed

   From Chapter III. The Same Subject Continued

Thomas Gisborne · An Enquiry into the Duties

     of Men in the Higher and Middle Classes of

     Society in Great Britain (1794)

   From Chapter XI. On the Duties of the

     Clerical Profession

  · An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797)

   From Chapter IX. On Amusements in General

   From Chapter X. On the Employment of Time

Hannah More · Strictures on the Modern System

     of Female Education (1799)

   From Chapter VI. Filial Obedience Not the

     Character of the Age

Parliamentary Debates (1806)

   From Abolition of the Slave Trade

Thomas Clarkson · From History of the . . .

     Abolition of the African Slave Trade . . . (1808)

Elizabeth Inchbald · Remarks on Shakespeare's

     King Henry VIII (,1806-09)

Criticism

Jan Fergus · Power and Mansfield Park

Lionel Trilling · Mansfield Park

Mistair Duckworth · Mansfield Park: Jane Austen's

     Grounds of Being

Nina Auerbach · Jane Austen's Dangerous Charm:

     Feeling as One Ought about Fanny Price

Claudia L. Johnson · Mansfield Park:

     Confusions of Guilt and Revolutions of Mind

Joseph Litvak · The Infection of Acting:

     Theatricals and Theatricality in Mansfield Park

Edward Said · Jane Austen and Empire

Brian Southam · The Silence of the Bertrams

Joseph Lew · "That Abominable Traffic":

     Mansfield Park and the Dynamics of Slavery

Jane Austen: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography