Sense and Sensibility

By Jane Austen

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Release date: Oct 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781848703780

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known for six major novels, Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; Becoming Jane; Emma; Mansfield Park>; and Northanger Abbey. Her writing style has been widely thought of as a cross between realist and romantic genres. Austen’s prose is poignant, and always features a strong-willed female protagonist. While sparing no detail depicting the lavishness of women in the English upper class, Austen also portrayed the reality of gendered social dynamics in the 19th century. Austen has been hailed as a heroine of her own time, in large part because most of the novels of the day were written by men. Indeed, her literature portrayed a female narrative that was often overlooked in the catalogue of male authors at the time. Austen’s platform gave an important voice to girls and women in literature, and it is for that reason, among countless others, that her works continue to inspire readers today.

Book preview

love

Contents

General Introduction

Introduction

Further Reading

Sense and Sensibility

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Notes to the Text

General Introduction

Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal to the general reader and students. We commissioned teachers and specialists to write wide ranging, jargon-free introductions and to provide notes that would assist the understanding of our readers rather than interpret the stories for them. In the same spirit, because the pleasures of reading are inseparable from the surprises, secrets and revelations that all narratives contain, we strongly advise you to enjoy this book before turning to the Introduction.

General Adviser

Keith Carabine

Rutherford College

University of Kent at Canterbury

Introduction

We might as well begin with what is fairly well established about Jane Austen’s life and move on from there to speculate about her novel. She was born in December of 1775 in the town of Steventon in Hampshire, the seventh of the eight children of the Reverend George Austen and his wife. As a child she wrote farces and parodies and in the late 1790s she wrote versions of what would become Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Both books were extensively rewritten, and in 1811 Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously and at Jane Austen’s expense. She subsequently published Pride and Prejudice in 1813, Mansfield Park in 1814 and Emma in 1816. She began Sandition in 1817 but died at Winchester on 18 July leaving her novel unfinished. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in 1818.

Of course a simple list like this leaves out an enormous amount of social and cultural history, and a reader interested in knowing more about the development of the English novel, the situation of women writers and the world Jane Austen lived in and wrote for would do well to consult the books recommended at the end of this Introduction.

Our concern here is the particular place held by Sense and Sensibility in the body of Jane Austen’s work. Linked as it is in the chronology of Jane Austen’s novels with Pride and Prejudice but much less brilliant than that novel (or Emma, or Persuasion), it might seem doomed to be a book one reads to either round out a sense of the complete works, or that one meets at the beginning of the orderly march through a course on Jane Austen. I shall suggest that the book has its own real strengths and its own rewards and more than merits a close reading.

There are a few points we must clarify before our pleasure in the novel can unfold. The social world of the Dashwoods is bounded by strictures of class and property that may seem remote, and it is hard to get a handle on the exact nature of the value of money which is so eagerly talked about. (In the suggestions for Further Reading, see the article by Edward Copeland.) The opening pages of the book are bounded by laws that passed property to male heirs and left female relations dependent on either reluctant legal provisions or the kindness of family and friends. But even after Mrs Dashwood and her daughters fall from Norland Park to Barton Cottage, they are still able to employ a manservant and two maids. While it is also true that Elinor and Marianne have not been brought up to think of work as much more than beautiful embroidery, they are in this respect typical of the leisured class at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth. Gentlemen and gentlewomen did not exert themselves in the world of work. Their reasons for taking up professions had more to do with prestige or socially recognised positions and not with getting on or getting ahead. Taking up holy orders (as Edward Ferrars wants to do) was not a matter of profound piety in the Anglican Church of the period, and ‘livings’ (as clerical appointments were called) were sold and bought as part of the social bartering of people searching to live in accordance with expectations that defined respectability more in terms of how people behaved than in terms of what they did to earn money.

Manners are clearly an important part of the social landscape and this is another way in which the social world of the novel may seem remote. Breaches of decorum whether in speech or conduct are serious concerns. A failure to maintain standards in simple matters such as proper address (Elinor is an oldest daughter and is therefore ‘Miss’ Dashwood; Willoughby’s use of Marianne’s Christian name suggests an intimacy that in turn suggests an engagement) is serious. Failure in more complex matters such as visiting an estate that a character imagines she will be mistress of long before she is either married or settled, is very serious. Both failures are important signs in a world where alertness to social behavior is a form of self-possession and the lack of self-possession is more dangerous than we might now be inclined to credit.

