Mansfield Park by Jane Austen -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income..

-- from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

Are you doing anything to commemorate the 250th birthday of Jane Austen this year? My plan is to reread Austen’s six main novels, one every other month. Sense and Sensibility was in January and a perfect way to kick things off. I read Pride and Prejudice in March and loved it just as much this fourth time. 

Mansfield Park was the third book in my project and I just finished it. It's not my favorite because I think Fanny Price is a drip. I like the story, but the heroine grated on my nerves. 

I’m particularly looking forward to Emma in July because it’s my favorite. Likewise, Clueless is my favorite adaptation so I plan to rewatch that after Emma. 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Mansfield Park:

Fanny’s thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings brought them before her.

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.