This ebook includes a biographical introduction, a short, critical analysis of Jane Austen and a brief introduction to this work.

Mansfield Park was published in 1813 by Thomas Egerton and was written during the previous two years. The plot concerns the role and fate of Fanny Price in the romantic fortunes of the Bertram siblings who, along with Fanny, reside at the eponymous country estate. In a similar vein to Pride and Prejudice, her previous novel, Austen uses false experience and hearsay to shape her character's views and decisions allowing the satisfactory resolutions to arise in their own time, but not before mistakes and false choices have been set up.

Fanny Price the character has not had the best reception because of her timidity and a refusal to sympathise with the fortunes of other characters. That she comes out well in the end might be put down as much to circumstance and coincidence as it might result from her own actions. There are aspects of Austen's own experiences layered in the novel, but the reader can only speculate about the origins of Fanny's characteristics.