The self-possession of Jane Austen’s narrator is enormous and it allows her to place her characters along a far more absolute grid of social, intellectual and moral standards than we could now probably agree on. The words in this novel’s title juxtapose two different ways of apprehending the world that had for Jane Austen both history and charged meaning. Our usage paraphrases their meaning as ‘common sense’ and ‘sensitivity’, and we quickly notice that Elinor embodies a discreet and rather quiet form of good sense while Marianne is given to declarations of excessive emotional response to nature, art and the fluctuations of her own heart. In fact, the characteristics joined in the title need the modifying influence of one another for life to be lived most successfully. But this is a state of affairs the novel shows to be difficult to achieve, given the opposing forces of social pressure to conform and individual yearnings to break free of society’s sanctioned views of conduct into freer, more romantic territory.

By the time Jane Austen came to write Sense and Sensibility an interesting debate had grown up around the role played by intellect and by feelings in man’s relation to the world around him. An important legacy from the seventeenth century argument between those who believed (with Hobbes) that man is a self-centered and self-serving creature and those who believed (with Lord Shaftesbury) in man’s natural benevolence was a growing literature in the eighteenth century that explored the implication of generous feeling which included the pleasure people found in works of the imagination and in recognising beauty in both nature and art. Because these feelings were seen as unselfish, they seemed to indicate superiority in those who responded intensely to the worlds of nature and art. By the time the Romantic movement took hold in England, ‘sensibility’ had become a powerful quality strong enough to be opposed to reason or will. Perhaps the most excessive flowering of sensibility’s excesses was the sentimental novel, and in one of the most famous examples of the genre, McKenzie’s Man of Feeling (1771), the hero identifies so completely with the feelings and sufferings of others that he spends his days weeping for them. This is obviously a far cry from Hobbes and the notion that human beings enjoyed the misfortunes of others. And the sheer amount of sentimental fiction produced in the late eighteenth century would seem to suggest that tears were as plentiful as rain in George III’s England. (See, for example, Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron, Sophia Lee’s The Recess and Charlotte Smith’s Emmeline.) Strength of sympathetic identification had become a measure of the strength of personal relationships. Only intense reactions were of consequence and excess feeling was the order of the day.

The young Jane Austen knew this territory well and her sharp parodic instincts feasted on its excesses. What she saw and made raucous fun of in Love and Freindship (1790, the misspelling has been kept to honour the author’s youth) was that far from being a badge of virtue, the excessive display of one’s sensibility was as selfish and proud as any other self-regarding form of behaviour. When Laura, one of the heroines of Love and Freindship, proclaims that her only fault – if it can be called a fault! – is a sensibility that trembles at every affliction of her friends, Jane Austen at fifteen has caught the smug self-satisfaction of those whose pleasure in the sufferings of others makes them less than willing to do anything (other than weep) about that suffering. The mature novelist goes further in showing that Marianne’s selfish indulgence of her misery once Willoughby has left makes her insensitive to Elinor’s suffering. It also leads to an even deeper criticism of the self-indulgence implicit in the cult of sensibility in that all of life’s unpleasant tasks are left to Elinor who is then blamed for lacking sensibility while she is busy making Marianne’s life possible. Elinor keeps house while Marianne broods, rants and falls ill.

Elinor worries not only about the practical aspects of life, she also worries about what things cost. Unlike her sister or her mother, she sees their straightened circumstances as imposing a need for economy. Marianne is openly contemptuous of her sister’s sense that there might be a way to live within one’s means, at the same time that she blithely maintains that a family needs a minimum of two thousand pounds a year (worth anywhere from fifty to a hundred times as much in current pounds) to live at a reasonable level. Willoughby, who so perfectly seemed to match Marianne’s taste in poetry, pictures and landscape, drops Marianne to make the kind of marriage that will allow him to continue to indulge himself at someone else’s expense. (Elinor, meanwhile, holds out for Edward whose sensibility Marianne has mocked but who accepts his mother’s disinheritance of him to marry for love.)

It is clear then that in this novel sensibility is a road paved with selfish intentions. What is less clear (but equally important) is that sense, by contrast, isn’t a monolithic virtue. Sense shows itself to be various and not all of its manifestations are admirable. Elinor is prudent about the realities of economic life, but the economic machinations of Lucy Steele and her sister as they make themselves agreeable to Lady Middleton do not make the kind of moral sense in facing the world that Elinor’s choices make. The crucial issue is that Jane Austen does not set sensibility at a point diametrically opposed to sense. Rather she asks us to see how much finer our discriminations must be as we look at what a broad spectrum of behaviour the two terms can encompass.

Consider how, at the opening of the novel, we are invited in on the wonderfully self-serving way that John and Fanny Dashwood talk themselves out of any obligation to meet Mr Dashwood’s dying request that John provide for his stepmother and half-sisters once Norland is his. The speed with which John Dashwood (tutored by his selfish wife) talks himself down from a generous three thousand pounds to seasonally symbolic gifts of game and fish suggests that a man ostensibly given to sense can be as smugly selfish as any character defined by sensibility. The lack of a sympathetic capacity to feel what others feel is as morally crippling as a chronic disposition to burst into tears at the harshness of the world and the abundance of dead leaves in autumn.

Lest we think the generous goodness of a man like Sir John Middleton, who provides Mrs Dashwood, Marianne, Elinor and Margaret with Barton Cottage, is an unqualified victory for feeling and the sympathetic side of sensibility, we must remember that Sir John is easily taken in by the Steele sisters and has a very primitive view of intimacy. (He thinks it comes from two people sitting an hour or two together in the same room every day.) In fact, the conventionality – by moments even the stupidity – of the Middletons, the Ferrars and the Palmers signals an important truth about the social world in this novel. There is no unmixed, purely desirable model of behaviour. What might seem a desirable quality in abstract isolation is found to exist within people in combination with less desirable traits, and the mixed nature of human character can be confusing. Jane Austen comes at this confusion from two different perspectives. Marianne is impatient with conventional politeness and will not engage in the badinage of social cover-up. When Lucy Steele meets the quite sour Lady Middleton and exclaims, ‘What a sweet woman Lady Middleton is!’ the narrator tells us:

Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor, therefore, the whole task of telling lies when politeness required it always fell.

Elinor accepts her social role but this does not mean she is without a sense of judgement or doesn’t know the truth about others. She is simply more bound by convention and unwilling to bring the pressure of her individualism to bear on every encounter. Marianne, on the other hand, cannot resist battling against being placed in conventional roles. When Sir John Middleton teases Marianne about Willoughby early on in their acquaintance by saying, ‘I see how it will be. You will be setting your cap at him now, and never think of poor Brandon,’ Marianne responds:

‘That is an expression, Sir John,’ said Marianne warmly, ‘which I particularly dislike. I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit is intended; and setting one’s cap at a man, or making a conquest, are the most odious of all. Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity.’

Sir John did not much understand this reproof; but he laughed as heartily as if he did . . .

Sir John’s limitations are clear. A good-hearted man, he is also foolish and plays with the bits and pieces of people’s lives to keep from being bored. Is Elinor’s polite sufferance of such foolishness a better response than Marianne’s goring of it? It turns out that this is harder to gauge than either girl can know and the novel works toward an understanding of conventional mediocrity that insists on gradations of response. Since characters are rarely all of a piece all of the time, a more flexible, nuanced sense of the world is needed.

The dramatic vehicle for making this clear is the way Jane Austen handles Lucy Steele’s secret engagement to Edward Ferrars. Lucy confides her secret to Elinor because she senses a rival’s interest and wants to forestall her. She also knows that her taunting provocation will not dent Elinor’s courtesy. Elinor is obliged to tease from Lucy what she wants to know about Edward but gives no sign of being rattled or jealous. She manages to show a cunning, calculating side to sense that can at moments leave the reader troubled by a studied hypocrisy in Elinor that doesn’t allow for unalloyed admiration. Her manner of pushing Lucy for details about Edward’s constancy and probing about Mrs Ferrars are both manipulative.

Meanwhile, Marianne’s characteristic response to both Steele sisters is a coldness that stems not from calculating possible advantages she might gain but from dislike. The Steele sisters fall into the category of those who are unworthy because dishonest and insensitive. And judging from what Jane Austen shows us of the sisters (Anne is not really significant since she is merely talkative and silly; Lucy is full of malice and shrewdness) there might be a case for trusting Marianne’s quick and impatient judgements over Elinor’s more complicated handling of social obligation and difficulty. The test case here turns out to be Mrs Jennings.

Mrs Jennings has no sensibility in Marianne’s sense of the term and her powers of discrimination are weak. She loves both of her daughters, the coldly civil Lady Middleton and the foolish Mrs Palmer, with equal and unqualified enthusiasm. Confronted with the truly offensive language of her son-in-law, Mr Palmer, she does not take offence. She is gossipy and unfailingly good-natured. And it is her good nature that leads her to care for Elinor and Marianne and to invite them to stay with her in London.

Upon learning that Willoughby has behaved badly toward Marianne her concern is immediate and she takes the sensible (if immediately unwelcome) position that there are other young men in the world. She instantly sees an improved chance for Colonel Brandon and says so. Marianne cannot accept that Mrs Jennings is sincere in her concern:

‘No, no, no it cannot be,’ she cried; ‘she cannot feel. Her kindness is not sympathy; her good nature is not tenderness. All that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it.’

