The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen (Six Volume Set)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Publishing error is distracting and ruins quality of set
  • Titles
  • wanting to order, but would like to know....
  • One of the best of the complete editions
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen (Six Volume Set)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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  4. Jane Austen Collection (Sense & Sensibility / Emma / Persuasion / Mansfield Park / Pride & Prejudice / Northanger Abbey) Jane Austen Collection (Sense & Sensibility / Emma / Persuasion / Mansfield Park / Pride & Prejudice / Northanger Abbey)
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ASIN: 0192547070

Book Description

This complete set of the novels of Jane Austen is now reissued as a boxed set with handsome new jackets. Using the definitive text established by R.W. Chapman, with later revisions by distinguished scholars, the set presents the most authoritative and comprehensive edition available - invaluable for students and enthusiasts of Jane Austen's work. Each volume contains notes and appendices, and indexes of characters, and the set is illustrated with a charming selection of early nineteenth-century plates.

Customer Reviews:

1 out of 5 stars Publishing error is distracting and ruins quality of set.......2007-08-10

I recently ordered this set off of Amazon and each book had a publishing error that reprinted one extra, erroneous word at the end of almost every page. Very irritating. This item was purchased as a gift for a friend's vacation retreat library. The flaw made it tacky and diminished the quality significantly. I had to return it. It was just lazy and cheap of University Press to sell this printing. Amazon sent a replacement set and it had the same flaw, even though they assured us that it wouldn't. So, I am going with another publisher altogether, and from another book vendor. Don't waste your money on this more expensive collection. It can't even get the basics right.

5 out of 5 stars Titles.......2007-04-20

The 1988 edition included the following six titles: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Minor Works all edited by R. W. Chapman. Minor Works, a collection of all Jane Austen's minor works printed from her manuscripts, includes three volumes Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon. I assume that this edition includes the same six.

5 out of 5 stars wanting to order, but would like to know...........2007-02-03

I'm wanting to order this set, as it definitely looks and sounds like a great one to have----the jackets look great. However, I am curious as to the titles of the six books. The description doesn't say, nor can you see the titles in the product image. Anybody?? Thanks!

5 out of 5 stars One of the best of the complete editions .......2005-10-27

Not long ago (once upon a time), one might correctly have declared Chapman's edition of Jane's complete works as 'the definitive collection.'

And today, although one might find more 'meat' in the Norton editions, these books remain a pleasure to pick up and hunker with for a bit of a read. The size of each volume fits my hand comfortably enough and the weight is light enough to allow the other hand the freedom to grasp a petite glass of red wine (with, perhaps, a bit of sliced fruit siddled comfortably on the side).

Each volume has a small bundle of bonuses (not unlike an expanded DVD!). I like the pictures of various buggies on which folks jolted around way back in the '90s (the 1790s, naturally). And for you fashion freaks, Chapman gives a couple of nice sketches of proper attire for a ball.

Fun stuff.

But the essence remains the words of Jane Austen. And these volumes offer you just that and in a nice package, too.

You won't go wrong with these books.
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume V: Northanger Abbey (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • The irony!
  • The irony!
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume V: Northanger Abbey (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

19th Century19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Austen, JaneAusten, Jane | Classics | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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  3. Mansfield Park (Signet Classics) Mansfield Park (Signet Classics)
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ASIN: 0192547054

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars The irony!.......2001-10-11

Northanger Abbey was a very entertaining novel. The heroine, Catherine Morland, is a very mediocre but charming girl whose only wish in life is to have an exciting Gothic adventure, which of course will end up with herself saving the day. Like Austen's other work, it is entertainingly ironic, mainly due to the idea that throughout the entire story, Catherine creates the most Gothic of Gothic mysteries out of a situation that is completely normal. Catherine's innocence and amiability are completely captivating, proving that a good heroine need not be particularly witty or mysterious or in any way alluring. It is, on the whole, a very light, entertaining novel.
Persuasion is also very entertaining, but it has a more solid conflict. The heroine, Anne Elliot, is a really wonderful person, which irritatingly is only apparent to the reader and one or two other characters. Anne faces a dreadful situation when she is confronted by her former fiance, whom she chucked on the mistaken advice of her best friend, but still loves deeply. Personally, I was really in suspense nearly the entire time as to how it would turn out, because the entrance of Anne's cousin, Mr. Elliot, hints at an attachment with him. It' s a well-written and of course ironic and well worth reading if you remotely enjoy Austen's style.

4 out of 5 stars The irony!.......2001-10-11

Northanger Abbey was a very entertaining novel. The heroine, Catherine Morland, is a very mediocre but charming girl whose only wish in life is to have an exciting Gothic adventure, which of course will end up with herself saving the day. Like Austen's other work, it is entertainingly ironic, mainly due to the idea that throughout the entire story, Catherine creates the most Gothic of Gothic mysteries out of a situation that is completely normal. Catherine's innocence and amiability are completely captivating, proving that a good heroine need not be particularly witty or mysterious or in any way alluring. It is, on the whole, a very light, entertaining novel.
Persuasion is also very entertaining, but it has a more solid conflict. The heroine, Anne Elliot, is a really wonderful person, which irritatingly is only apparent to the reader and one or two other characters. Anne faces a dreadful situation when she is confronted by her former fiance, whom she chucked on the mistaken advice of her best friend, but still loves deeply. Personally, I was really in suspense nearly the entire time as to how it would turn out, because the entrance of Anne's cousin, Mr. Elliot, hints at an attachment with him. It' s a well-written and of course ironic and well worth reading if you remotely enjoy Austen's style.
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume IV: Emma (Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • The Timelessness of Emma
  • Austen Shines
  • MOTHS CRUMBLE (I JUST USED THAT TITLE TO GET ATTENTION)
  • My favorite Austen...I cannot tell a lie.
  • Wonderfully charming!
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume IV: Emma (Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0192547046

Book Description

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. Emma (1816), is Jane Austen's comic masterpiece in which Emma Woodhouse finds her match-making skills sadly misdirected as she learns humility and self-knowledge at the same time as she discovers love. Penelope Fitzgerald's most recent novel, The Blue Flower, was awarded the American National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1998.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars The Timelessness of Emma.......2006-09-14

*Warning: there are some plot spoilers in this review!*

Jane Austen has a reputation as a witty, humorous writer with a keen eye for human folly and failings, and with this novel she certainly lives up to her reputation. While Emma isn't as popular as my personal favorite Pride and Prejudice, I believe that Emma is so popular, and can be considered "literature" (that is, a piece of art) because the story really has a universal quality to it. The fact that we can relate to the situations and characters in Emma some 300 years later is what makes it seem so timeless, and why the Emma movie with a "modern twist", Clueless, was so wildly successful. When you compare both Emma and Clueless they show how little has changed and that privileged teenagers (and young adults) will find themselves in the same situations and social patterns, whether they are in 19th century England or 21st century America.
Of course, while the wealthy and bored teenagers in Clueless might try to set up their friends on dates, the stakes were a bit higher in Emma. Emma (the heroine) attempts to match her new friend Harriet Smith with the new minister Mr. Elton not just for dating, but for marriage as long as they both shall live (remember, divorce was rare, if not nonexistent in early 19th century Britain.) Unfortunately, this plan backfires when Mr. Elton becomes interested in Emma, not Harriet. The problem was that Emma (already conceited because she successfully "guessed well" when she matched her tutor Ms. Taylor with a local widower Mr. Weston) failed to get to know Harriet and Mr. Elton well enough to figure out if they were, in fact, right for each other. Emma shows her class-snobbery when she (through some very adolescent mind games) convinces Harriet to reject the proposal that she receives from a local farmer (Mr. Martin, the man Harriet likes and eventually falls in love with), in the hopes that Mr. Elton will propose. Emma was too self-centered and (to steal the phrase from Amy Heckerling) clueless to notice that Mr. Elton was not, in fact, interested in Harriet, but in herself--a fact that leads to Harriet's heartbreak. Of course, this is only one part of the multi-faceted story that Jane Austen created about the life of a "handsome, clever and rich" woman living in Highbury, England, but it gives you a sense of the life and times of Ms. Emma Woodhouse (as we see them in the book)
Fortunately, all is well in the end when Emma learns her lesson about matchmaking and toying with emotions and discovers that she loves her brother-in-law and well loved family friend Mr. Knightly. This is a classic "happy ending by way of falling in love with the best friend that you had all along," but with a slightly dated feel. First, he is sixteen years older than her and he, in a way, helped to raise her (at least, in principles). The fact that he admits openly to having been "in love with (her) ever since (she) was thirteen at least," slightly bothered me. Who, in the 21st century, would admit to having a crush on their 13 year old sister-in-law? In the context and time of the novel it's romantic. Now Mr. Knightly might be described as a pedophile. However, the dated dialogue (like the above) is the only qualm I had about the book, and I hope that it doesn't discourage anyone from reading Emma. Overall, I would recommend this book to any Clueless fan, romantic-comedy fan, or anyone who wants to read the wonderfully universal writing of Jane Austen.

