≫ [PDF] Mansfield Revisited a Jane Austen Entertainment Joan Aiken 9780575400245 Books

Mansfield Revisited a Jane Austen Entertainment Joan Aiken 9780575400245 Books

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Mansfield Revisited a Jane Austen Entertainment Joan Aiken 9780575400245 Books

Do you ever wonder what came of the folks at Mansfield Park after the finish of that Austen novel? I did. As my second favorite Austen novel, I have spent some time speculating and I love getting my hands on books where someone else has done this as well.

I enjoyed the author's Jane Fairfax, a variation on Emma, so I was pleased to pick up an older copy of Mansfield Revisited. I discovered soon enough that I enjoyed it just as much. Her writing style caught the spirit of Austen's Mansfield Park so well.

The sequel is told through the voice and thoughts of Susan Price who was a minor character in the original. It slowly starts rolling during the necessary time of catching the reader up on the last four years with all the family remaining at Mansfield and those abroad. The catalyst to thing changing in the Mansfield environs involve the death of Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris which happen just prior to the book and the move back into the neighborhood by someone who had once been intimate with the family.

I daresay many would find this a slow slosh, but I didn't find it so. It was subtle in ways, but rich and engaging. Susan is not like her sister in many ways and her observations about others are sharper and she will make her point when necessary. I enjoyed the byplay between Susan and Tom. I found their exchanges fun and spirited. Julia became the new version of Aunt Norris which I also found fun, in an annoying sort of way. Edmund and Fanny are off scene from nearly the opening pages and the author put in some lovely original characters who were replacing them at the vicarage. William Price makes an appearance and I loved that since he's my favorite minor character from the original.
In the end, after tears were shed over a sad moment, I was quite pleased with the outcome the author gave for the sequel.

Eventually, I'll look up more of her Austenesque works. I recommend this one for those who enjoy Austenesque sequels that hold fairly close to the original.


Tags : Mansfield Revisited a Jane Austen Entertainment [Joan Aiken] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. What happened after Fanny Price's marriage to Edmund Bertram? Here, by the author of Eliza's Daughter,Joan Aiken,Mansfield Revisited a Jane Austen Entertainment,Orion Pub Co,0575400242,Historical fiction,Fiction

Mansfield Revisited a Jane Austen Entertainment Joan Aiken 9780575400245 Books Reviews

It was a very good story. I loved that Fanny and Edmund left for the majority of the book so it focused on the other characters. I was unsure of who would end up with who until the end..nice. I sufficiently didn't like Julia Bertram Yates. Boy I'd hate to have her for a relative. But that is the point. The Crawfords reappear and I actually enjoyed their visit. I'll read it again.
I have just discovered the Joan Aiken offerings to the Jane Austen collection. Mansfield Revisited is a quick read, with more description of the odious characters and even some redemption of unsatisfactory characters in the Jane Austen original. However, I wonder why the reader is not made privy to the contents of Fanny's letter to Mary Crawford. And though the lady in velvet at Mary's grave site is not a mystery, there is so little information as to her purpose. Her meeting with Henry later seemed to me to cause more stir than the circumstance warranted. It is gratifying that the unpleasant characters do not get on quite so unscathed as they often do in Austen stories. Julia and Miss Yates are hardly to be tolerated and eventually they pay the price for their incivility. Capt. Sarton is introduced and exits so quickly, he seems no more than a throw away character. William Price falling so quickly for the insipid charms of Miss Harley is inexplicable; still she will have 30,000 -- a not inconsiderable sum that brings its own charms. Naturally, Susan Price and Mrs. Osborne must be worthy of our admiration and I enjoyed being with them.
Many of Jane Austen readers, while professing great admiration for her works, are unwilling to accept her judgements about such characters as Mary and Henry Crawford. They don't want to believe that someone can be charming, talented and intelligent without being morally good; that these are qualities, not virtues, and like beauty, are as they do. I assume that Jane Aiken falls into this category, since the main point of this story seems to be to reimagine the Crawfords as generous and benevolent. I was wondering why she had introduced such an implausible plotline as the seriously ill Mary Crawford deciding that she wants to be near Mansfield and Fanny Price Bertram, rather then near her sister, Mrs. Grant (who has presumably died in the interim) or her brother Henry. I have too much sympathy with Fanny to like the reversal of Jane Austen's judgement, but I suppose that many people will enjoy the change, except for those who find the new Crawfords too saccharine. Aiken tends to lay it on with a trowel.

Given this, the story is competent and reasonably diverting for the most part. Outside of the Crawfords, Aiken does a good job of maintaining the personalities of the characters that she has appropriated from the original. (Fanny & Edmund only briefly appear.) Aiken introduces two charming, if slightly too good to be true characters in the person of the substitute pastor and his sister. Lady Bertram does manage to make a few apropos statements, which may strike some readers as implausibly forceful, but for the most part, she and Pug stay on the sopha.

I find the romances a bit improbable. It is hard to believe that William Price is so cheerfully accepted by the family of a great heiress, or that he and his fiancee are truly well suited. The story of Susan's engagement is banal. It is a poorly developed version of the plot of at least half the preadolescent romances I read as a child. In several of Aiken's JA sequels I get the feeling that she really isn't interested in writing a romance and the result is this slapdash development.

I wouldn't urge Jane Austen fans to rush out and read it, but if one is looking for something to read, one could do a lot worse.
Do you ever wonder what came of the folks at Mansfield Park after the finish of that Austen novel? I did. As my second favorite Austen novel, I have spent some time speculating and I love getting my hands on books where someone else has done this as well.

I enjoyed the author's Jane Fairfax, a variation on Emma, so I was pleased to pick up an older copy of Mansfield Revisited. I discovered soon enough that I enjoyed it just as much. Her writing style caught the spirit of Austen's Mansfield Park so well.

The sequel is told through the voice and thoughts of Susan Price who was a minor character in the original. It slowly starts rolling during the necessary time of catching the reader up on the last four years with all the family remaining at Mansfield and those abroad. The catalyst to thing changing in the Mansfield environs involve the death of Sir Thomas and Mrs. Norris which happen just prior to the book and the move back into the neighborhood by someone who had once been intimate with the family.

I daresay many would find this a slow slosh, but I didn't find it so. It was subtle in ways, but rich and engaging. Susan is not like her sister in many ways and her observations about others are sharper and she will make her point when necessary. I enjoyed the byplay between Susan and Tom. I found their exchanges fun and spirited. Julia became the new version of Aunt Norris which I also found fun, in an annoying sort of way. Edmund and Fanny are off scene from nearly the opening pages and the author put in some lovely original characters who were replacing them at the vicarage. William Price makes an appearance and I loved that since he's my favorite minor character from the original.
In the end, after tears were shed over a sad moment, I was quite pleased with the outcome the author gave for the sequel.

Eventually, I'll look up more of her Austenesque works. I recommend this one for those who enjoy Austenesque sequels that hold fairly close to the original.