At ten years old, Fanny Price is brought to live with her rich relations at Mansfield Park. Timid and modest by nature, she is overawed by her smart cousins Maria and Julia Bertram, their pleasure-loving elder brother Tom, their father the formidable Sir Thomas Bertram, and their aunt the bossy and spiteful Mrs Norris. Only indolent Lady Bertram and kind cousin Edmund do not strike fear into little Fanny's heart.<br> Just as Fanny reaches eighteen, a new family comes into the neighbourhood fresh from London society: brother and sister Henry and Mary Crawford. Henry, who is a practised flirt, sports with the affections of both the Bertram girls, causing jealousy between them. Maria is already engaged to the rich but stupid Mr Rushworth, but this does not deter either her or Henry. Fanny looks on with disapprobation and sympathy for Mr Rushworth's feelings. Meanwhile Mary Crawford, who has a most attractive personality but shaky principles, finds to her surprise that she is not interested in the elder son, Tom, the one with all the prospects, but is strangely drawn to the serious Edmund, who is destined for the church. This causes much anguish to Fanny, who loves Edmund herself, and who has to observe him falling for her rival's charms.