This month we finished watching the last three episodes of Mansfield Park produced by the BBC. Well, almost finished, as time ran out before we could see the last of the series. Not to worry, most of us had dipped into the book and knew that the cousins, Edmund and Fanny, eventually got married, while Henry Crawford and his sister Mary had their hopes of love dashed even though they were a lively pair and somewhat unconventional and ahead of their times.

Was Fanny too harsh in rejecting Henry Crawford  when he proposed? Afterall, she had only seen him kissing her cousin Maria, an engaged girl, when they were rehearsing a play. Still back in the 1820s such behaviour could never be tolerated by some of the insular members of the country gentry, even though  times were changing.

We will conclude by watching films of the last two of Austen’s books: Emma in August and Northanger Abbey in September. These are both excellent British productions of under 2 hours length and each will fit into one session. Anyone who is not enrolled in the course is also invited to come along and watch these films on the big screen in the U3A room.

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Meg Dillon 

​In Mansfield Park we began to see Austen exploring some changes affecting the rigid social behaviours of the Regency Period.  Mary and Henry Crawford from London move into the small social world of the Bertrams and Fanny Price their niece, bringing with them more individualistic social and personal behaviours. Both are wealthy and reject the social expectations of this country group. Mary falls in love with Edmund Bertram but rejects him when he won’t give up becoming a local minister. Henry tries to seduce both Maria Bertram, an engaged lady, and also Fanny Price, an innocent eighteen-year old who is really in love with her cousin Edmund. Both the Crawford siblings eventually fail in the complex courting games they play with the Bertram family and fail to marry the people they most love. Even so, the Crawfords are the most lively of the characters and presage the more relaxed conventions that the Regency period will embrace. Meanwhile, Fanny and her cousin Edmund, both represent a world that will rapidly vanish.

We watched half of the BBC TV version of the book and enjoyed the lavish costumes, grand houses and interiors.   July - 'Mansfield Park'  (continued)

​Meg Dillon