Mansfield Park (Penguin) – Jane Austen

“Drama is to life what ships are to the sea. A means to traverse it. To plumb its depths, breadth, and beauty.”

At the age of ten years old, Fanny Price was removed from her poverty-stricken home to live with her rich cousins in Mansfield Park. Fanny was beautiful but not seeking beauty, quiet but not weak, sensible but not proud. The residents of Mansfield couldn’t get themselves to show her the fondness she deserved. In the midst of it, she had only one ally in her cousin Edmund.

When the cousins grow older, suddenly the Crawfords family takes residence in the neighbourhood, and the sister-brother duo set off events of romantic encounters and heartbreak.

Will Fanny defend her bonds and protect the life she has built in Mansfield Park? Will she hide her love for Edmund or come forth?

Mansfield Park is touted as Austen’s most mature and sensitive novel, mostly in credit to her heroin who is both sensitive and brave.