Sense and Sensibility (Barnes & Noble Signature Editions)

By Jane Austen and Jennifer C. Garlen

Marianne Dashwood can’t understand her sister. How could the attractive, witty, and charming Elinor fall for the quiet, self-effacing, and rather dull Edward Ferrars? And, if the two are in love, why don’t they shout it to the world? Meanwhile, Elinor worries that Marianne’s all-out, heart-first approach to life will hurt her, especially when it comes to the dashing, passionate John Willoughby. Ever since Willoughby carried Marianne home after she was injured in a fall, he has become a fixture in the small cottage Elinor and Marianne have recently moved into with their mother and younger sister.

     The two sisters spar good-naturedly over the merits of full-blown emotionalism versus reticence and self-discipline in matters of the heart. Fond as they are of each other, each is certain that hers is the only true path to love. Meanwhile, both Edward and Willoughby harbor secrets that will force these women to doubt their philosophies, their judgment, and their chances for happiness.

     With Sense and Sensibility, her first published novel, Jane Austen served notice that a new and important author had arrived—one whose style, wit, and piercing sense of satire supported a compelling story peopled with finely drawn characters and punctuated with remarkable insights into the human condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Nov 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781435141261

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775–1817) was an English novelist whose work centred on social commentary and realism. Her works of romantic fiction are set among the landed gentry, and she is one of the most widely read writers in English literature.

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CONTENTS

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JANE AUSTEN

INTRODUCTION

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

ENDNOTES

BASED ON THE BOOK

FURTHER READING 

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JANE AUSTEN

INTRODUCTION

PUBLISHED ANONYMOUSLY IN 1811, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY WAS THE FIRST OF Jane Austen’s novels to appear before the public, and its arrival introduced the literary world to a young woman who would eventually become one of the most popular and beloved authors of all time. Filled with memorable characters and Austen’s wry humor, the novel tells the deeply engaging story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two sisters who find both pleasure and pain in their experiences with romance. As an example of the domestic fiction that flourished in England during Austen’s lifetime, Sense and Sensibility demonstrates the reading public’s rising interest in realistic depictions of women’s everyday lives, which naturally focused on the problems of familial relationships and the importance of marriage. Its well-crafted plot and intricately connected characters have helped the novel to remain one of Austen’s most popular works, second only to Pride and Prejudice (1813) in its continuing appeal to readers all over the world.

The fictional lives of Austen’s heroines were informed by the real life of their creator; her protagonists often share her family’s financial concerns, as well as her own social perspective as a lesser member of the gentry. Born in Steventon in Hampshire, England, on December 16, 1775, Jane Austen was the seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra Leigh. Her six brothers pursued various careers in the church and the military, although one fortunate brother, Edward, was adopted by a wealthy relative, while another, George, was born disabled and lived apart from the family. Neither Austen nor her only sister, Cassandra, would ever marry; both sisters had suitors and proposals of marriage, but Cassandra’s fiancé died, and Austen declined the offer of marriage made to her in 1802. Austen lived in Steventon with her parents until 1801, when her father relocated the family to Bath after having retired as a rector. After his death in 1805, Austen, her mother, and her sister depended on the Austen brothers for financial support. They eventually settled at Chawton to be near Edward, where Austen would spend the rest of her life. Throughout these years Austen worked at writing, although she did not complete and publish a novel until Sense and Sensibility in 1811. Pride and Prejudice followed in 1813, with Mansfield Park in 1814 and Emma in 1815. Her final two novels, Northanger Abbey (1818) and Persuasion (1818), were published after her death, which occurred on July 18, 1817. Sanditon, the final novel that Austen had begun after her health declined, remained unfinished.

