Sense and Sensibility

Plot

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 behaviour 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.

About the Author

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of English literature's greatest and most widely-read writers - one of the four 'great English novelists' according to F. R. Leavis (along with George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad). Her novels, both romantic fiction and acerbic social commentary, include Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Sense and Sensibility was the first of Austen's novels to be published, in 1811, and she had to pay for its publication and a commission on sales - until the tables turned upon the book's great success and Austen began to make a substantial profit herself. All six titles are published in the Penguin English Library.