Mansfield Park, Jane Austen ( 1814) ***

This is classic Jane Austen, where a disadvantaged young woman eventually wins. Fanny Price is sent by her impoverished parents to live with a wealthy aunt, in the hopes that she might find employment and schooling beyond her current prospects. She is treated as a second class citizen, especially by the two young girls who live at the estate to which she was sent. But the brother of these two girls, Edmund, treats her kindly and she falls in love with him (and he with her, though he's not too clear on that at first).

Fanny grows from child to young woman, at which time two other relatives show up and greatly complicate her existence, a Henry Crawford and his sister Mary, a most unprincipled pair. Mary takes a liking to Edmund and Henry woos Fanny. Fanny is not interested in Henry, whom she immediately recognizes as a charmer without substance (and, it turns out, a womanizer). Mary is even worse, because it seems that she wishes to marry Edmund to inherit the estate, which can only happen if his older brother dies. This looks like a real possibility because of an illness. Edmund is ready to go ahead with the marriage and Fanny is sent back to her parents for scorning a 'suitable' marriage with Henry. Lots of conflict, but Jane Austen couldn't let it end like that, of course.