Pick Up Henry And Fanny: An Alternate Ending To Mansfield Park Expressed By Sherwood Smith Listed As Script

alternate ending

Although I didn't like all the naval talk, this alternate ending to Mansfield Park was really well done, I think the author went into too much detail in certain areas, like William's naval career, but I think he did a good job considering each character's personality.
The vocabulary had me pulling up my dictionary quite a few times, I thoroughly enjoyed this alternate ending to my least favorite Austen novel, I also loved Sherwoods commentary at the beginning, This is a quick read reimagining the ending of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park,

I have always leaned a little more to the Henry Crawford camp than the Edmund Bertram camp, so this rewrite played to my own bias,

I found it overall sweet and believable, Overall the writing was solid, although I have some nitpicky complaints about the prose, First of all let me say that I come to this novel firmly on the side of Edward and Fanny ending up together, I never liked Henry Crawford and detested Mary,
I have to say I'm a convert!! I loved what the author did here, Henry became rather likable and Mary even mellowed a bit, even though I still couldn't quite take her to heart, Looking back at Mansfield Park's actual ending, it now seems a bit disjointed and uneven, This ending just flows along and you're pulled into the story even against you're will,
I love the mention of Captain Wentworth and the Laconia, Very well done I thought,
I'd highly recommend this to anyone who originally wanted Fanny and Henry to be together and to the doubters, like myself, who thought Henry couldn't be redeemed.
Torn on the rating, because while I enjoyed this ending so much better than Mansfield Park, it didnt feel at all like I was reading the same author/story/characters In this Mansfield Park variation we begin when Henry Crawford attends a party where he meets Mrs Maria Crawford.
Will he think of Fanny Price or be peeved by Maria's assumed indifference, Fanny is in Portsmouth and Tom Bertram severely ill at home,
Is it possible for any of them to have a happy ending,
An enjoyable and wellwritten variation, Une bonne idée que celle de cette fin alternative à Mansfield Park qui est le roman de Jane Austen que j'aime le moins ! En effet, j'ai toujours eu du mal à accepter le couple Edmund/Fanny et pensé qu'elle aurait du finir avec Henry histoire de donner un peu de sel à Fanny qui est l'heroïne austennienne que j'apprécie le moins.
Cette version commence donc au moment de la fugue amoureuse de Maria amp Henry, Sauf que cette fois, Henry ne succombe pas à la tentation de faire sienne Maria et l'abandonne dans une auberge sans l'avoir touchée, Partant de cette idée, les sentiments de Fanny peuvent s'épanouir tandis qu'Edmund continue sa poursuite ambivalente de Mary parce que j'ai aussi toujours considéré qu'Edmund aimait trop Mary pour être véritablement amoureux de Fanny, leur mariage final me semble une union par défaut, au moins de son côté à lui.
L'histoire est bien construite et au final, je suis convaincue par cette fin même si l'auteure nous présente Edmund sous son pire jour, mais bon c'est le jeu.
J'ai aussi apprécié le fait qu'elle laisse le temps aux sentiments de Fanny pour mûrir, elle ne l'a pas fait renoncer à Edmund en un claquement de doigts.



Ce que j'aime : la relation Henry/Fanny et le personnage de Mary


Ce que j'aime moins : les lettres de William too much, le changement trop radical parfois de Henry


En bref : Une jolie fin alternative que j'aurais préféré à celle de l'auteur


Ma note


,/Sherwood Smith is one of those people who knows a lot about a lot of stuff!! Her tastes are wide and she has expert levels of knowledge that allow her to write anything from military high fantasy INDA!! to Regency romances.
Every single thing I've read by her has been nothing short of completely engrossing and fabulous,

I ran onto a few of these short Jane Austen 'odes' as you might call them and decided that I'd see what they were about, I usually avoid all the extra Jane Austen hangers on like the plague "Darcy's Christmas" or "Mr, Darcy Has Quintuplets" but, as stated above, Ms, Smith has built up credit with me as a reader and I figured I owed it a chance,

