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concept

improvement

The fashionable practice of remodelling a country estate's grounds (associated with Humphry Repton); Mr Rushworth's eagerness to 'improve' Sotherton after seeing Compton drives the day-trip chapters and becomes a running metaphor for reshaping -- or misshaping -- what one is given.

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Mentioned in 19 works (94 mentions)

A Collection of Letters Juvenilia · 2 mentions
Lady Susan Novels · 2 mentions
To Cassandra, Steventon, 9 January 1796 letter · 1 mention
To Cassandra, Steventon, 17 November 1798 letter · 1 mention
To Cassandra, Steventon, 25 November 1798 letter · 1 mention
To Cassandra, Steventon, 18 December 1798 letter · 1 mention
To Cassandra, Steventon, 25 October 1800 letter · 1 mention
To Cassandra, Steventon, 8 January 1801 letter · 1 mention
Northanger Abbey Novels · 7 mentions
To Cassandra, Southampton, 8 February 1807 letter · 1 mention
Sense and Sensibility Novels · 14 mentions
To Cassandra, Godmersham, 23 September 1813 letter · 1 mention
To Cassandra, Godmersham, 26 October 1813 letter · 2 mentions
Pride and Prejudice Novels · 10 mentions
To Cassandra, London, November 1814 letter · 2 mentions
Mansfield Park Novels · 28 mentions
Emma Novels · 9 mentions
Persuasion Novels · 7 mentions
Sanditon (Fragment of a Novel) Fragments · 3 mentions