Romanticism Book

AFter the movie, I thought Mansfield Park among Austen's best novels. The theme of repressed sexuality in particular seemed to give her a more complete understanding of human nature than her other works. Now, reading the book itself, I discover it isn't there, someone on the movie project thought they knew better than Jane Austen. Mansfield Park, is in fact much more modest that the Austen's best, shorter, less well drawn characters (the single exception of Fanny Price notwithstanding), and character development less complete. Still, we are talking about THE Jane Austen, and her mediocre is head and shoulders above most other romantic stories--especially today's genre, indentured to greedy and oligarchic publishers and written to spec. Read it, by all means.