5 out of 5 stars Austen Shines.......2001-09-19

Though not her favorite novel, Austen's Emma shines as one of her most beloved. The character of Emma is both believable and lovable. This particular edition is a great keepsake, one you can pass down to your own daughter.

5 out of 5 stars MOTHS CRUMBLE (I JUST USED THAT TITLE TO GET ATTENTION).......2001-02-27

Emma is basically a darling snob. She has a kind, loving heart, and really wants to do good, but makes a tangle of everybody's lives, including her own. I'm sick of flawless, shallow, empty heroines, so Emma's faults and conquering of faults endear her. The unabridged book is slightly complicated (such as old-fashioned language) but if you savor it slowly it is well worth it. The plot is clever, sweet, funny and leaves a satisfied, warm kind of glow in the pit of your stomach. The perfect ending makes you want to cry. Don't spoil THIS novel with any trashy sequels.

TRY WATCHING the Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam "Emma."

5 out of 5 stars My favorite Austen...I cannot tell a lie........2000-05-27

Emma Woodhouse, to me, has always been the "truest" of Austen's heroines. Emma's flaws are so real. I don't know any woman who is completely innocent of vanity, so it's refreshing to find a character, like Emma, who is drawn out for us in all of her "princess syndrome" glory. The "good" Austen characters, like Jane Bennett or Fanny Price, often leave me with a false feeling that I can't relate to. Emma Woodhouse's story intrigues and envelops me. I've read it over and over again...and the book never stays on my shelf for long.

5 out of 5 stars Wonderfully charming!.......1999-12-30

Jane Austen perfects the art of character development in Emma. The long, twisted plot carefully and slowly develops each character using rich detail that makes the characters come alive with personality. Without the rich detail and character development, I do not feel this book would have stood the test of time and become the classic that it is. Emma is a heart-warming book with enough orneriness mixed in to make it amusing.
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume II: Pride and Prejudice (Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • One of the GREAT ROMANCE CLASSICS of all time !!!
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Amazing novel
  • Great seller!
  • A good classic
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume II: Pride and Prejudice (Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 019254702X

Amazon.com

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.

Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

A perennial favorite in the Norton Critical Editions series, Pride and Prejudice is based on the 1813 first edition text, which has been thoroughly annotated for undergraduate readers.

"Backgrounds and Sources" includes biographical portraits of Austen by members of her family and by acclaimed biographers Claire Tomalin and David Nokes. Seventeen of Austen's letters—eight of them new to the Third Edition—allow readers to glimpse the close-knit society that was Austen's world, both in life and in her writing. Samples of Austen's early writing—from the epistolary Love and FriendshipA Collection of Letters—allow readers to trace her growth as a writer as well as to read her fiction comparatively.

"Criticism" features eighteen assessments of the novel by nineteenth- and twentieth-century commentators, six of them new to the Third Edition. Among them is an interview with Colin Firth on the recent BBC television adaptation of the novel. Also included are pieces by Richard Whately, Margaret Oliphant, Richard Simpson, D. W. Harding, Dorothy Van Ghent, Alistair Duckworth, Stuart Tave, Marilyn Butler, Nina Auerbach, Susan Morgan, Claudia L. Johnson, Susan Fraiman, Deborah Kaplan, Tara Goshal Wallace, Cheryl L. Nixon, David Spring, Edward Ahearn, and Donald Gray.

