The Annotated Mansfield Park

by Jane Austen

  9. Meaning as one who expects to become Fanny’s sister. This would include calling her “Fanny” instead of “Miss Price” (though Mary’s mention of that will only anger Fanny when she reads it).

  10. These are her cards of invitation. This marks her debut as a hostess in London society.

  11. Wimpole Street is in the fashionable Marylebone district of West London (see the picture). Marylebone is adjacent to Mayfair, and after the latter was developed in the first half of the eighteenth century, builders turned to Marylebone and created similar housing for the wealthy there. Most of the wealthy characters in Austen’s novels inhabit Mayfair or Marylebone when they visit or reside in London. By opening the house Mary means that Maria will now establish it as a place for fashionable entertaining.

  12. Meaning she has gotten her money’s worth for what she paid (a penny is a single pence—see this page, note 19). The price she paid was being married to a foolish man, but once she is able to use his vast wealth to establish herself as a leading London hostess, she can feel it was worth it.

  13. tease: annoy, irritate.

  14. Baron Wildenhaim is Yates, for that is the character he played in Lovers’ Vows. The appropriateness of the name is enhanced by Yates’s being the son of a baron.

  15. By an “honourable” she means a man with that courtesy title, which is applied to a son of an earl, viscount, or baron.

  16. She refers to Yates’s ranting while acting in the play.

  17. Rents are income from an estate. Owners of estates leased the land to farmers, whose rents constituted the bulk of the owners’ income. When the income of male characters in Austen’s novels who possess estates is described, as in the case of Henry Crawford, that means principally the amount they receive annually in rents. Yates does have an estate, but because he is a younger son it is a small one, see this page and this page, note 4.

  18. Mary exhibits the same snobbery that Henry showed in his talk of wanting to be a preacher only in a fine parish in London, for the old woman she envisions is likely poor. Mary’s remarks indicate either her continued obtuseness regarding Fanny, for she should know that Fanny would hate a joke like that, or her devotion to making witty remarks whatever the consequences. Fanny would hate even more the allusion to Mary’s relationship with Edmund, but Mary could not know that.

  19. She is thinking of naval captains, whom she may regard as dashing because of the heroic nature, and high social status, of their profession.

  20. under-bred: lacking in manners and refinement.

  21. Playing the pianoforte was probably the accomplishment most widely taught to genteel girls, and hence would be recognized as a mark of female status. A pelisse is a full-length female overcoat popular in this period; see the picture. Since it is February Fanny would wear one when venturing outside; she may not own one, or hers may be unimpressive.

  22. Their lack of respect for Fanny indicates their lack of appreciation for less obvious qualities of gentility or refinement, such as politeness and a cultivated mind and good taste. Others, including Henry Crawford, do appreciate these qualities of hers.

  23. wonderful: astonishing.

  24. system: set of principles.

  25. kindness by: kindness to or toward. This use of “by” is found elsewhere in Austen’s novels.

  26. canvassed: discussed.

  27. answered: satisfied or fulfilled its purpose.

  28. delicacy: sense of what is proper and appropriate.

  29. open: sincere, unreserved.

  30. This gives a sense of Jane Austen’s mixed opinion on the subject of nature versus nurture. She acknowledges inborn dispositions, for Susan’s ability to value and assert good principles despite her background indicates an inherent inclination. But her lack of a good upbringing and guidance has kept her from putting the principles into practice well. At other points in the novel, in discussing wealthy characters who were spoiled in various ways, the author gives much weight to education and nurture.

  31. furniture: furnishings.

  32. prospect: view of the outside.

  33. working: needlework.

  34. luxurious: given to luxury and self-indulgence.

  35. A circulating library was a private enterprise that allowed people to subscribe for a fee and borrow books (there were no public lending libraries then). Usually they were part of bookshops. They had spread throughout England during the eighteenth century and become fixtures in towns of any size. They lent a great variety of books, though they were most associated with novels, the most popular genre.

  36. in propria persona: in one’s own person. Jane Austen made a mistake with the Latin here by not italicizing the “in,” for it is part of the Latin phrase (though it is possible the omission was a printer’s error). She did not know Latin, for it was almost never taught to girls, but because of the importance of it in male education, Latin phrases abounded in contemporary literature, so she would be familiar with the phrase and its meaning.

  37. When Edmund visited Fanny in her room earlier (see this page), he identified the three books she was currently reading as poetry, biography, and a collection of essays.

  38. The postman delivered the mail; in an urban area he would stop by each house.

  39. Her terror is that it will bring a letter from either Mary or Edmund announcing their engagement.

  VOLUME III, CHAPTER X

  1. alertness: briskness, rapidity.

  2. great: socially important, high-ranking.

  3. The port admiral and the commissioner were the two principal naval authorities in Portsmouth. The first was in charge of active ships and crew there; the second was in charge of the dockyard.

  4. “The island” is the nearby Isle of Wight; Fanny also referred to it that way when she came to Mansfield Park. The Isle of Wight was a popular destination for tourists, one praised for its natural beauties by guidebooks of the time.

