Lovers' Vows

      by

      Mrs. Inchbald

      From the German of Kotzebue

      Historical Note Text of "Lovers' Vows" & Archive Information The Cast at Mansfield Fanny's Opinion

      Historical Note

         Biographia Dramatica gives particulars of no fewer than four adaptations of Kotzebue's Natural Son, all of which were published (1798-1800) under the name of Lovers' Vows; but only Mrs. Inchbald's version seems to have been performed, and there is no doubt of its being the Lovers' Vows of Mansfield Park, for the quotation on page 358 [RWC/Oxford] agrees with Mrs. Inchbald's text, and the number of Count Cassel's speeches is just two-and-forty.

      [Further proof that Jane Austen refers to Mrs. Inchbald's edition: on page 132 (RWC/Oxford), Tom refers to "the rhyming butler", a character developed by Mrs. Inchbald. See preface.  KLH]

         Lovers' Vows had a great vogue and was frequently reprinted; a twelfth edition is recorded of 1799. The fifth edition here reprinted seems to be identical with the first, published in the same year.

         Without such familiarity with Lovers' Vows as Miss Austen assumes her readers to possess, a large part of the first volume [of Mansfield Park] is not fully intelligible. Attention may in particular be directed to the passages in the preface in which Mrs. Inchbald dwells on her 'solicitude and alteration' of the part of Amelia—a solicitude thrown away upon Sir Thomas—and her reform of the 'dangerous insignificance of the Butler'.

      —R.W. Chapman
      Addendum to the OUP
      Mansfield Park

      Text of "Lovers' Vows"

      HTML Edition
      Preface Prologue; Dramatis Personae; & Act I Act II
      Act III Act IV Act V & Epilogue
      Plaintext Edition
      Preface Prologue; Dramatis Personae; & Act I Act II
      Act III Act IV Act V & Epilogue

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      The Mansfield Casting

      Character Portrayer
      Agatha Friburg Maria Bertram
      Frederick Henry Crawford
      Cottager & Butler Tom Bertram
      Cottager's Wife Mrs. Grant
      Baron Wildenhaim Mr. Yates
      Amelia Mary Crawford
      Count Cassel Mr. Rushworth
      Anhalt Edmund Bertram

      Fanny's Opinion of "Lovers' Vows"

      From Volume I, Chapter 14
      last paragraph, page 137 [RWC/OUP]

         The first use [Fanny] made of her solitude was to take up the volume [of "Lovers' Vows"] which had been left on the table, and begin to acquaint herself with the play of which she had heard so much. Her curiosity was all awake, and she ran through it with an eagerness which was suspended only by intervals of astonishment, that it could be chosen in the present instance—that it could be proposed and accepted in a private Theatre! Agatha and Amelia appeared to her in their different ways so totally improper for home representation—the situation of one, and the language of the other, so unfit to be expressed by any woman of modesty, that she could hardly suppose her cousins could be aware of what they were engaging in; and longed to have them roused as soon as possible by the remonstrance which Edmund would certainly make.


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