Also included are a Note on Money, a Chronology of Austen's life and work—new to the Third Edition—and an updated Selected Bibliography.

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehenive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Download Description

Jane Austen's perfect comedy of manners--one of the most popular novels of all time--features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. "Pride and Prejudice seems as vital today as ever," writes Anna Quindlen in her introduction to this Modern Library edition. "It is a pure joy to read." Eudora Welty agrees: "The gaiety is unextinguished, the irony has kept its bite, the reasoning is still sweet, the sparkle undiminished. [It is] irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be."

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars One of the GREAT ROMANCE CLASSICS of all time !!!.......2007-10-07

I really don't need to say much about this, do I ? Most women can relate to Elizabeth Bennett, and most women love Mr. Darcy....This is my favorite of all of Jane Austen's work, and one of my favorite romances ever.

4 out of 5 stars Pride and Prejudice.......2007-09-10

Not as good a quality of book as I had expected, but it is very nice.

5 out of 5 stars Amazing novel.......2007-08-20

I decided to go to the library and take out the book after seeing the movie a few weeks ago. The movie was good but the book is so much better. It was well written, funny and everything you can expect from a good novel. Definitely a must read even if it is not required for class.

5 out of 5 stars Great seller!.......2007-08-12

I ordered from them after another seller failed to send the books I wanted. They had my order to my mailbox before the other seller even replied about their mistake. Efficient, accurate, fast & great prices.

4 out of 5 stars A good classic.......2007-08-10

This is probably my favorite classics. I don't devote too much time to reading classics but I've read some good ones before. They are not really my style but I do like the ones I have read. The different style is refreshing.
The book is written much differently than books are written these days. I was reading the begining of the book while I was tiered. I realized that I hadn't understood anything I'd read. I had to go and read again when I was completely awake.
It was enjoyable. I loved the characters; they were smarter than so many characters in other books and were very well spoken. That may, however, been how most people were in the 19th century.
It was fun to watch Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy go on with their love hate relationship. Until the end it was a lot of hate.
I thought it was a good classic but having not read many classics I'm not sure how it compares. Better than Wuthering Heights and not as good or as good as Great Expectations.
-cdm
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume I: Sense and Sensibility (Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Sense & Sensibility hardback 01/03/07
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume I: Sense and Sensibility (Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

19th Century19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Austen, JaneAusten, Jane | Classics | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ClassicsClassics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ContemporaryContemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Austen, Jane | ( A ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
HardcoverHardcover | Austen, Jane | ( A ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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  3. The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume V: Northanger Abbey (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen) The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume V: Northanger Abbey (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
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  5. Mansfield Park (Signet Classics) Mansfield Park (Signet Classics)

ASIN: 0192547011

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Sense & Sensibility hardback 01/03/07.......2007-01-03

The type was readable, illustrations interesting. Most of the pages were slightly misprinted in that a word(s) that belonged on the following pages were printed by themselves at the bottom of each page. No part of the text appeared to have been lost by this mistake.

I did not find the comments, appendix useful.
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume III: Mansfield Park (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Worth reading
  • Not about imperialism or slavery
  • Didacticism over Pleasure: A Rare Imbalance in Austen
  • not as crazy about it, but still good
  • An Under rated Jane Austen
The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume III: Mansfield Park (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

19th Century19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0192547038

Amazon.com

Though Jane Austen was writing at a time when Gothic potboilers such as Ann Ward Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto were all the rage, she never got carried away by romance in her own novels. In Austen's ordered world, the passions that ruled Gothic fiction would be horridly out of place; marriage was, first and foremost, a contract, the bedrock of polite society. Certain rules applied to who was eligible and who was not, how one courted and married and what one expected afterwards. To flout these rules was to tear at the basic fabric of society, and the consequences could be terrible. Each of the six novels she completed in her lifetime are, in effect, comic cautionary tales that end happily for those characters who play by the rules and badly for those who don't. In Mansfield Park, for example, Austen gives us Fanny Price, a poor young woman who has grown up in her wealthy relatives' household without ever being accepted as an equal. The only one who has truly been kind to Fanny is Edmund Bertram, the younger of the family's two sons.

