Mansfield Park

Jane Austen · 1775–1817 · England

Why it matters

Fanny Price, a poor relation raised in her wealthy cousins' household, watches the family's moral order come apart while she alone holds to it. Austen's most morally serious and most argued-over novel: a heroine readers have never agreed how to feel about, its comfortable world shadowed by the slave-worked Antigua estate that funds it.

At a glance

A passive, reticent heroine and sustained ethical scrutiny make this her most demanding novel.