And here's the thing: Mansfield Park is my FAVORITE Austen novel, FAVORITE. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but I feel like it's her most deftly written, the most fulfilling story, the most scandalous and satisfying for the villains of the pieces, and just GOOD.
Another reason for me to be skeptical of a rewrite,

But here's another thing: The first time I read MP, I was completely wooed by Henry Crawford's attempts to woo Fanny, He was genuine. He was different. He was actually in love! I really believed it, which made the rugpull at the end even more fun for me actually, It was as if Jane said "Now now, You know there's always a Wrong Man and a Right Man, How could you think I'd let her end up with the Wrong Man" and then I said "Oh Jane, you trickster! That was a good one!" Tons of fun.
But a little bit wistful because yeah, Henry was better at the love thing than Edmund ever was,

Enter this alternate ending, Ms. Smith's forward to this little piece of delightful fanfiction explains her reasoning perfectly and quite soundly, In her opinion, Henry and Maria shouldn't have happened Henry wasn't so stupid and impulsive, Ms, Austen was rather stubborn in choosing to end the book the way she did after Cassandra begged her to change it, and Edmund was still wildly in love with Mary Crawford to be happy with Fanny.
Fanny's attachment to Edmund was simply the attachment of a school girl to someone who was her only defender in a house full of horrible people, She'd eventually grow out of that, too, Ok, fine. I was willing to bite,

And dang it if it wasn't crazy satisfying, It feels sacrilegious to accept an alternate ending to a Jane Austen novel, not to mention my FAVORITE Jane Austen novel, But I think I have, Henry got his second chance and I completely loved him some more, I recommend this read if you can get over any superstitions you may have about letting an Austen heroine end up in the arms of the Wrong Man.
But if he's Wrong oh yes I am going there then I don't want to be right, This book gives an alternate ending to "Mansfield Park" where Maria and Henry do not run off together, I enjoyed the story and the allusions to "Pride and Prejudice" and "Persuasion" were nice touches,

I was hoping for the alternate ending of Fanny giving into her family's pressure to marry Henry Crawford and how she deals with being married to a man she doesn't trust.
Maybe someone will write that story not me, One of the longestrunning debates about Jane Austens work has been the problematical ending of MANSFIELD PARK, Sherwood Smith feels that part of the problem is that the narrative stops abruptly in Book Three, Chapter XVII, Here the narrator takes the stage to issue a long summary of what happened, after all those brilliant pages of immersing readers in the minds of the characters and their world.


When she read James AustenLeighs memoir about his famous aunt in which he reported sister Cassandra begging Jane for a different ending, Smith gained the courage to join the host of other authors who love to play in Jane Austens world, and take up the story from that point and offer a new ending.

. I resolved to find an alternate ending to Mansfield Park and immediately came across this satisfying account, redeeming the Crawford siblings and matching them with certainly their moral superiors, Edmund Bertram and Fanny Price.
I really like how the author sets about maturing Fanny emotionally and uses Fannys legendary moral compass to encourage forgiveness and redemption of the Crawfords and of Maria.
It rings true coming from her, Im not sure how I feel about why it was only the Crawfords who are redeemed why could not Julia and Maria encounter changes of heart and spirit Were left with an unchanged opinion of the end, much like their unchanged opinion of Fanny.
Why did Sir Thomas have to die Why was Susan so easily ascribed to the background as Lady Bertrams fulltime companion without thought to educate and refine her These are the questions Im left with, although ultimately, I believe the author did right by Fanny in giving her the awareness and spirit to recognize a union with Edmund would always mean he settled for second best.
Well written. Of course its not Austen but Smith has a very easy writing style that I liked, It may be sacrilegious but Im not team Edmund/Fanny and I enjoyed this ending so much more than the original, Henry and Fanny: An Alternate Ending to Mansfield Park by Sherwood Smith is really a novel fragment: it picks up unceremoniously at the point in Jane Austens Mansfield Park when Fanny is in Portsmouth and has heard that Tom Bertram is critically ill.
Advisory: This book would probably make no sense to anyone not familiar with the storyline of Mansfield Park,