Into this Cinderella existence comes Henry Crawford and his sister, Mary, who are visiting relatives in the neighborhood. Soon Mansfield Park is given over to all kinds of gaiety, including a daring interlude spent dabbling in theatricals. Young Edmund is smitten with Mary, and Henry Crawford woos Fanny. Yet these two charming, gifted, and attractive siblings gradually reveal themselves to be lacking in one essential Austenian quality: principle. Without good principles to temper passion, the results can be disastrous, and indeed, Mansfield Park is rife with adultery, betrayal, social ruin, and ruptured friendships. But this is a comedy, after all, so there is also a requisite happy ending and plenty of Austen's patented gentle satire along the way. Describing the switch in Edmund's affections from Mary to Fanny, she writes: "I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, that everyone may be at liberty to fix their own, aware that the cure of unconquerable passions, and the transfer of unchanging attachments, must vary much as to time in different people." What does not vary is the pleasure with which new generations come to Jane Austen. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

Jane Austen's masterpiece Mansfield Park -- her most controversial novel and the first of her mature works -- joins the Cover to Cover audio line of unabridged classic literature.

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Begun in 1811 at the height of Jane Austen's writing powers and published in 1814, Mansfield Park marks a conscious break from the tone of her first three novels, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice, the last of which Austen came to see as "rather too light." Fanny Price is unlike any of Austen's previous heroines, a girl from a poor family brought up in a splendid country house and possessed of a vast reserve of moral fortitude and imperturbability. She is very different from Elizabeth Bennet, but is the product of the same inspired imagination.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Worth reading.......2007-09-16

I love Jane Austen and would actually give this book 4 1/2 stars. It's a little slow in parts but like all of her characters, I loved getting to know Fanny Price. Fannie is a quiet girl who is sent to live with her wealthy uncle. She has a very kind heart and is very patient with her Aunt Norris who loves to "put her in her place". She is often reminding her that she is in a different class than her cousins that she is so fortunate to live with. It is wonderful to watch as Fannie grows into a young woman, how she learns to speak her mind and not allow others to manipulate her as they once did. It is definitely one of my very favorite books.

5 out of 5 stars Not about imperialism or slavery.......2007-02-06

Since Edward Said wrote his foolish piece on Mansfield Park it has become de rigeur to attach agendas that reflect the intramural (ie bogus) leftism of the academy to novels (sorry texts) Even so this effort to do so in Mansfield Park is particularly outlandish. In fact the question "What is Mansfield Park about" is less interesting than the question "what is it like to read Mansfield Park" To answer that question one has to explore the LANGUAGE of the novel and see where it leads. The plot of Mansfield Park is off-putting--the verbal architecture of the novel is unsurpassed. Trust me--delight in the language, the layers of irony in a sentence or scene. Ignore current opinion which is both intellectually lazy as well as dishonest. Jane Austen made her feelings clear about the slave trade in EMMA. That A "political" intereprative industry should have grown up about this book testifies to the reigning stupidities of English Studies-- well an English Professor has got to make a living.

3 out of 5 stars Didacticism over Pleasure: A Rare Imbalance in Austen.......2006-08-21

In MANSFIELD PARK, Jane Austen expands her sphere of moral vision. In her earlier novels, she focused on the relationships between marriage partners that were framed in a comedic context of how the typical English society of the late 18th century might complicate the likelihood of a series of happy marriages. In this novel, however, she abandons the world of light and trifling romantic comedy for one in which she shows the unpleasant underside of the genteel society that was so noticeably lacking in say, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. This dark underside includes a number of troubling aspects, all of which are antithetical to the world of light comedy.

