Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life.

Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her acquaintances: rude, boorish John Thorpe, his flirtatious sister Isabella, who shares Catherine's love of novels and intrigue, and sophisticated Eleanor and Henry Tilney, who invite her to their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey.