The story of Fanny Price, a poor relation growing up among the privileged Bertram clan and the sexual awakening of the young adults in the family set against the dark realities of the source of the family's fortune, the slave trade: At ten, Fanny is shipped from her rat-infested, hard-luck Portsmouth home to live with her wealthy relatives. There, she's seen as being inferior to her aristocratic, and eminently marriageable cousins. Fanny is reminded daily that the Bertrams have an advantage over her, and that she should be grateful for her residency there. In her youth, the only flickers of kindness amidst this prejudice emerge from her cousin Edmund who shares Fanny's sensitivity. And while she continues to hold a torch for Edmund, it is Henry Crawford, the ladies charmer of Mansfield Park, who takes a liking to her later in life. As Fanny becomes the must-have object of Henry Crawford's affections, her status is radically uplifted. A reluctant romance slowly simmers to a union of true love.