Mansfield Park

While overshadowed by all her other works, Mansfield Park is easily Austen's most political novel. Dealing with a wealthy family - the Bertrams - right after the abolition of the slave trade, Austen shows the strange apathy over slavery amongst the English upper-class at the time. Fanny - the heroine - is the poor niece of Sir Thomas Bertram who has been sent to Mansfield Park to live with the Bertrams. She mostly does housework and gets scolded by the Bertrams, save for her cousin Edmund.

While there is a romance between Fanny and Edmund, it takes a backseat to the struggle the Bertrams face trying to maintain their wealthy lifestyle after they lose the slaves on their plantation in Antigua. Not much is made of the slaves/slave trade by the Bertrams, leading Fanny (and the reader) to wonder why it is not talked about - surely an intention of Austen's.