As the title suggests, one of the major concerns of Sense and Sensibility is a comparison of two different ways of experiencing the world. Elinor, the eldest of the three Dashwood sisters, advocates for sense; she struggles to control her feelings and maintain order in her own mind, even when the rest of her life seems to be spiraling out of control. As Austen points out early in the novel, one of Elinor’s great strengths is her ability to exert herself in times of emotional crisis, beginning with the death of the family’s beloved father. Marianne, her impetuous younger sibling, embraces sensibility, which revolves around emotional responses to situations and experiences. Austen’s argument against this policy also appears early in the text; Marianne lacks moderation and prudence, and her ungoverned feelings threaten to control and perhaps even ruin her life, especially when she suffers a serious disappointment in her romance with Willoughby. The dichotomy embodied in the two sisters was not Austen’s own invention, for the debate between sense and sensibility had been going on in English culture for some years. Sensibility first rose as a reaction against the logical, even stoic, values of Enlightenment ideals, which praised reason as the highest human capacity and led to the early eighteenth century’s characterization as the age of reason. From mid-century on, the cult of sensibility found fertile ground in the developing genre of the English novel, where sentimental heroes and heroines soon abounded, proving their heightened sensitivity through their constant sighs, tears, and fits of fainting. Sensibility also proved an important influence on the rise of Romanticism, particularly in the works of the so-called graveyard poets who formed the pre-Romantic movement. Their name was inspired by the poets’ frequent choice of mortality as a major theme, and many of the most popular poems of the movement were elegies. Marianne’s tastes in poetry highlight her sentimental preferences; she admires James Thomson, William Cowper, and Sir Walter Scott but has less enthusiasm for the works of earlier poets such as Alexander Pope, who advocated rational submission to the divine will in An Essay on Man (1733–34) and other poems. Austen’s literary references show her familiarity with the battlegrounds on which the cultural war between sense and sensibility was being waged. Throughout the novel, Austen reveals her preference for sense in her treatment of her two heroines, with Elinor as the more grounded and rational sister, but the author’s correction of Marianne is not plotted without sympathy. In many ways Marianne resembles such later Austen heroines as Emma Woodhouse and Catherine Morland, who also make errors in judgment and must learn from their mistakes before they can achieve personal and domestic happiness.

The dichotomy between sense and sensibility is just one instance of the novel’s use of opposing pairs of characters and ideas. Austen employs extensive doubling to underscore her theme of duality, and many characters parallel and substitute for one another, with secondary characters serving as foils for the major players. Even the problem that sets the novel in motion relies upon the elder Mr. Dashwood’s two wives, the first having produced the all-important heir and the second left dependent on that heir after her husband’s death. Elinor and Marianne contrast with one another, of course, but they also have doubles and foils among the lesser female characters. For Elinor, the most obvious foil is Lucy Steele, the young woman who competes with her for Edward Ferrars’ hand in marriage. Although Elinor and Lucy have both attracted Edward’s affection at different points in time, Lucy reveals herself to be very different from her rival; she is insincere, calculating, and ambitious, willing to flatter Edward’s disdainful relations with fawning praise and determined to abuse Elinor’s better nature by forcing her into a series of unwanted confidences. Elinor has another foil in Miss Morton, who is not only the wealthy daughter of a lord but also the bride intended for Edward by his haughty, controlling mother. Although she is never seen in person, Miss Morton’s existence is constantly emphasized to Elinor by those who want to discourage her relationship with Edward. Marianne has several doubles, including her own mother, whose sentimental and romantic character she has inherited, much to Elinor’s concern. More important, Marianne reminds Colonel Brandon strongly of his lost love, Eliza, and she very nearly shares the fate of Eliza’s unfortunate daughter. Marianne is also doubled by Miss Grey, the heiress whose money Willoughby desires to repair his injured prospects. Colonel Brandon and Willoughby form another pair of contrasting characters, while Edward is contrasted with his foppish elder brother, Robert. Austen uses these opposing pairs for dramatic and often ironic effect; she swaps characters unexpectedly, sometimes exchanging Colonel Brandon for either Willoughby or Edward, and she makes the most of the opportunity to confuse the two Ferrars brothers. The dual characters and situations provide Austen with opportunities for both comedy and tragedy, and they illustrate the often bewildering nature of the choices that her heroines must make.

