How does Fanny Price’s letter expose Sir Thomas Bertram’s corruption? Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

Опубликовано: 01 Март 2026
на канале: Dr Octavia Cox

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This video analyses a seemingly tiny detail from Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park (1814), concerning Fanny Price’s letter to her brother William Price. Why is it significant that Edmund Bertram declares, “it shall go with the other letters; and, as your uncle [Sir Thomas Bertram] will frank it, it will cost William nothing”? What does it mean to say that Sir Thomas Bertram will “frank” a letter's postage? And from this detail—how Sir Thomas Bertram franks his post—what might be revealed more generally about his character, about the Bertram family, and about the misuse of power? This video also explains what letter ‘crossing’ was in the Regency period, and includes a manuscript example of Jane Austen crossing a letter to her sister Cassandra Austen.

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