Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen (1811)
“Two sisters, one heart of sense, one of sensibility — and Austen wants you to question which is worse.”
At a Glance
After their father dies and leaves the family estate to a half-brother, the Dashwood women — Elinor, Marianne, and their mother — are forced from Norland Park to a modest cottage in Devonshire. Elinor falls quietly in love with Edward Ferrars while hiding her feelings with admirable restraint. Marianne falls passionately in love with the charming John Willoughby, who abandons her to marry money. Both sisters are devastated. Edward turns out to have been secretly engaged to the mercenary Lucy Steele for four years; Willoughby turns out to be a seducer who ruined a young girl. The novel ends with Elinor marrying Edward and Marianne eventually — after nearly dying from heartbreak — marrying the steady Colonel Brandon.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Sense and Sensibility was Austen's first published novel, though not her first written. It appeared anonymously in 1811 and sold out its first edition of 750 copies within fourteen months, earning Austen £140. It established the terms of what would become 'the Austen novel' — ironic narrator, social satire, romantic plot as vehicle for moral inquiry. It is now recognized as a foundational text of the English novel and the first major work to treat female interiority as a subject worthy of serious literary analysis.
Diction Profile
Formal Regency prose — balanced periodic sentences, Latinate vocabulary, irony embedded in syntax rather than declared
Low-to-moderate