Other editions of book Sense and Sensibility

This first of Jane Austen's published novels is the story of two starkly different English sisters: Elinor Dashwood, the epitome of prudence and self-control, and her younger, more impetuous sister Marianne, who embodies emotion, openness, and sheer enthusiasm. To each comes the sorrow of unhappy love: Elinor desires a man who is promised to another, while Marianne loses her heart to a scoundrel who jilts her. Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters--and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility gives way to sense. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.

MP3 CD Format When Mrs. Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement for which she longs. The contrasting fortunes and temperaments of the two girls as they struggle to cope in their different ways are portrayed by Jane Austen with her usual irony, humor and profound sensibility.

Jane Austen seems to have been born with the comic precision and other-worldly insight she everywhere displays in Sense and Sensibility, her first published novel (1811), which, though revised later, was completed in 1797 at the age of twenty-two. This meticulously constructed story of two sisters with opposing temperaments and romantic inclinations exemplifies the distilled spirit of classicism in English literature.

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behavior leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, and was her first published work when it appeared in 1811 under the pseudonym "A Lady". A work of romantic fiction, better known as a comedy of manners, Sense and Sensibility is set in southwest England, London and Kent between 1792 and 1797, and portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. The novel follows the young ladies to their new home, a meagre cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience love, romance and heartbreak.

[Read by Nadia May] Jane Austen's debut novel is a brilliant tragicomedy of flirtation and folly in which two sisters who represent ''sense'' and ''sensibility,'' or restraint and emotionalism, experience love and heartbreak in their two separate ways. The impetuous Marianne falls passionately in love with the dashing John Willoughby and makes no secret of her affections. Meanwhile, Elinor and the mild-mannered Edward Ferras feel a mutual attraction, yet neither has the directness to acknowledge it. When it is revealed that Willoughby is in fact an unscrupulous fortune hunter and that Edward is bound by a previous commitment to another woman, each sister's romantic hopes are dashed. As they bear their grief in their different ways, Marianne learns from Elinor's quiet restraint, while Elinor learns the value of Marianne's candid expression. In the end, both sisters are happily settled, having each developed a more balanced approach to life and love.