Austen: Mansfield Park

Possibly one of my favorite novels, up until the last chapter, where Austen winds everything up with a direct speech from the narrator. It is all rather hurriedly wrapped up and I don't like it. But the rest of the book is excellent. The main character, Fanny Price, is a very sweet, quiet main character with a great deal of sense ( as always). The intended love is Edmund Bertram, who has been her constant companion since the Mertrams adopted her at age nine. She is, at eighteen, in love with him, but he is smitten with Mary Crawford. Fanny's two cousins Maria and Julia Bertram are not the typical sort of horrible step-sister characters, but the effect of their slight snobbery is intensified in the narrator's depictions of Fanny because she is so sensitive. These girls get some recompence when Mr. Henry Crawford, Mary's sister, is suddenly mad for Fanny after flirting with them for months. And she rejects him, of course, because his manners are unseemly, so he runs of with Mrs. Rushworth (Maria) and ruins both of them. Because of Mary's callous attitude towards his sister, Edmund decides he cannot love her (for a trait that Fanny has pointed out since day one!) and decides to marry Fanny. Yay! Other important characters are Sir Thomas, William, and Mrs. Norris, the evil aunt who always reminds Fanny how low her position is.