The Quarterly Review and Progressive Politics

During the episode at Sotherton Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Rushworth and Fanny go back to the house ahead of the rest of the party. Austen writes: “On this rencontre they all returned to the house together, there to lounge away the time as they could with sofas, and chit-chat, and Quarterly Reviews, till the return of the others, and the arrival of dinner.”

From the journal’s very first volume, the Quarterly Review adopts a strong stance against the slave trade and its prominent place in the West Indian colonies. In a review of a history of Barbados from that first issue, the QR writes that the trade “has proved a moral evil of enormous magnitude.” The publications politics are anything but ambiguous.

Austen’s reference to the Quarterly Review is made in as offhanded a manner as her references to Antigua. It is mentioned in a list with, and therefore on the same level as, lounging on sofas and chit-chatting – normalized and everyday activities for whiling away the time before dinner.

At the time of Mansfield Park’s writing and publication, the Quarterly Review was the premiere literary and political journal in England, surpassing the Edinburgh Review that it was set up to combat in both readership and influence. It is the only periodical to be mentioned by name in the novel, and any contemporaries reading Austen’s reference would be quick to associate it with progressive, abolitionist politics.

The result is the residents of Mansfield Park read one politics while relying on another for their livelihood. The disjunction could be explained as Austen equating Sir Thomas’ lack of progressive politics abroad and the resulting troubles in Antigua with his lack of progressive parenting and the problems that arise with his daughters eloping.