Playfulness — Helen Baker

Jane Austen's Mansfield Park chronicles the mutual love of Mary Crawford and Edmund Bertram until he abandons his love, claiming that she has forfeited even his respect. Can our flawed heroine, with her beauty, her charm and her twenty thousand pounds ever find a worthy gentleman who will appreciate her for those very qualities that Edmund deplored? How many trials and difficulties must she first surmount while all Regency England echoes to the public debate of her brother's adultery and her dissolute uncle's blatant vice? Can Mary, innocent and kind, despite her worldly standards and cynical friends, stand firm against society's censure?