This story did not start out too promisingly for meit didnt feel like something Jane Austen

would have written, Probably thats because the early scenes involve Henry Crawford and Maria Bertram and their thoughts, as well as locations that Jane Austen never wrote about, But as I went along, my respect for the author grew and grew, Her understanding of the periods history and manners is impeccable her dialogue is highly sophisticated and she makes a very convincing caseif you believe that people can learn and grow, which I dofor her alternative ending.


The language began a little rough but became more Austenesque as it went along, as Smith delved into the characters, I think what made this book feel a bit nonAustenian for me was the focus on the characters in Mansfield Park more than any other Austen novel, I believe, the author was focused on themes before individuals.
But in the end, Henry and Fanny is a very respectable, fully fleshed out story in its own right, so I cant find fault just because it isnt someone elses book.
I read this with absorption and pleasure and am impressed once again by Sherwood Smiths mad skills, She writes for welleducated grownups, and I thank her for that! This is a much better ending than the original, I think, Absolutely loved this story. Mary is a delight here, Edmund and Henry have much character growth, And Fanny, sweet sweet Fanny gets even better,.stars. Note: Spoilers for sitelinkMansfield Park

Does Edmund seem as dull as dishwater as a romantic hero Was his relationship with Fanny just hero worship for her, and settling for him Are Henry and Mary Crawford not as irredeemable to you as Jane Austen felt they were If those questions have ever run through your mind, you should give Sherwood Smith's Henry and Fanny a read.


Henry and Fanny begins a few chapters from the end of MP, with Henry Crawford on his way to a party at Fanny's cousin Maria's home.
As in MP, she gives him the cold shoulder, he pursues, she entices him, . . and he runs away, realizing that he's not really attracted to her and it would be a stupid thing to fall into an affair with her, Maria pursues him and, despite the fact that nothing actually happens between them in this version of the story, there's still a scandal, Henry takes off, deciding to buy a yacht to help the war effort by carrying secret dispatches,

Meanwhile, back at Mansfield Park, Fanny gradually comes to the realization that the brotherly kind of love Edmund has for her isn't good enough for her, and so she gently discourages him from proposing to her.
In fact, Fanny subtly encourages Mary Crawford to give it another try with Edmund, and Mary, realizing that a simpler life with Edmund will make her happier than the glittering life in London society, decides to take her up on it.
Will Edmund be willing to give her another chance

I read Mansfield Park right before I started this "alternative ending" novella, and I had done quite a lot of critical reading to prepare myself for a book club discussion of MP because I was in charge of leading the discussion.
Because of that study, I was fairly convinced by Jane Austen's approach to the various romantic relationships in MP, from a literary and realistic point of view, so I started out a little skeptical here.
Also, Sherwood's narrative voice was different enough from Jane Austen's that it took me a while to slip into the story, and even longer to buy into the underlying premise.


But in the end this alternative version had me, if not entirely logically convinced, at least very happy and more romantically satisfied, I have to say this story is a lot more heartwarming than the real ending, Sherwood Smith doesn't rush the plot hereit takes place over a couple of yearsand that pacing helped it feel more natural and believable, By the end the writing was beginning to feel very much like Austen's, And the idea of Mrs, Norris being sent down to Portsmouth to stay with Fanny's family, and taking charge there and whipping them into shape, was genius, and absolutely delightful,

I enthusiastically recommend this for Austen fans, unless you're a committed purist or actually like the way Mansfield Park ends,

Initial comments: Now I just have to read Mansfield Park again before I read Sherwood Smith's alternate ending here, I have a feeling I'll like it better than the actual ending, :.