Mansfield Park Revisited: A Jane Austen Entertainment [Paperback]

When a book written twenty five years ago is reissued as confidently as Mansfield Park Revisited: A Jane Austen Entertainment by a publisher who specializes in Jane Austen sequels, you hope that it is laudable. Of all of the past sequels to select, (and there are more than a few), why choose one based on Jane Austen's least popular novel Mansfield Park? What has the new author created to make this sequel worthy of resurrection?

Published in 1814, Mansfield Park was Jane Austen's third novel and even though I adore it, it has more than its share of nay sayers. There are several reasons why it is a disappointment (to some), but primary objections fall to its heroine Fanny Price, who some feel is weak and insipid and not at all like Austen's other popular heroine's. Author Joan Aiken's solution in her continuation of Mansfield Park is to resume the story four years after the conclusion and to remove Fanny Price almost entirely from the novel by packing her and her husband Edmund Bertram off to Antigua in the first chapter. Fanny's younger sister Susan Price has been brought to the forefront, stepping into Fanny's previous role as poor relation elevated to companion to Lady Bertram now a widow after Sir Thomas Bertram's unexpected death while attending to his business in the West Indies. Susan has matured into an attractive and bright young woman similar to her older sister, but with more spunk, which will please Fanny opponents. Susan holds her own against her cousins the new Sir Thomas Bertram who often thinks she over steps her position and his sister Julia, now the Honorable Mrs. Yates who resides in the neighborhood and upon Susan's back, objecting to her every move. We are also reintroduced to other characters from the original novel: cousin Maria Bertram the scandalous divorcee, Mary Crawford estranged from her feckless fop of a husband and now gravely ill, and her brother Henry Crawford still a bachelor having never found anyone as worthy as his last love, Fanny Price. Aiken also adds a delightful array of new secondary characters to the mix supplying interest and humor.

A quick read at 201 pages, Aiken moves the story briskly along with a series of challenging events and resolutions that keep the reader engaged, but sadly never resting to discover personalities or relationships in greater detail. At the conclusion I felt more than a bit deprived of a good love story as Susan comes to the conclusion of whom she truly loves on the last few pages. This style not only mirrors Jane Austen's approach with her hero and heroine's romance in Mansfield Park, but amplifies one of the main objections to the original novel. Despite this flaw, Aiken is by far one of the most talented writers to attempt an Austen sequel and Mansfield Park Revisited truly worthy of resurrection. She has respectfully continued Austen's story by expanding her characters, adapting the language for the modern reader, accurately including the social mantle and believably turning our concerns for the two main antagonists Mary and Henry Crawford at the end of Mansfield Park into sympathies, which given their principles and past bad behavior is quite an accomplishment. Packing Austen's heroine Fanny Price off to another country might seem extreme, but it is sure to please the Fanny bashers and allowed Aiken to develop her own heroine Susan who has enough spirit and resolve for the both of them.

Laurel Ann, Austenprose

Of all the characters in Jane Austen's masterpiece "Mansfield Park", Susan Price is probably my favorite. I've never had any sympathy for Fanny Price, the book's heroine; she's always impressed me as being a world-class drip, but her younger sister Susan, who takes her place at Mansfield Park after Fanny's marriage to Edmund Bertram, is a delightful creature. More spirited, more outspoken, less sanctimonious and moralizing than Fanny, she's someone we feel comfortable with, and much nicer to be around. She deserved a book of her own, and now she has one: She's the heroine of "Mansfield Park Revisited".

Joan Aiken's reinvention of Mansfield Park opens four years after Austen's book closed, on the demise of Sir Thomas, leaving Tom Bertram the head of the family while Edmund goes off to Antigua, with Fanny and new baby in tow, to settle the family affairs. Susan is left at Mansfield to look after Lady Bertram, as shallow and indolent as Austen left her, while Tom's sister Julia, now married to John Yates, incessantly meddles in the affairs of the house (Aiken makes her almost as obnoxious as Aunt Norris was), with designs to marry Tom off to her husband's sister. Tom, meanwhile, has designs to marry an heiress with thirty thousand pounds, when he gets around to it, but finds his plans upset by Susan's brother William, a newly made naval captain, who beats Tom to the punch while he's attending to other affairs. Oh well.

Into the mix, Aiken reintroduces the notorious Crawfords, rehabilitated for what purpose I'm not altogether certain. I always liked the Crawfords, warts and all; they were much more interesting than the stuffy Edmund and the insufferably prissy Fanny. Aiken, for some reason, sees fit to present Henry Crawford as the victim of emotional blackmail and slander by Maria Bertram, and poor Mary is wasting away from a mysterious illness after marrying for money and repenting at leisure, but not before her obnoxious husband has lost his marbles and has to be confined in an attic. Interesting twist on "Jane Eyre": instead of the mad wife in the attic, Aiken gives us the mad husband in the attic. At any rate, we never see or hear from him.

Aiken's book is an enjoyable, fast-paced read, but some Austen purists will undoubtedly be climbing the walls at her revision of some of Austen's characters. She also lacks Austen's acerbic wit, but she has sense enough not to try to write like Austen; she tells her tale in her own style. She makes Susan Price a most engaging and sympathetic heroine, providing friendship and comfort to poor Mary Crawford, efficiently looking after Mansfield Park while Lady Bertram lays around on the sofa all day, and setting things to rights with her own mixture of good humor, intelligence and common sense. But Aiken's ending seems hurried and contrived; she doesn't develop it in any way and we're stuck wondering how in the world did this come about? We're left without a clue.

Taken as a whole, "Mansfield Park Revisited" is fun, uncomplicated, and about as deep as a rain puddle. It's not Austen, but it doesn't pretend to be. Just enjoy it for what it is.

Judy Lind

I don't care what everyone else says. Joan Aiken is one of the few JA Fan fiction writers who knows how to write in the style of Jane Austen and makes her story as interesting as Jane's. This book did not disappoint in the least. It satisfied me a lot to see Susan's character more developed. I actually was happy to have gotten closure with the Mary Crawford/ Henry Crawford and MARIA incident, and the characterization and pace of the novel was very good. I was very pleased with it.

Courtney