Sense and Sensibility

By Jane Austen

Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility has delighted generations of readers with its masterfully crafted portrait of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Forced to leave their home after their father's death, Elinor and Marianne must rely on making good marriages as their means of support. But unscrupulous cads, meddlesome matriarchs, and various guileless and artful women impinge on their chances for love and happiness. The novelist Elizabeth Bowen wrote, "The technique of [Jane Austen's novels] is beyond praise....Her mastery of the art she chose, or that chose her, is complete."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 28, 2006
• ISBN: 9780553902440

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion—which observe and critique the British gentry of the late eighteenth century. Her mastery of wit, irony, and social commentary made her a beloved and acclaimed author in her lifetime, a distinction she still enjoys today around the world.

Reviews for Sense and Sensibility

[sumik_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Re-reading. My reread was inspired by the recent Masterpiece Classic adaptation.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I listened to this one simultaneously with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Although the Sea Monsters version definitely highlighted the satire and humor behind the original book, I think I might have enjoyed this more without wondering how the Sea Monster version would change things up. Not my favorite Austen novel, but still enjoyable - a good classic.

[frozenplums · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was the first Jane Austen book I ever read, and I was really surprised by how much I liked it. It definitely had a dated sense to it, but it was a portrayal of that era, and it was a spectacular portrayal at that. And considering its age, I found it remarkably easy to identify with. There were plot twists I didn't see coming, thoughts and actions I sympathized with, decisions I yelled at the characters for. It was wonderful, plain and simple. Two thumbs up.

[sparkleponies · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Jane Austen, and since I enjoyed "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma," I had always wanted to read this book. I loved it, although it's sometimes too light on dialogue and heavy on description/summary of conversations. Since I enjoyed hearing the character's comments and their individual voices, I wanted more of this. "Sense and Sensibility" provides an interesting look at the consequences of living your life purely based on feeling or purely based on reason/logic.

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful gentle humor and romance! Austen has a great understanding of human nature and the society of her times.

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have always loved Sense and Sensibility best out of all of Jane Austen's novels, no doubt partly because it features the three Dashwood sisters (however invisible young Margaret may be), and I am one of three sisters myself. This tale of sensible Elinor and romantic Marianne, whose differing approaches to life and love are tested throughout the book, features the same sort of contest between desire and duty that gives Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre such power. It is a fitting tribute to Austen's powers as a writer, that although Elinor's "sense" is clearly meant to triumph, Marianne's "sensibility" is portrayed with such loving fondness.The story of a family of dependent women, whose fate is entirely in the hands of their male relatives, I have always found Sense and Sensibility to contain some of Austen's sharpest social criticism. The Dashwood women find themselves unwelcome guests in their own home when John Dashwood inherits the estate at Norland, and are only saved from the unpleasantness of the horrible Fanny by the kindness of Mrs. Dashwood's (male) cousin, Sir John Middleton. I have always found it fascinating that while Austen clearly endorses the more passive role that Elinor stakes out for herself, vis-a-vis romance, she simultaneously offers a very pointed critique of the enforced passivity of women, when it comes to economic activities and inheritance law.In the end though, for all its philosophical framework and subtle social commentary, Sense an Sensibility is most successful because Austen understands the complicated relations between women, particularly the bond between sisters.

[daye-26 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A romantic story. I love my sisters, but certainly Elinor and Marianne would be fantastic part of the family. Jane Austen shows how often our perceptions are wrong. Her prose style is wonderful. The times and fashions may change but people remain much the same. It is almost sure some of the characters will remind of someone you know. A lesson from this novel is that sometimes is better to wait a little bit for Mr. o Mrs. Right that get Mr. or Mrs. Wrong in a hurry.

[heduanna · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting story, and I still like Jane Austen... but maybe I like the movies better...

[kimmr_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's been quite a while since I last read Sense and Sensibility and this is the first time I've listened to it on audiobook. As I listened to Nadia May's excellent narration, I realised that there was much I'd forgotten about the book since I last read it.

