Synopses & Reviews
In its marvelously perceptive portrayal of two young women in love, Sense and Sensibility is the answer to those critics and readers who believe that Jane Austen's novels, despite their perfection of form and tone, lack strong feeling.
Its two heroines--so utterly unlike each other-both undergo the most violent passions when they are separated from the men they love. What differentiates them, and gives this extroardinary book its complexity and brilliance, is the way each expresses her suffering: Marianne-young, impetuous, ardent-falls into paroxysms of grief when she is rejected by the dashing John Willoughby; while her sister, Elinor--wiser, more sensible, more self-controlled--masks her despair when it appears that Edward Ferrars is to marry the mean-spirited and cunning Lucy Steele. All, of course, ends happily--but not until Elinor's sense and Marianne's sensibility have equally worked to reveal the profound emotional life that runs beneath the surface of Austen's immaculate and irresistible art.
Synopsis
Two sisters of opposing temperaments who share the pangs of tragic love provide the theme for Jane Austen s dramatically human narrative.
Elinor, practical and conventional, is the perfection of sense. Marianne, emotional and sentimental, is the embodiment of sensibility. To each comes the sorrow of unhappy love.
Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility gives way to sense. Jane Austen s authentic representation of early-nineteenth-century middle-class provincial life, written with forceful insight and gentle irony, makes her novels the enduring works on the mores and manners of her time.
With an Introduction by Margaret Drabble
and an Afterword by Mary Balogh"
Synopsis
Two sisters of opposing temperaments who share the pangs of new love provide the theme for Jane Austen's dramatically human narrative. "I wish as well as everybody else to be perfectly happy but like everybody else it must be in my own way."
Elinor, practical and conventional, is the perfection of sense. Marianne, emotional and sentimental, is the embodiment of sensibility. To each comes the sorrow of unhappy love.
Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters--and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility gives way to sense. Jane Austen's authentic representation of early-nineteenth-century middle-class provincial life, written with forceful insight and gentle irony, makes her novels the enduring works on the mores and manners of her time.
With an Introduction by Margaret Drabble
and an Afterword by Mary Balogh
Synopsis
A tale of two sisters Two sisters of opposing temperaments are brought to a closer understanding by their mutual disappointments?and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility to sense. Austen?s insightful representation of early-nineteenth-century middle-class provincial life makes her novels the enduring works on the mores and manners of her time.
Synopsis
Two sisters of opposing temperments who share the pangs of tragic love provide the theme for Jane Austen's dramatically human narrative. Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters- and true love finally triumphs when sense gives way to sensibility and sensibility gives way to sense.
About the Author
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on July 18, 1817.
As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives.
Margaret Drabble is recipient of many prestigious awards for her writing, which includes works of nonfiction as well as numerous novels.