It is only after Marianne recovers from her very serious and prolonged illness that she can bring herself to acknowledge how deeply worthy of her respect and gratitude Mrs Jennings is. But her illness is responsible for making her see how much more there is to judging character than the standards of sensibility. The collapse of Marianne’s faith in sensibility is bound up with the presentation and failure of her relationship with Willoughby. The novel moves Marianne from an extreme position to a more moderate appreciation of balance.

Willoughby enters the novel in Chapter 9 in a manner that reminds the reader of sentimental fiction. He takes Marianne, who has sprained her ankle, into his arms and carries her home to Barton Cottage. He is ‘uncommonly handsome’ and his manner is frank and graceful. Returning the next day to see how Marianne fares he finds her full of life, sweet smiles, and very attractive. That he is so fond of music and dancing can only mean that their spirits are alike. Elinor cannot resist teasing Marianne about the immediacy of their enthusiasm and familiarity. Marianne will have none of this:

‘ . . . I have been too much at my ease, too happy, too frank. I have erred against every common-place notion of decorum! I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful. Had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared.’

What is most interesting here is that Elinor does not really know why she objects to the enthusiasm and familiarity and the quick sharing of tastes between her ardent sister and a cultivated young man. She senses that the speed with which their relationship develops runs counter to a gradual notion of courtship in which the rest of the world is not shut out but included. By cutting themselves off from society in a frenzy of discovering each other, Marianne and Willoughby lose sight of decorum and become impetuous. Marianne (without thinking about the extravagance of the gesture or the expense of upkeep) wants to accept a horse from Willoughby’s stable. They make an unchaperoned visit to the estate of the wealthy old woman who has made Willoughby her heir without considering how unconventional, even gauche it is to visit a property they might one day inhabit long before they have considered betrothal. All of this coupled with their harsh and unfeeling judgements of others (Colonel Brandon, Mrs Jennings, virtually everyone at Barton Park) makes it seem as though they are beyond the conventional world and cannot be reached by people who do not speak their language and share their feelings and thoughts.

Initially it seems that Marianne and Willoughby are thoughtless because they are in love and oblivious of conventional manners and restraints. The first real disturbance comes with Willoughby’s announcement that he is leaving for London and won’t be returning for a year or more. The fact that there is no explanation leaves Elinor to speculate that perhaps Mrs Smith (Willoughby’s wealthy patron) has chosen to separate him from a girl without property. Marianne has no such suspicion and when Mrs Jennings invites them to come to London, Marianne is eager to accept in hopes of seeing Willoughby.

Elinor by now is carrying the burden of her knowledge about Lucy Steele’s secret engagement to Edward Ferrars. It is a tense time for both sisters since they are in considerable discomfort but unable to confide in one another. (Elinor cannot betray a confidence and Marianne is hurt by both Willoughby’s neglect and Elinor’s refusal to speak openly about Edward.) The situation comes to a head when Elinor accompanies Marianne to a party where Willoughby appears. He is completely cold, and so unresponsive to Marianne’s desperation as to appear heartless. She confronts him in all her agony and bewilderment:

‘But have you not received my notes?’ cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. ‘Here is some mistake, I am sure – some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby – for heaven’s sake tell me, what is the matter?’

Marianne receives no explanation and her long, harrowing illness (a disease of her mind and spirit as well as of her body) begins.

Marianne’s illness looks on the surface to be the result of sensibility run wild. Her sensibility led her to misjudge Willoughby and that proves nearly fatal. What complicates this reading is that initially Willoughby was very appealing – he shines in comparison with Colonel Brandon or Edward Ferrars – and Marianne has no means of discovering that he is duplicitous until he abandons her. (By comparison, Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is helped in her misjudgement of Wickham by Darcy’s letter and a good many other events before she commits herself to anyone.) The only source of possible enlightenment is Colonel Brandon and he is mute for much of the time out of respect for a code of conduct that doesn’t allow a gentleman to seek personal gain by seemingly slandering another person. In addition, of the characters closest to Marianne, her mother, Mrs Dashwood, is enchanted by Willoughby, and Elinor, while concerned about his unconventional behaviour, has found him to be very eligible and seemingly honorable. She will, after hearing Colonel Brandon’s story of his deceit and seduction, see him as a monster, but even this reaction does not completely override her fascination with him when he comes to visit Marianne on what he takes to be her deathbed.

Elinor begins the long final interview with Willoughby full of anger and impatience. She asks him to leave several times but is overcome by his fierce need to talk. The story is very conventional for such an unconventional character: extravagant living, debt and debauchery cost Willoughby his inheritance and pushed him to look for a wife wealthy enough to pay for his careless self-indulgence. Moreover, he tells Elinor he really loved Marianne and is full of regret for what he has lost.

