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About The Annotated Mansfield Park
Product Description From the editor of the popular Annotated Pride and Prejudice comes an annotated edition of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park that makes her story of an impoverished girl living with her wealthy relatives an even more satisfying read. Here is the complete text of Austen’s own favorite novel with more than 2,300 annotations on facing pages, including: ● Explanations of historical context ● Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings ● Definitions and clarifications ● Literary comments and analysis ● Maps of places in the novel ● An introduction, bibliography, and detailed chronology of events ● More than 225 informative illustrations Filled with fascinating details about the characters’ clothes, houses, and carriages, as well as background information on such relevant issues as career paths in the British navy, contemporary attitudes toward slavery, and the legal and social consequences of adultery, David M. Shapard’s Annotated Mansfield Park brings Austen’s world into richer focus. About the Author Jane Austen (1775–1817) was born in Hampshire, England, where she spent most of her life. Though she received little recognition in her lifetime, she came to be regarded as one of the great masters of the English novel. David M. Shapard is the author of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, The Annotated Persuasion, The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, The Annotated Emma, The Annotated Northanger Abbey, and The Annotated Mansfield Park. He graduated with a Ph.D. in European History from the University of California at Berkeley; his specialty was the eighteenth century. Since then he has taught at several colleges, and lives in upstate New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One About thirty years ago (1), Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon (2), with only seven thousand pounds (3), had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park (4), in the county of Northampton (5), and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady (6), with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome (7) house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness (8) of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer (9), himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it (10). 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 (11) as Miss Maria (12), did not scruple (13) to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them (14). Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, found herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris (15), a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse. Miss Ward’s match, indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible, Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend an income in the living of Mansfield (16), and Mr. and Mrs. Norris began their career of conjugal felicity with very little less than a thousand a year (17). But Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family (18), and by fixing on (19) a Lieutenant of Marines (20), without education, fortune, or connections (21), did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have made a more untoward choice. ANNOTATIONS (on facing pages): 1. This is the only time that Jane Austen states at the outset of a novel how many years earlier her story began. One reason is that this novel provides by far the longest narrative (lasting several chapters) of the events leading up to the main action, including the heroine’s childhood. As usual, Austen is careful and accurate in her dating. The main action begins approximately twenty-seven years after this opening event and transpires over one year. The concluding events sketched in the last few pages would logically span about t