Like all of Austen’s fiction, Sense and Sensibility falls into the larger genre of the courtship novel, which proved particularly successful during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Domestic fiction featuring the romantic problems of realistic female characters had first become popular with Samuel Richardson’s best-selling 1740 novel, Pamela, and scores of imitators and successors quickly followed his example. An expanding audience of middle-class female readers embraced the new narrative form, and women writers were quick to seize the opportunities represented by the genre. Frances Brooke, Charlotte Smith, and Maria Edgeworth were among the women novelists working within the courtship tradition during the later part of the eighteenth century, and Frances Burney enjoyed both critical and popular success with the 1778 publication of Evelina. An avid and highly critical reader, Austen knew the novels of her literary forebears remarkably well; she was particularly familiar with the novels of Samuel Richardson, which included not only Pamela but also Clarissa (1747–48) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1754). These courtship novels adapted conventions from the older literary form of the romance, replacing the exotic landscapes and foreign princesses of that genre with contemporary Englishwomen in private life. Courtship plots follow the introduction of a heroine into a social setting where various suitors compete for her attention, with the heroine ultimately making the right choice and concluding the novel with her marriage and absorption into established adult society. Along the way, of course, the heroine experiences setbacks and disappointments, but these only serve to delay her inevitable union with the man of her choice. The idea that women ought to have a say in the selection of their marriage partners forms one of the chief concerns of the eighteenth-century courtship novel; the genre promotes marriage as an emotional, companionate relationship between two people who love and respect one another, as opposed to its former role as an economic or political arrangement between men who treated wives and daughters as chattel.

The desire for companionate marriage appears throughout Sense and Sensibility in the Dashwood sisters’ search for the right romantic partners. Elinor recognizes Edward Ferrars as her match very early on, although she still encounters obstacles to prevent their union. Marianne proves a less discerning judge of suitors than her sister, and her initial attraction to Willoughby puts her reputation and her chance at domestic happiness in peril. Both sisters desire husbands who will be partners and companions in life, but Austen also makes it clear that money, property, and class play important roles in determining their choices, especially where the men are concerned. Both Edward and Willoughby face disinheritance as punishment for disobliging their wealthy relations. As a result, Edward cannot marry until he can support a wife financially, while Willoughby requires a wealthy wife to support his own debts and expensive tastes. A wrong decision can lead to a lifetime of unhappiness and poverty for all concerned, but for the women the outcome can even be fatal. To make the stakes shockingly clear, Austen depicts the potential consequences of a bad marriage in the history of Colonel Brandon’s first love, Eliza. Forced to marry Colonel Brandon’s elder brother for financial reasons, Eliza succumbs to an adulterous affair and dies an impoverished prostitute. The Dashwood sisters must escape such a grisly fate by choosing their husbands carefully. Fortunately for them, the conventions of the genre require that both sisters eventually end up with the appropriate partners, although Marianne’s problematic relationship with the man to whom she ultimately becomes engaged is fairly unique among courtship novel romances, and some readers and scholars question Austen’s insistence that Marianne’s ending is a happy one.

Along with her complex protagonists and their concerns, Austen presents her readers with a crowd of vividly imagined minor characters. Much of the humor of Sense and Sensibility depends upon the foibles of the Dashwoods’ neighbors and relations, and Austen often uses these characters for satiric purposes, training her sharp eye on the shortcomings of everyday people and depicting their behavior with relentless precision. Mr. John Dashwood, the elder half brother of the heroines, means to show compassion for his widowed stepmother and siblings but allows himself to be talked out of every project for their assistance by his selfish, narrow-minded wife. Once they move to Barton Cottage, the Dashwood women find themselves surrounded by well-meaning but often troublesome neighbors, particularly because gossip and indelicate teasing make up the chief source of amusement, and Elinor and Marianne, as single young women, are on the receiving end of the lion’s share of the raillery. Despite these flaws, several of the neighbors reveal themselves to be truly good people at heart. Sir John Middleton does more for his distant relations than Mr. John Dashwood even imagines doing, for Sir John provides the women with a comfortable, affordable home, constant dinners and provisions, and plenty of social engagements, which keep them from feeling isolated and alone. The garrulous Mrs. Jennings initially seems vulgar and bent on persecuting the sisters with her constant jokes about their love lives, and she trespasses far beyond the boundaries of tactful behavior when she interrogates Colonel Brandon about his sudden departure. Austen, however, forces both Marianne and the reader to revise their assumptions about Mrs. Jennings when the old woman selflessly nurses Marianne through a serious illness, proving the sincerity of her attachment to both of the sisters and the genuine goodness of her own character. Other minor characters are less sympathetic, particularly the vapid, heartless women who populate the Dashwoods’ social circle. Lady Middleton, Mrs. John Dashwood, Mrs. Palmer, the two Misses Steele, and Mrs. Ferrars have very little to recommend them, and the necessity of being in their company alternately bores and offends the two heroines.