I had certainly forgotten the flashes of humour and the sharpness of the satire. For example, Austen is particularly pointed in her descriptions of the indulgence with which the less satisfactory mothers amongst her characters (Fanny Dashwood, Lady Middleton) treat the misbehaviour of their offspring. These scenes are laugh-out-loud funny. However, they also made me think how often Austen must have been exposed to the ill-disciplined children of her acquaintances!

There is arguably more social commentary in Sense and Sensibility than in Austen's other novels. While the dependence of single women and the devastating potential effect of inheritance laws is also central to the plot of Pride and Prejudice, it is in Sense and Sensibility that the actual effect is felt most keenly in the situation of the Mrs Dashwood and her daughters.

Primarily, though, Sense and Sensibility is about relationships - relationships between sisters, between mothers and children, between friends. It is these relationships, good and bad, positive and negative which form the core of the novel. They are more important than the ultimate romantic pairings and just as important as the theme suggested by the title, that is, the different approaches to life of those with contrasting temperaments.

Indeed, in my view, the romantic pairings form the least satisfactory element of the novel. The resolution of the relationship between Elinor and Edward is brought about by the somewhat unsatisfactory deus ex machina of Lucy Steele's decision to exchange one brother for another. And to my mind the union of Marianne and Colonel Brandon is problematic, notwithstanding Austen's explanation that Marianne grew to love her husband. . While expected in such a novel, the romantic relationships do not have the same impact as those of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth or even of Emma Woodhouse and Mr Knightley.

Overall, I've appreciated Sense and Sensibility much more this time around than I have on previous readings. While it does not have the same emotional effect on me as my favourite Austen novel - Persuasion - it remains a masterpiece.

[princess0starr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Favorite Jane Austen book, hands-down. It brings together not one, but two heart-wrenching romances, and her biting wit and views on Regency society. Half of the story is about how women use their own means to connive and get what they want, at the cost of others’ happiness. The other half is about how giving up happiness can be horrible. Elinor is one of my favorite literature heroines and her ending is one of the happiest I’ve read. I’m not as a huge fan of Marianne (or Willoughby for that matter), but you still feel for her. A classic in the truest sense of the word.

[purplehena · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I don't remember this too well, but my whole high school went to see the movie version when it came out because the English department had gotten to go to England and meet the director and cast the previous summer.

[nicola26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite liked this though it certainly didn't measure up to the brilliance of Pride and Prejudice. The beginning of the story was very intriguing and compelling and kept me eager for more. It got a bit dull for a while in the middle but picked up pace again once events began to happen. Elinor and Marianne were well developed and believable. It's obvious that Austen was very observent of the nature of people and this shows in her writing. Overall it was an interesting story and made me laugh quite a few times.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked Sense and Sensibility quite a lot, but at the same time it seemed to drag rather. Once I hit about chapter forty, I started wondering if things would ever get resolved. There were a lot of rather silly misunderstandings and assumptions. It makes sense, with the silly characters and the rather tangled love lives they have, but it dragged more for me than Pride and Prejudice did.

I also kind of forgot about the point of the novel, the ideas of sense and sensibility and which one is better. Obviously sense triumphs, given that Elinor marries the man she wants, and Marianne marries the sensible match. Sensibility doesn't come off too badly, though. Elinor gets to marry the man she loves, despite all the obstacles, and Marianne is still a sympathetic character despite her dramatics.

There were some especially fun passages and commentaries in and amongst the story, too. Some of the observations made me giggle rather. I do see what people mean about Austen's wit.

Still, I think I'm rather Austen'd out at the moment. I still have Mansfield Park and Emma to read, but I might wait for a while.

[murphy4jacobs · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Once I overcame my false ideas about what Jane Austen wrote -- that she was some obscure author whosed by the sweater-set-and-pearls English majors at Ivy league women's colleges -- I fell all over myself to catch up. This was my second excursion, following up Pride & Prejudice. (It helped that the Emma Thompson movie came out about the same time).