What is both surprising and moving is that Elinor softens towards him and proves strangely charitable:

Her thoughts were silently fixed on the irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling, affectionate temper.

It is as though Elinor has glimpsed the good man Marianne saw through the excitement of her love – an open, affectionate person – ultimately ruined by his idleness. Marianne’s sensibility had helped her see the good in Willoughby, although ultimately it blinded her to his faults.

The aftermath of this conversation for Elinor is curious. She acknowledges that she too finds Willoughby attractive and wishes that his wife were dead so her sister might still marry him. Even when it becomes clear that Marianne has recovered, that Colonel Brandon has declared his love and will be accepted, Elinor feels a pang of regret for Willoughby that is erotically charged. But it does not last. Elinor is, finally, consistent and the men who have been constant, Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon, are allowed the triumph of their persistent, almost apologetic courtships.

Notice that constancy and adherence to good form have not been blameless in the evolution of trouble in the novel’s plot. Edward might have broken his secret engagement to Lucy Steele (or at least confided in Elinor that he no longer cared for Lucy), and Colonel Brandon might have told Marianne’s mother and sister that Willoughby was a bounder had each not been bound by a code of honour that could not be tampered with. Social forms are of great social value and the formalists in this novel prevail over the impulse to share unpleasant truths.

What is complex in what Jane Austen has presented is that the suitors most honourable in their attention to form are not particularly vivacious or likeable. Marianne and Willoughby, by contrast, who are quite inattentive to social form when most passionate about each other, are extremely full of life and pleasure in each other and the world. (Elinor’s faith in Edward Ferrars is a triumph of belief over circumstance. His appearances in the novel up until he can finally declare his love are best described as damp.) Colonel Brandon can hardly be characterised as much livelier. His problem derives partly from the age-old literary difficulty of making constancy interesting when by its nature it is not. He is solemn and long-suffering and manages, finally, to move Marianne during her illness by his silent devotion and the constancy of his attention.

What we are left with at the end of this novel is the apparent triumph of those who uphold the social order through reason and tolerance. Marianne acknowledges that she was monstrous in her self-absorption and Elinor acknowledges that she was rather saintly in not letting resentment of her sister’s excesses or jealousy of Lucy obscure her sense of duty. Both sisters are allowed to live comfortable lives through the generosity of Colonel Brandon. But one feels a sense of loss as things fall decorously into place at the end of the novel. A transformation has occurred in Marianne that may not be altogether glorious. After all, the man who swept her up in his arms at the beginning of the novel will not completely fade from the reader’s consciousness and the man she marries still seeks ‘the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!’ There is a sense in this early novel that the price paid for reconciling oneself to flannel may well be a loss of passion. There is also a feeling that Elinor has got less than her intelligent due in worrying with her new husband about better pasturage for their cows. Perhaps the problem is that the comic and passioniate energies that are part of the pleasure of the novel disappear too completely. Closing the book a reader who has enjoyed watching its two heroines come safely home might still wish that there was just a bit more sparkle and a bit less duty in the air.

Stephen Arkin

San Francisco State University

Further Reading

Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and The War of Ideas, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1975; this book defines the nature of Jane Austen’s conservative social values and places them in the context of eighteenth-century intellectual history.

Claudia Johnson, Jane Austen, Women, Politics, and the Novel, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. 1988. Far from being a writer free of historical preoccupations, Jane Austen in this feminist study emerges as very engaged with the crises of her time.

Edward Copeland, ‘Jane Austen and the Consumer Revolution’, pp. 77–92, in The Jane Austen Companion, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, NY 1986; this sensible discussion of economic values in Jane Austen’s world makes clear how property generated wealth and how very wealthy someone with an income of two thousand pounds would be in today’s pounds.

Oliver MacDonagh, Jane Austen, Real and Imagined Worlds, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn. 1991: this study provides a sense of what the social and political contexts of Jane Austen’s world were.

Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1952; for Mudrick, Jane Austen’s irony, her sense of the incongruities between ‘pretence and essence’, is central to her work.

David Nokes, Jane Austen, A Life, Farar, Straus and Giroux, New York 1997; this is a thorough, interesting life of the author.

Two useful websites:

http://www. goucher.edu/library/jausten/jane.htm

http://www.galenet.com/servlet/GLD

Sense and Sensibility

Chapter 1

The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where for many generations they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew, Mr Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old gentleman’s days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr and Mrs Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence.

By a former marriage, Mr Henry Dashwood had one son; by his present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady, respectable young man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age. By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his wealth. To him, therefore, the succession to the Norland estate was not so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent of what might arise to them from their father’s inheriting that property, could be but small. Their mother had nothing, and their father only seven thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the remaining moiety [1] of his first wife’s fortune was also secured to her child, and he had only a life interest in it.

