Sense and Sensibility

Front Cover
Wordsworth Editions, 1992 - Fiction - 373 pages

Introduction and Notes by Professor Stephen Arkin, San Francisco University.

'Young women who have no economic or political power must attend to the serious business of contriving material security'. Jane Austen's sardonic humour lays bare the stratagems, the hypocrisy and the poignancy inherent in the struggle of two very different sisters to achieve respectability.

Sense and Sensibility is a delightful comedy of manners in which the sisters Elinor and Marianne represent these two qualities. Elinor's character is one of Augustan detachment, while Marianne, a fervent disciple of the Romantic Age, learns to curb her passionate nature in the interests of survival.

This book, the first of Austen's novels to be published, remains as fresh a cautionary tale today as it ever was.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
4
Section 3
18
Section 4
26
Section 5
30
Section 6
38
Section 7
55
Section 8
67
Section 13
118
Section 14
146
Section 15
170
Section 16
179
Section 17
223
Section 18
228
Section 19
234
Section 20
239

Section 9
73
Section 10
100
Section 11
104
Section 12
115
Section 21
242
Section 22
Copyright

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About the author (1992)

Jane Austen's life is striking for the contrast between the great works she wrote in secret and the outward appearance of being quite dull and ordinary. Austen was born in the small English town of Steventon in Hampshire, and educated at home by her clergyman father. She was deeply devoted to her family. For a short time, the Austens lived in the resort city of Bath, but when her father died, they returned to Steventon, where Austen lived until her death at the age of 41. Austen was drawn to literature early, she began writing novels that satirized both the writers and the manners of the 1790's. Her sharp sense of humor and keen eye for the ridiculous in human behavior gave her works lasting appeal. She is at her best in such books as Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), in which she examines and often ridicules the behavior of small groups of middle-class characters. Austen relies heavily on conversations among her characters to reveal their personalities, and at times her novels read almost like plays. Several of them have, in fact, been made into films. She is considered to be one of the most beloved British authors.

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