Sense and Sensibility
The Collector's Edition

Austen's first published novel, Sense and Sensibility is an uneasy tale of money and the destructive power of sexual passion.

Jane Austen (Author), Janet Todd (Edited by)

9781009432542, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 May 2025

384 pages
21.1 x 13.2 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

Money and destructive passion overshadow romance in this darkly humorous novel of sexual manoeuvring and greed. Appearing anonymously in 1811 under the attribution 'By A Lady', Sense and Sensibility is Jane Austen's first published work. Uniquely among her novels it has two heroines: stoical Elinor, the sensitive consciousness of the book, representative of 'sense', and flamboyant, self-indulgent Marianne, whose emotional adventures deliver energy and zest, representative of 'sensibility'. The novel is an edgy contrapuntal tale of different personalities and experiences, revealing much about the constraints and difficulties of a woman's life. In addition, the book offers a remarkable window onto the material culture of Austen's time; it includes some memorable bric-a-brac such as an ornamented toothpick case and some fine breakfast china quarrelled over by rich and poor relatives. Prefaces and explanatory endnotes supplied by Janet Todd illuminate cultural, historical and literary context, bringing Jane Austen's world to life.

Preface
Sense and Sensibility
General Notes.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]