The old gentleman died; his will was read, and like almost every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew; but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters than for himself or his son; but to his son, and his son’s son, a child of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision, by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old: an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters. He meant not to be unkind, however, and as a mark of his affection for the three girls, he left them a thousand pounds a-piece.

Mr Dashwood’s disappointment was at first severe; but his temper was cheerful and sanguine, and he might reasonably hope to live many years, and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the produce of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate improvement. But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was his only one twelve-month. He survived his uncle no longer; and ten thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for his widow and daughters.

His son was sent for, as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother-in-law [2] and sisters.

Mr John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time, and he promised to do everything in his power to make them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance, and Mr John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might prudently be in his power to do for them.

He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold-hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might have been made still more respectable than he was; he might even have been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and very fond of his wife. But Mrs John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself; more narrow-minded and selfish.

When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself to increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand pounds a-piece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The prospect of four thousand a-year, in addition to his present income, besides the remaining half of his own mother’s fortune, warmed his heart and made him feel capable of generosity. ‘Yes, he would give them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience.’ He thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did not repent.

No sooner was his father’s funeral over, than Mrs John Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband’s from the moment of his father’s decease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the greater, and to a woman in Mrs Dashwood’s situation, with only common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing; but in her mind there was a sense of honour so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immoveable disgust. Mrs John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of her husband’s family: but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of showing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people she could act when occasion required it.

So acutely did Mrs Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach with their brother.

Elinor, this eldest daughter whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart; her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong: but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn, and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught.

Marianne’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s. She was sensible and clever, but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great.

Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister’s sensibility; but by Mrs Dashwood it was valued and cherished. They encouraged each other now in the violence of their affliction. The agony of grief which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought for, was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection

Reviews for Sense and Sensibility

[alanteder · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Review of the Audible Audio edition narrated by Rosamund PikeI'm not the audience for Jane Austen, but as this was offered in an Audible Daily Deal it was an easy pick to cross off my 1001 Books list and to try to hear what all the fuss is about.This isn't an ideal book for long travel commutes as I found my mind wandering constantly and it would only snap back to attention when Pike affected an especially entertaining upper-class voice for Mrs. Jennings or during the drama of the confrontations between Elinor and Willoughby. The scoundrel Willoughby was probably the only character of any dramatic interest.One main distraction was my constantly thinking about how these people knew each other's incomes on an annual basis? It seemed like a regular refrain throughout but the source of the information is never discussed. It is almost as if there was some sort of public domain registry for this sort of information. I began to wonder if there is any sort of annotated Jane Austen that explains these sorts of cultural nuances that will become even more inexplicable as the years pass.These are only reactions based on listening to an audio version under less than ideal circumstances. I should still try to give it a read in hardcopy format.

[meyben_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Two sisters find love and are heartbroken by the lies and deciet that are made. Society forbids them to marry above while another is engaged.

[ritaer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The quiet pleasure of a rereading of a well-known work.

[pwaites_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With Jane Austen, I think there’s always a lot that I don’t understand but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying her books.Unlike when I read Pride and Prejudice, I had no idea what happened in Sense and Sensibility or even what it was about. I’m glad this was the case – knowing that happy endings weren’t assured for the characters made it more suspenseful.“Suspenseful?” I hear you say, “How can a book about the marriage prospects of two Regency era women be suspenseful?”The answer: It’s all about the characters. Jane Austen does characters fabulously. Marianne and Elinor Dashwood, the two sisters at the heart of the novel, are fully developed characters who could walk right off the page. And what’s more, they’re likable.I became deeply involved in these characters lives even if their concerns and problems are so utterly different from my life in the 21st century.Oh, and did I mention that Jane Austen’s funny? It’s a subtle sort of wit that’s more likely to make you grin than laugh out loud, but it makes her books wonderfully enjoyable.I’m not going to bother recommending Sense and Sensibility to anyone in particular; chances are, if you live in the Western world, you’re bound to read Jane Austen at some point in your education.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

[doingdewey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Originally titled Elinor and Marianne, in a way the book was still named after it’s two main characters. Elinor is eminently sensible, always putting her own feelings second to looking out for her mother and sister. Elinor is the exact opposite, entirely focused on her own sensibility and feelings with a complete lack of concern for the practical. Despite their dissimilarity, both sisters will face similar challenges as they navigate society trying to find love.

This was a reread for me and the first thing I noticed was that I didn’t remember just how funny Jane Austen can be. The humor is very dry and understated, but I thought that made it even better. She rarely outright tells you anything about a character, instead giving you snapshots of their lives that show their personality. As one of the critics quoted in the book pointed out, although the book isn’t overly predictable, the characters always act self-consistently enough that their actions don’t surprise you.

