Reading Between the Lines of Mansfield Park: A Visit with Patricia Matthew

In this episode, Dr. Patricia Matthew sits down with guest host Dr. Anne Fertig to discuss Mansfield Park in all its beauties and complexities, as well as Matthew’s experience editing a new edition of the novel. They also unpack the ways in which Jane Austen weaves social commentary into her novels, and how what Austen doesn’t say is sometimes just as important as what she does say. In the wrap-up, Matthew also shares a reading list of some of her other favorite eighteenth-century novels.

Dr. Patricia A. Matthew is associate professor of English at Montclair State University, specializing in nineteenth-century British literature, Regency culture, and abolitionist literature. She is the editor of the Penguin Random Deluxe Editions of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey released for Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, as well as the forthcoming Norton Library edition of Mansfield Park. And she is currently writing a book on sugar, gender, and British abolitionist culture for Princeton University Press. Matthew also co-edits the Oxford University Press series Race in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, and her work has appeared in the journals Women’s Writing, the Keats-Shelley Journal, and Texas Studies in Literature and Language, as well as in The Atlantic, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Times Literary Supplement, and Slate. Matthew is also the director of The Race and Regency Lab, and in 2024 was a plenary speaker at JASNA's Annual General Meeting.

How to Listen to Episode 40

You can stream this episode on your favorite podcast app and on our YouTube Channel. Or listen to the interview and read the transcript and show notes on the Episode 40 webpage,  where you'll also find a transcript and show notes.