This story of two sisters with opposing views on love and life seems ubiquitous to me now, although there are likely some few people ignorant of the trials of Marianne and Elinor, so I won't go into the details of the plot. However, it is safe enough, I think, to talk about the ideas that roam under the skin of the story, the ideas Austen wanted to present to the reader -- that one's personal experience is not the be-all and end-all of one's life, that we live in an interconnected world with rules and expectations we defy at our own risk, that we need not be dead leaves blown by the winds of passion. In the guise of a domestic romance, Austen details these ideas because she saw them affecting the lives of people she knew and she could imagine beyond her own circle.

Of course, even without all that rather weighty philosophy and moralizing, we have a romantic tale with highs and lows, long periods of suspense and uncertainty, and rather well drawn characters and situations. Austen's ability to create comic scenes and use wry ironic humor to underline her points makes the book a lot more fun than the now unfamiliar and complicated language of the time might make apparent to modern eyes.

If you are not familiar with the period of the novel, or if the language and culture seem obscure to you, I very much recommend reading [The Annotated Sense and Sensibility].

[ecataldi-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Re-reading this book just solidified my opinion that it is the best of the Jane Austen novels. I know everyone has their hearts set on Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Darcy, but I believe that her first novel is raw and real and much more relatable. It truly remains as fresh a cautionary tale today as it ever was. The Dashwood sisters learn that the path to love isn't always straight and narrow and sometimes you're heart has to be broken for you to appreciate how whole a heart can be. Filled with memorable characters, witty dialogue, and unforgettable romance, this is a book readers won't soon forget. I really enjoyed discussing the book with my library Jane Austen Book and Film Club, we talked about how societal obligations have changed but the heart has remained the same and then we watched the Masterpiece Theater version. Overall, a must read. And if you haven't watch the 1995 movie version. It's amazing and you won't regret it.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Today (May 2, 1965) I have just finished this book an I have much the same feeling of enjoyment I rememer so distinctly feeling in 1954--to my then surprise--after reading Pride and Prejudice. I found Sense and sensibility so deft, so well-done, so believeable, that my admiration is extreme. Of what moment? True, but nevertheless the craft of the author: that she can create such interest with such non-melodramatic effort seems fantastic. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are sisters, and the book is merely an account of their progress to matrimony. Yet how absorbing it all seems. And the delicious humor! E.g.: "Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieux to a place so much beloved. 'Dear, dear Norland!" said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; 'when shall I cease to regret you? when learn to feel at home elsewhwere? O happy house! could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more! and you, ye well-known trees! but you will continue the same. No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer! No; you will continue the same..."'

[dianalynn5287-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Much better than Emma. It was really funny and I loved the sisters. All of the characters were much more likeable and I really liked this book.

[teaswirls · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found the characters to somewhat self-absorbed and a bit silly. I couldn't empathise or feel any real emotion for their situations nor did I really care what happened to them.

And not even the gentlemen could sway me on this one! Just a bit disappointing.

[karl6steel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Given what I'm sure is below, my review's wholly unnecessary, although I'd like to complain about the precipitous marriage of Lucy Steele to Robert Ferrars. If she was going to go this way with the central conflict of the second half of the book, Austen could have resolved it even more suddenly: why not knock Lucy down with a carriage? Why not drown her in the Thames? Why not let loose a localized horde of zombies?