Although I personally relate much more to Elinor than to Marianne, I liked that the two heroines were so different. It added interest and should give everyone a character to empathize with. The plot was strangely engaging. Events move fairly slowly and what happens is all gossip and romance; not a description that I would expect for such an enthralling book! Despite the apparently unexciting contents, I couldn’t put the book down and always wanted to know what happened next.

In addition to liking the story, I also liked the edition I picked up. It was a Barnes & Noble classics edition and it included the best extras. The introduction was less spoiler-y than many but still thought-provoking. I also liked that at the end of the book there was some extra discussion, some book club discussion questions, and a few quotes from critics across the ages. It gave some great context to the story and I’ll definitely be picking up more classics from this series.

This review first published on Doing Dewey.

[wordsampersand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.75 stars. This feels like a trial-run for later books.

[chrisblocker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm familiar with many Jane Austen stories, but this is the first time I've successfully read one of her novels. Years ago, surely eight or nine years now, I made a very lackluster attempt to read Mansfield Park, but I gave up within a mere ten pages. My heart just wasn't in it at the time. More so than that of many of her contemporaries, the language Austen uses can be a chore to get through and I struggled to understand what I was reading (and why). The time has come, however, to give Austen another try.Judging by the stories that have survived and remain in our hearts—from Shakespeare to Austen to Dickens to...—there really wasn't much difference in British drama for three hundreds years. Through the quirky interactions of memorable characters, these authors provide entertaining romps through sentimentality with a satirical edge. And yet, I would argue that Austen's stories were more realistic than those of her contemporaries. Certainly, Austen dwelt a bit heavily on the “woes” of the higher class, but the characters' wants and needs transcend status. Unlike many of the two-dimensional characters in the stories of the time, Austen's primary characters are individuals with ever-changing perspectives (secondary characters, not so much). Of course realism from a much more humble point-of-view was just a generation away with authors such as Anne Bronte being born in this era, but clearly Austen had her finger on the pulse of humanity.And yet these stories lack realism. How anyone can be so oblivious is beyond me. Can two people carry on a conversation for so long without realizing they're talking about two very different things? Sure, it's humorous, but it's not believable. So are these stories meant to be believable, or not? Does love ever come so easily in the end? How is it that the destitute daughters of these tales always find the one descent human in the aristocracy? I think that's the magic of Austen and it certainly works well in Sense and Sensibility. These are characters that are human and though their situations may be very different from our own, they are very much like us. Through struggles and the embrace of all that is “good” and “right,” they enter the fairy tale that so many of us envy. These are the stories that capture the heart of the romantic.Sense and Sensibility is double the romance. The characters are engaging. The wit is on point. The story is entertaining. And it's all so clever—there's an excellent word for the work of Jane Austen: clever.

[jjaylynny · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Seems cooler than P&P, but I've read P&P so many times that I may attribute to it more because I love it so. I think I should read the books before I watch the movies. I love the movie too much and the book suffered. But still-- sly humor, sneaky social commentary, great characters.

[arelenriel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is always one of my favorite book.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found myself disliking Marianne. She was a bit of a selfish brat.

[atimco-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sense and Sensibility was my first Jane Austen novel, for the simple reason that it leads off the one-volume edition of her works that I was able to snag for about 30 cents at a library booksale. I had no idea it would be the gateway to an immersive new world I had not previously imagined (and when I say immersive, I mean it; I finished this one-volume edition of Austen's six novels plus Lady Susan over the course of the following two weeks). The plot is well known and tells the story of the Dashwood family, a mother and three daughters left nearly destitute by the death of Mr. Dashwood and the laws that precluded their inheriting any significant portion of his fortune. The two elder Miss Dashwoods, Elinor and Marianne, must find a way to live in a world that afforded women very few options. The two sisters could not be more different: Elinor orders her life and behavior according to common sense, while Marianne is ruled by her sensibilities and emotions. Their adventures and misadventures in love and the world of fashion during the Regency is beautifully rendered, with layers of meaning and thought and humor under even the smallest interactions and conversations. I never knew someone could write like this. Pride and Prejudice seems the obligatory favorite of Austen's novels and I do love it very much, but Sense and Sensibility will always vie for first place in my Austenian affections. Imagine reading Austen with no background knowledge, no movie versions in your head, no knowing what the characters are going to do or where the plot is going to go. It was an amazing literary experience and one that cannot be manufactured. Five stars isn't enough to express my love for this novel. I will simply say: thank you, Jane Austen.

[virago77 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Better than I expected!

I am completely in love with the movie version. It is one of my all-time favorites and was worried that in reading the book, it would ruin the movie for me. This was not the case at all.