First, Austen relentlessly considers the impact of the lack of moral values as a result of inadequate education of children. The patriarch of the Bertram family, Sir Thomas, dearly loves his four children but he has given them a profligate style of life without teaching them how to live that life without being corrupted by its debilitating disadvantage of conspicuous consumption. Second, for the first time in her writing career, Austen boldly places the theme of good versus evil squarely on the interaction of several of her characters. The virtuous Edmund, who is as priestly as the collar that he wears on his neck, is tempted by the lascivious charms of the amoral Mary, who sees in Edmund only a fleeting diversion. Further, Austen places London itself as a den of urban iniquity, the source of the theatrical evil that threatens the pastoral innocence of Mansfield Park. Third, she calls into question some basic paradoxes about the nature of character itself. Are peoples' characters fixed at birth or are they molded by environment? And when character is fixed, is it capable of change, and if so, by what, by whom, and to what extant? These latter questions come into play mostly in the person of Fanny, the outcast relative of the Bertram family who loves Edmund. She is presented as impossibly virtuous, but in the face of her open defiance to marry the rich Henry Crawford, she is labeled as an ingrate and worse. No one in that group perceives her virtue, but the readers certainly do. From where does this virtue spring? It cannot be genetic since several others of her family are woefully deficient in virtue. It cannot be solely the result of environment since, except for the equally virtuous Edmund, the others treat her as uniformly unwanted and unloved.

The answers to the above questions are raised, but only partially answered. Part of the problem in seeking answers to such eternal questions as love versus honor, duty versus obedience, and heredity versus environment in a novel is that this is a novel, and for Austen, a didactic one at that. Since she chooses to use a number of flat characters to represent allegorical archetypes of good and evil, their responses to their encounters cannot convey the full spectrum of thought that a more fully fleshed person might. Further the many plots--the love affair between Fanny and Edmund, the plots of the Bertram sisters, and the interweaving of the many strands of plot between the Bertram children--combine to cause the reader to zero in on these many threads rather than ponder their potentially more universal significances. What is lacking in MANSFIELD PARK is a pleasing balance and harmony among the many snipped strands of plot and theme which cry out for a splicing that does not occur even at the happy marriage of Edmund and Fanny. This imbalance, combined with Austen's atypical use of realism and pressing social concerns, and her lack of a truly engaging heroine along the lines of Elizabeth Bennett, make MANSFIELD PARK a dutiful slog rather than a joyous read.

4 out of 5 stars not as crazy about it, but still good.......2006-07-31

i'm not as in love with this story as i was about Pride and Prejudice, but it's still austen and it's still an excellent read.

5 out of 5 stars An Under rated Jane Austen.......2005-10-08

This is Jane Austen forey into more serious literature, and many of her faithful fans dislike it because of Fanny's, the main character, lack of romance. I beleive it may be one of Jane Austen's best novels. It is a more clear and accurate portrayal of the sensibilities of the time. It goes more into human nature especially about the heart and why people fall in love.
It is a simple story about a girl ,Fanny, who is taken in by her rich Aunt and Uncle. Fanny is an incredibly nervous person. Only her cousin Edmund can make her feel at home. She is raised very properly, although stiltedly because her uncle wants to be sure she realizes she is below their family. The entire family grows dependent on her. Fanny falls in love with Edmund who falls in love with another. I won't ruin anymore of the story. Read it!
The Works of Jane Austen: Volume VI: Minor Works (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • If you like Jane Austin....
The Works of Jane Austen: Volume VI: Minor Works (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Jane Austen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0192547062

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars If you like Jane Austin...........2000-04-05

I already have several editions of every work in this collection, but This is a very nice edition and I will treasure it for years to come.
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
    Jane Austen
    Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

    Austen, JaneAusten, Jane | Classics | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    PaperbackPaperback | Austen, Jane | ( A ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
    Look Inside Teen BooksLook Inside Teen Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
    ASIN: B000LEE3ZS
    Minor Works (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Minor Works (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
      Jane Austen
      Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      ASIN: B000NFJ9OA
      The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen [Volume VI :MINOR WORKS] (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen [Volume VI :MINOR WORKS] (The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen)
        Jane Austen
        Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

        Austen, JaneAusten, Jane | Classics | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
        HardcoverHardcover | Austen, Jane | ( A ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
        ASIN: B000OY0IJA

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