Mansfield Park represents a tonal shift from Austen's previous novels, Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice. Unlike the spontaneous and romantic Marianne Dashwood or the witty and untamed Elizabeth Bennett, Fanny Price remains a paragon of Regency Era virtue and morality. Mansfield Park continued to stand out as her most controversial novel, even after the publication of Emma the following year and the posthumous publications of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
Within the novel itself, there are two significant references to two plays, Shakespeare's Henry VIII and Elizabeth Inchbald's Lovers' Vows, as well as references to several different works of non-fiction and poetry of the...