While it was not exactly an easy read, it was not tedious as I assumed it would be. Even though the language is not as modern as I am used to, it wasn't so difficult that I found myself confused by what I was reading. I only had to look up a few words that I was unsure of their meaning/usage.

The story itself is a beautiful one of love, family, relationships and propriety. The title makes so much sense now (duh)! This was just lovely and reading it not only made me love the movie all the more, it has given me confidence that I will enjoy other works by Ms. Austen, such as Emma, which may be next on my classics to-do list.

[adilinaria · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I never did add this! This is one of my favorite's of Jane Austen's. Everyone loves P&P, but I think this one is just a strong a contender. I love the girls in this one, the dynamic relationship of the two opposite sisters and their struggles both against each other in small ways and with their situations. If the book itself is intimidating this is one I would highly recommend the adaptation of with Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman. I adore the movie and having recently just rewatched it while ill I have to say it's done the best so far for me of adapting a novel. It cut and trim in just the right way and does the story justice.

[neckarhex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gelesen bisher nur auf Deutsch bzw. als Hörbuch auf Englisch (ungekürzt). All time favourite.

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

Vroeg werk van Austen. Nog vol onvolkomendheden: weinig actie, eerder confrontatie van personen, geen humor.De personages zijn eerder karikaturen, maar wel subliem, en een heel aantal van hen ondergaan een behoorlijke evolutie. Gevoelens staan centraal: tussen containment en spontaniteitMilieu: burgerlijk, bezit en vast inkomen zijn centrale referenties, alleen vriendschap en liefde als tegengif. Religie afwezig.

[elaineruss · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit to having almost forgotten what a joy it is to read Austen.

Having read a couple of her other novels, somehow I'd always overlooked Sense & Sensibility. It turns out to be just as sparking and cutting as the others and i'm so glad I picked it up.

The one negative is it has made me want to pick up her other books to read/reread!

[mldavis2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read this book for a library discussion group and it is, admittedly, somewhat outside of my normal genres. Keeping in mind the age of the work, I found the extended, paragraph length sentences tolerable and well crafted. There are lessons to be learned here, and the narration remained interesting with exemplary prose. I realize this is a classic work by a highly respected author, but at the end, I couldn't help feeling that I had just read a Victorian soap opera.

[the_hibernator · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of two very different sisters: Elinor is a sensible (yet secretly passionate) young woman who must continuously reign in the wild passions of her mother and sisters - especially Marianne whose head is filled with romantic notions of one-true-love and tragedy. When their father suddenly dies with their newly-acquired estate entailed away to their half-brother John, the sisters are left destitute. John and his wife Fanny descend upon the mourning family within a fortnight and make the sisters and mother feel like unwelcome guests in their beloved home. Elinor soon forms an attachment with Fanny's brother Edward, but Fanny doesn't approve of Elinor's lack-of-fortune-or-name. So the family moves away to a cottage, leaving Edward behind. Poor Elinor must struggle with her own worries about Edward while at the same time monitoring the expensive of the house and trying to reign in the wild, all-consuming attachment of Marianne to the dashing young Willoughby. The romantic hopes of both girls spiral downwards as more and more obstacles appear. I love this story because I've always admired Elinor for both her passion and her ability to handle all problems that come her way. I also admire Colonel Brandon for his devotion to Marianne despite her ecstatic preference for the younger, handsomer, and less reserved Willoughby. This time around, I also really appreciated Marianne's character. Her youthful ideas about love were cute - and realistic for many girls of 16. :) Her development throughout the story was extraordinary. I loved the way she slowly, cluelessly, began to understand the world around her. I don't admire her, but I think she's cute and very funny. And, frankly, a more interesting character than Elinor (due to her development-of-character).To be honest, this book is just as much a favorite as Pride and Prejudice. Yes. That is right. I ADMIT that I like this book just as much (possibly a little more) than the beloved P&P.

[hopingforchange · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book would have been perfect for my M.A. research on sensibility, and I wish that I had read it then. I don't know what I can say that would do Austen justice. This novel has the social commentary we are used to in Austen novels, plus an exploration of the inner life of the mind and its manifestions in the body. I also like what she does with gender in the novel. Men, we see, are less physically affected by a degenerate mind than are women. Fascinating. You have to read 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.

[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.

[m_k_m_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm sorry Jane, it's not you it's me. You're really very witty and you're great with the twists but blimey I find your prose a drag. It seems to push my eyes away, deliberately through sub-clause and deviation make me think about the commute and the shopping list and everything except the romantic intrigue actually being discussed. This is my noble confession, disinherit me if you must.

[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...

[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.

[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.

[sumik_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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