  5. Contemporary travelers universally identified the dockyard as the main object of their visit to Portsmouth. The British navy maintained a complex of dockyards at its principal bases for the purpose of repairing and refitting its ships, as well as building new ships. The one at Portsmouth was the largest, and in fact one of the largest industrial enterprises in the world, employing several thousand skilled workers (whereas at the time almost all other forms of production occurred in small enterprises). Its approximate dimensions were half a mile in one direction, and a quarter to a third of a mile in the other. In the complex were almost thirty-five buildings, along with other features, including eight docks and a large pond for storing masts. A continual stream of ships passed through the dockyard, some for minor repairs and some for complete refittings, a process that usually took several months, since it required the replacement of substantial sections of the ships (whose wood and metal parts would inevitably decay after several years at sea).

  6. The Crown was one of the leading inns in Portsmouth. A contemporary history, in addition to naming it as the inn where the London mail coach originates, states that in 1814, when the crowned heads of Europe arrived in England after the victory over Napoleon, the Prince Regent, the reigning British sovereign, held a ball for royalty at the Crown (Lake Allen, The History of Portsmouth, 1817). Many towns had inns with that name; one in Emma plays an important role in the plot.

  7. accidentally: by chance, fortuitously.

  8. Henry was in Norfolk for three weeks; see chronology, this page.

  9. Mary is staying with the Frasers, so this means dining with her as well.

  10. emotion: agitation.

  11. turned off: changed for the worse.

  12. He could not ask only Fanny to walk with him, for he does not wish to embarrass her by showing his interest in her, and it would be improper for an unmarried man and woman to take a walk alone together.

  13. She could be thinking either of the physical atmosphere, meaning a crowded town with narrow streets, or of the moral atmosphere. The latter was influenced by the many ordinary
sailors on leave at any given time. They would take advantage of a break from months confined on ship to enjoy themselves to the full, which often meant heavy drinking and rowdiness in the street. It also often meant going to prostitutes, and Portsmouth was notorious for the number of such women. One visitor described his arrival at Portsmouth Point, the place where sailors embarked, “where there is scarcely anything but public houses” (i.e., taverns serving alcohol), including one whose sign declared, “if you do not pay for what you call [order], you may expect a broken head.” He adds, “I never was more disgusted with human nature, than in passing from this place to the dock-yard; drunken sailors and their infamous associates met us at every step” (A Tour through England, described in a series of letters from a young gentleman to his sister; 1806). Not all of Portsmouth was this bad, but it still was a less-than-ideal place for Fanny and Susan to stroll around. For a contemporary picture of Portsmouth Point, in all its rowdiness and licentiousness, see this page.

  14. He, and perhaps his friends, probably drink more heavily on Saturday, knowing they will not be able to purchase alcohol in a tavern on the next day. During the late eighteenth century a drive to improve public morals, connected with the burgeoning evangelical movement, led to severe prohibitions on the public sale of alcohol on Sunday in most of England.

  15. These are the kingdoms of Britain and Ireland. They had long been separate kingdoms with separate parliaments, though both under the same monarch. But in 1801 they were joined, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The author’s usage is a legacy of this earlier state.

  16. Fanny faces a situation that almost all Austen’s heroines face, that of being embarrassed or chagrined by the conduct of some members of her own family. This always places the heroine in a difficult position of maintaining outward respectfulness while feeling shame at family members’ behavior, and it becomes in many cases an important test of character.

  17. Places like dockyards were major tourist attractions. Guidebooks of the time included industrial sights as well as places of natural beauty and grand houses. In Pride and Prejudice the heroine and her aunt and uncle include in their tour of parts of England a stop at Birmingham, a major manufacturing center noted for its factories. Such places were a novelty and also a source of national pride, for Britain, which was going through the early phase of the Industrial Revolution, was far ahead of any other country in the development of such facilities. Naval dockyards would appeal to this pride, due to the worldwide preeminence of the British navy and its vital role in national defense against Napoleon. The dockyards were also notable for making extensive use of the steam engine, the most important of all inventions in this stage of the Industrial Revolution.

  18. The navy frequently issued new regulations regarding a variety of matters; for example, the rules governing uniforms were altered in 1813, the year Jane Austen finished writing this novel. The ongoing intensive war with France presented a continual series of new challenges and problems that often required changes in naval policy and procedure.

  19. Three-deckers were the largest of all naval ships. The term referred to the number of gun decks; ships also had a top deck above their guns and storage decks beneath them. Most three-deckers had more than a hundred guns: the HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, which is still on display at the naval museum in Portsmouth, had 104 guns. Three-deckers were very expensive and were sometimes unwieldy to sail, but their firepower made them valuable and, most important of all for men like Mr. Price, their enormous size made them impressive sights and objects of fascination. The small number in existence made it possible to estimate how many were in commission: twenty-five in 1813. The navy had just over a thousand ships in total in 1813, its peak year (the number started to decline in the following year, when Napoleon surrendered).

