MANSFIELD PARK REVISITED

It was with no small trepidation that I selected this not uncolorful tome to follow that most auspicious read called Away. Jane Austin is not an unfamiliar author to me, yet my knowledge of that lady has been through films that have been based, in one way or another, upon her books. Having enjoyed the repartee of Sense and Sensibility, the lovable characters in Bridget Jones' Diary, and most recently, The Jane Austen Book Club, I "was of a particular interest" to read

Mansfield Park Revisited A Jane Austen Entertainment by Joan Aiken - A complimentary review at the back cover of the book informed me that one wouldn't have had to read Mansfield Park to enjoy it, so I came to be wholly disposed to the possibility of the pleasures that would be found therein. The story follows the society of those residing at Mansfield Park, and in particular, one Susan Price, she being "well endowed with quickness of understanding, pleasure in being useful, no inconsiderabe force of character, and a disposition to be happy".......she "had established herself as the linchpin of the household". The quickly paced tale, well developed characterizations and all the general doings have left on me a favourable impression and gratification to the author for her pleasant calculations into the futures of those characters originally introduced by Jane Austen. Susan is a sensible girl, delightful in her manner and coutenance; my curiousity was "naturally whetted to an extreme degree" as to whether she would find love, and with whom she might find it. I look upon this book with a great deal of favour, and recommend that others might also entertain "expectations of happiness" between its pages.