The modest success of Sense and Sensibility paved the way for Austen’s later novels; the first edition received positive reviews and sold well, and when Pride and Prejudice appeared in 1813, its title page announced it as the work of "the author of Sense and Sensibility. Austen did not, however, enjoy in her own day the fame that she has achieved in ours. Most of her novels were published anonymously, in part because the social conventions of the day still frowned on lady novelists" who ventured into the public sphere. After her death, her gravestone at Winchester Cathedral celebrated her life as a Christian and model daughter but made no mention of her literary accomplishments. Her reputation as a great novelist began to gain something of its modern stamp over the course of the nineteenth century, as the most successful writers of the age acknowledged her influence and importance. Sir Walter Scott, the most celebrated novelist of Austen’s own day, praised her work both before and after her death, and his admiration counted for a great deal with his vast audience of Victorian readers. Her literary skill was acknowledged by luminaries as varied as Anthony Trollope, Rudyard Kipling, G. K. Chesterton, W. H. Auden, and C. S. Lewis. She was not, however, universally admired; Charlotte Brontë found fault with her lack of passion, and Americans Mark Twain and Ralph Waldo Emerson also numbered among her critics. Twain derided her writing and her characters, while Emerson dismissed her work as vulgar and narrow. Whether they praised her or derided her, these later writers helped to ensure widespread public recognition of Jane Austen’s name and reputation by the end of the nineteenth century. Austen’s relatives furthered the cause and shaped the enduring image of the author with their own publications; Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1870, and her great-nephew Lord Brabourne edited a collection of her letters that appeared in 1884.

Today, Austen and her novels enjoy a level of popularity that rivals even that of William Shakespeare, thanks in large part to an Austen resurgence that began in the 1990s. In 1995, the Oscar-winning film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and the wildly popular BBC miniseries version of Pride and Prejudice together raised cultural awareness of Austen’s work and produced an overwhelming demand for more films, sequels, and critical studies. Modern Austen readers often come to her works having first seen one of the many successful movie or television adaptations of her novels. While these newer productions prove Austen’s continuing appeal, the best way to appreciate her genius is to read the books themselves. As the poignant and sophisticated plot of Sense and Sensibility reveals, Jane Austen still possesses the power to engage, educate, and entertain readers today, two hundred years after her debut novel first appeared.

Jennifer C. Garlen earned her doctorate in eighteenth-century English literature at Auburn University, where her dissertation focused on the political and cultural significance of the courtship novel. She is now a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

CHAPTER I

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 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 twelvemonth. 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 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 forever, 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 that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. Elinor, too, was deeply afflicted; but still she could struggle, she could exert herself. She could consult with her brother, could receive her sister-in-law on her arrival, and treat her with proper attention; and could strive to rouse her mother to similar exertion, and encourage her to similar forbearance.

Margaret, the other sister, was a good-humoured, well-disposed girl; but as she had already imbibed a good deal of Marianne’s romance, without having much of her sense, she did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal her sisters at a more advanced period of life.

CHAPTER II

MRS. JOHN DASHWOOD NOW INSTALLED HERSELF MISTRESS OF NORLAND; and her mother and sisters-in-law were degraded to the condition of visitors. As such, however, they were treated by her with quiet civility; and by her husband with as much kindness as he could feel towards anybody beyond himself, his wife, and their child. He really pressed them, with some earnestness, to consider Norland as their home; and, as no plan appeared so eligible to Mrs. Dashwood as remaining there till she could accommodate herself with a house in the neighbourhood, his invitation was accepted.

A continuance in a place where everything reminded her of former delight, was exactly what suited her mind. In seasons of cheerfulness, no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess, in a greater degree, that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself. But in sorrow she must be equally carried away by her fancy, and as far beyond consolation as in pleasure she was beyond alloy.

Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy, would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters?

It was my father’s last request to me, replied her husband, that I should assist his widow and daughters.

He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child.

He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise, I could not do less than give it: at least I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home.

"Well, then let something be done for them; but that something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider, she added, that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone forever. If, indeed, it could ever be restored to our poor little boy—"

Why, to be sure,