Unlike the other heroines, who have a myriad of lessons to learn, Fanny possesses the innate sensibility expected of a Regency lady of this era. As Adolphus Alfred Jack remarked in his 1897 Essay on the Novel, Mansfield Park is "more finished," "more subtle," and "quieter than her earlier works." As Austen grew older, he continues, "her powers grew and deepened.while Pride and Prejudice is gay, Mansfield Park is sombre." Indeed, it is of interest to note that it is Mary Crawford - witty, active, and unable to stand still - who is cast in the mold of other Austen heroines such as the effervescent Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and the silly, meddling Emma Woodhouse in Emma, while it is the weak, mild-mannered, motionless, often ill Fanny Price who remains the novel's central character.and a highly likeable one at that. While Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice are considered, as one critic remarks "the gay offsprings of her youth," Mansfield Park is a far more mature, darker novel, written by a woman who had by then experienced more of the world. Mansfield Park, considered the author's most ambitious novel, was published anonymously, as were all of Jane Austen's novels, in 1814.
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