Mansfield Park

About Mansfield Park

Fanny's limited freedom gives silence and hesitation unusual importance. Others readily interpret her gratitude as consent, while social polish can conceal careless treatment. The proposed theatricals bring questions of acting into ordinary relationships, making it useful to compare persuasive speech with the obligations characters acknowledge when persuasion no longer benefits them.

Reading focus

Notice when Fanny's dependence makes refusal difficult and when attractive manners obscure a failure of consideration.

This reading edition contains 159,893 words in 48 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.

Author: Jane Austen. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.

Opening excerpt

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying…

Read the complete opening section

Reading & download help

Edition details and corrections.