When Fanny Price comes to live with her well-to-do cousins at Mansfield Park, the modest, retiring ten-year-old is treated condescendingly by members of the Bartram family. A poor relation, dependent on the goodwill of her aristocratic relatives, the sweet, sensitive, and frequently ignored Fanny nevertheless eventually develops into the ethical center of the family.
Trouble begins with the arrival of Mary Crawford and her brother Henry. Their sophisticated London tastes, and penchant for flirtatious activities, shatter the tranquility of the Bartram home, creating social havoc and precipitating a crisis in the family. But Fanny — always clever, graceful, and pleasant — provides a bulwark of moral strength, eventually winning her family's complete acceptance (and the love of her cousin Edmund).