CompletedA story of achieving financial freedom in the 19th century.
A civilian heroine focused on her career who doesn't want to marry versus a nobleman who loves art and equally resists marriage, both embracing singleism - will these two find sparks of romance?
Mary, a girl reborn into the middle class of the 19th century, finds her parents on the verge of bankruptcy with eight children already, and another on the way.
Her brothers can go to school and improve their status through military or business careers, but Mary and her sisters have no such opportunities, their mother expecting only that they rise socially through beauty.
Stubborn Mary starts by managing the Price family's domestic affairs, accumulating money, studying, inventing, engaging in small businesses, founding large companies, building garment factories, establishing magazines. As she leads the feminist wave at every step, are Mary's family and friends companions or adversaries? Will she find ideal love and marriage without wanting children?
Charles Dickens: Perhaps I'm impoverished now, but I still hope you'll grant me, Miss Mary Price.
William Spencer Cavendish: I can't understand, what do you want? What else can I do for you?
Mary Price: I traveled from Portsmouth to London, not to become someone's appendix. I wish to control everything I possess while alive, rather than receive the so-called respect from a man; I wish my name to gleam alone after I die, rather than be attached to another man's, no matter how eminent.
PS: Combining characters from Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, reading without knowing the original won't affect the main story.
Reading Notice: 1. Career over romance. 2, Decision on marriage remains open with branch endings. 3, Mary firmly doesn't want children.
Content Tags: Western Classics, Western Romance, Time Travel, Inspirational Growth.
Mary Price, William Spencer Cavendish, Charles Dickens, Characters from Mansfield Park, Characters from Sense and Sensibility.
Other: Jane Austen, 19th Century, Financial Freedom.
One-sentence synopsis: Achieving financial freedom through effort in the 19th century.
Theme: Even with a bad starting hand, there's hope for reversal.