I'll say this to complainers about Mr Edward Ferrars: his woodenness is simply Elinor's, seen from the outside. Had we watched the novel from within Marianne's head, Edward and Elinor would have been indistinguishable.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Austen wrote romantic novels and this is one of her best and the first with several to follow. But one may ask, what is the source of Austen's genius on the subject of love? It seems that she was able to develop a comprehensive view of the philosophies of her own time, including the rise of sensibility (Earl of Shaftesbury, Hume and Smith) and develop stories about real people who lived and loved, learned and grew through their experiences. Consider the two Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility. One may contrast Marianne Dashwood, the young, beautiful, passionate, and unreserved romantic. with her older sister Elinor, prudent, pretty, and proper, with all the restraint of feelings of which Marianne had none. Their father dead, the sisters and their mother were about to be displaced from their childhood home of Norland by their half brother John, and his wife, Fanny. John "was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed," and Fanny was even worse. He might have allowed the Dashwood sisters to remain at Norland, if only grudgingly, but she was determined to send them packing, especially once Elinor had begun a friendship with her brother Edward.Edward had a bland personality and was practically paralyzed by shyness. While he was not particularly handsome Elinor struck up a somewhat dispassionate friendship with him. Again this was a contrast with her sister who, as the result of a chance meeting, had fallen for the dashing young, handsome and elegant Willoughby. The contrast of the sisters could not be better defined than in their choice of partners. Austen's genius extends to persuade the reader that Elinor's sense of love are truer than than the passionate sensibility of her younger sister. The romantic love of Marianne turns out to be as capable of tearing her heart apart as the Eros described in classical Greek dramas and philosophy. That this is the stuff of myth, one thinks of love at first sight, is felt by the reader, but for Austen it is not true love. It lacks a foundation and is thus unsuccessful. Grace and spirit and manners---the kinds of qualities that attracted Marianne to Willoughby---are wonderful to have, but they are no substitute for the Edward-like attributes of worth and heart and understanding. The love that has these is more likely to hold sway in the long run.

[jayney576 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An amazing love story

[jbd1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I hadn't read much Austen at all since a much-abridged P&P when I was probably in late elementary school. After looking through a book on cover designs for Austen's works I decided I really ought to try her again, and settled on this one first. I enjoyed it immensely, and will certainly be back for me. Some excellent humor and set pieces alongside a very interesting meditation on English "rural elite" society and its strictures.

[michael_p_16 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although not as bright and cheerful throughout the bulk of the novel as Pride & Prejudice, this is just as wonderful a story, especially considering that this was Austen's debut, and began as an epistolary novel when Austen was twenty. If you've never read Austen I would suggest P&P first and this one second. Austen is also very accessible to men. There is no doubt that one day, I will reread this.

[bereanna · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book is a character study that is superbly well- written, however I found I was impatient with the extensive descriptions. I also had to reread to capture meaning. I could not finish this book.

[anitatally · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It always takes me a while to get "into" her writing, the rhythm of her words, etc. but once I am there, I love it!

[writercity · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love the three Dashwood sisters more than I can say, but even though being like Margaret not too long ago, I really understand Marianne's emotional standpoint lately. Elinor, I admire most, and understand the most. This novel defines kind gossip, happy endings, and how to place trust.

[kraysaulis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I thoroughly enjoyed the old english in this book as well as the mindless sort of reading. It was a nice break from reality. No SERIOUS drama. No death, no horror. Just calm romance and romantic entanglements with the occasional broken heart. It was beautifully written however the last few chapters went on a little too long. I also found the run-on speeches of some of the characters to be too drawn out. A bit like reading Shakespearean monologues only without the poetic prose. Overall, though, I liked it and will definitely continue reading Austen's work.

[evalangui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'll be honest. I read "Pride and Prejudice" thrice, I loved it more every time... and none of Austen's books has been even close to as good since then. I love her use of language but her stories are just not engaging my interest. I got interested in S&S on chapter 47 (of 50)...

A good line:

...and Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.

[gracez-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read this book in July/August of 2005. Also read it in July/August of 2007. Time to read it again.

This might be my favorite of Austen's books - yes, even more than Pride & Prejudice.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's terribly difficult to relate to these characters in this day and age. Nevertheless the writing, characterization, color, etc. is all quite lovely, whimsical, fresh and timeless. That marriage is no longer the be-all and end-all of the universe is something that I can be truly thankful for.