  20. His use of abbreviated versions of his daughters’ names reflects greater informality than prevailed at Mansfield Park.

  21. lounger: idler.

  22. As the description suggests, they are walking freely in the dockyard. People were allowed to enter and walk about if they applied at the entrance, and two officers, whether marine or navy, would be able to enter easily, along with their companions. Because ships were primarily made of wood, much of the dockyard complex was occupied by storage areas for timber. A vessel in the stocks is one under repair or construction (stocks are frames or supports for vessels out of water); they were also a prominent feature of the dockyard.

  23. want: need.

  24. It is unusual because this is the height of the social season in London (the reason Mary chose to go to London at this point), and because there are no outdoor activities at his estate to tempt him now that the shooting and hunting seasons are over and summer, which offers other outdoor opportunities, is still far away. He may have gone there, and attended to the business he describes, for the purpose of impressing Fanny.

  25. Leases for tenants on estates usually ran for a number of years and would need to be renewed periodically. The custom was to allow the existing family to continue, especially since such families had often held the lease for generations. But the terms were subject to renegotiation, and owners might attempt to raise the rate beyond what a family could pay or decide to install a new tenant who seemed more promising.

  26. His agent, most likely his steward, supervises the management of the estate and deals with the tenants. Previous descriptions of Henry suggest that he has spent little time dealing with the estate himself, which means his agent has probably had a very free hand and ample opportunity to engage in underhanded activity if so inclined.

  27. The idea of the pleasure produced by virtuous action had been prominent in the philosophical writings and literature of the preceding century. It was often seen as a critical basis for virtue. At the same time, Henry’s citing of this reward for his good deed shows him once again focusing on himself rather than others.

  28. This indicates Henry’s previous neglect. Most estate owners would at least know their tenants, especially since the prevailing practice was to rent large blocks of land to a small number of tenants.

  29. making acquaintance: becoming acquainted.

  30. The cottages are likely for ordinary agricultural laborers, hired by the farmers renting the land. Such cottages were frequently in poor shape, with the inhabitants living in some degree of squalor (see the pictures here and here). There was a significant movement that continued through the nineteenth century to improve the conditions of these cottages and their inhabitants. The heroine of George Eliot’s Middlemarch, which is set a little after the time of Jane Austen, engages in substantial efforts in this direction.

  31. The wife of a landowner could assist or collaborate with her husband in such projects, and even take the lead when it came to charity for the poor.

  32. These are the times when wealthy people were most likely to be in the countryside.

  33. Meaning with Fanny as his wife.

  34. Thus he is also thinking of Edmund, and of Maria and Mr. Rushworth, who will presumably be back at Sotherton during the same period. There is no indication, regarding Maria, that he sees her as anything other than a friend and a relation of Fanny; Mary’s letters from London make no mention of a meeting between Henry and Maria.

  35. Henry displays his usual enthusiasm and bent for plans and projects for the future.

  36. Michaelmas: September 29.

  37. hunting-box: a small house used during the hunting season. The term “box” also applied to houses occupied for the sake of other sports.

  38. At the Grants’ dinner party, Henry, after being rebuffed in his proposal of renting the parsonage at Thornton Lacey from Edmund, was invited by Edmund to “come to me as a friend. Consider the house as half your own every winter” (see this page).

  39. The two objections to Henry and Edmund sharing a house are Fanny, as his wife, and Mary, as Edmund’s. His use of “fair” and “irresistible” are certain signs he is
referring, in typical chivalrous fashion, to women.

  40. waiting on: calling upon.

  41. nice: fastidious, refined in one’s taste.

  42. epicurism: fine dining, cultivated taste in food.

  VOLUME III, CHAPTER XI

  1. The Garrison chapel is a church in Portsmouth. Built in the 1200s, it still stands, though it suffered heavy damage during World War II.

  2. abroad: out of doors, outside one’s home.

  3. Rebecca is her servant, and a flower in her hat would be a sign of dressing above her station. Many people at the time, specifically those wealthy enough to afford servants, complained of their overly fine dressing, especially that of female servants. Differences in rank were considered essential for the proper ordering of society and were expressed in part by differences in clothing. Mrs. Price’s inability to spend a lot on her own dress or her family’s probably makes her especially sensitive to a servant’s elevating herself in this way. Another concern was that desire for fine clothes could tempt a servant to steal money (a regular worry among employers). Mrs. Norris earlier spoke with approval of the housekeeper at Sotherton dismissing two housemaids for wearing white gowns (see this page), which were considered elegant, and in Persuasion a woman complains to the heroine of the excessive finery of her daughter-in-law’s maid and worries it may corrupt her own servants. The problem, from employers’ perspective, had become more acute in recent times because increasing prosperity and decreasing prices for clothes (a product of industrial advances) permitted more servants to buy them. Pictures from the period often show servants and other laborers dressed in good clothing of the latest fashion.