User:Ericketts7184/sandbox

This is just some stuff I did for class.

The article I chose to evaluate was "Reception History of Jane Austen." Overall, the article was mostly effective. It gave a mostly thorough overview of Austen criticism, synthesizing scholarly conversations as well as public receptions.The information in the article was mostly relevant about the topic; however, the background information section seemed out of place in a page about reception history. The article begins with an overview of Austen's reception history, then switches to a background of Jane Austen's writing career, including notes on her anonymous publications due to the stigma against female novel writing. To me, this seemed out of place. The background on Austen's career should either have been listed first or not included at all, then the author should have moved to the overview of reception history. The sections of the article allowed for the mostly effective organization of different periods and audiences of reception. I did encounter some confusion with the Janeites heading - I feel that should have included the years to indicate the approximate period of this trend. Every other heading within the article included the range of years. In the synthesis of Austen's reception, I did not detect bias in the article. It provided an introduction to the various schools of thought surrounding Austen and how they fit into concurrent intellectual/scholarly trends. One of the main strengths of the article was its scholarship. In this way, it almost read like a scholarly research article. Each fact mentioned is backed up with a citation, many of which are books and scholarly articles. In addition to the footnotes, the author of this page has also included an extensive bibliography at the bottom of the page.

Hello world!

There were two major drawbacks in the completeness of this article. The "Modern Scholarship" section ends in 2000, after which the article then proceeds to the adaptations. This unfortunately leads to the misperception that there has been no scholarship on Jane Austen since 2000. The last scholarly writing referenced in that section was published in 2003. I also think that the "Modern Scholarship" section could have been more effective if it made reference to more previous scholarship and explained what trends were still prevalent in Austen scholarship and how the new scholarship was different than previous scholarship. Also, what greatly surprised me was the short section on adaptations. With the sheer magnitude of Austen adaptations in film and the wider popular culture, I was very surprised to see such a short section. Several notable adaptations were omitted, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the second two of the Bridget Jones film trilogy. Additionally, the adaptations section did not fully explain how these adaptations were received by the public. Rather, the section was more of a list or a catalogue of what adaptations were created. There were brief references to how some adaptations were received, such as some of the Pride and Prejudice film adaptations, but these mentions were paltry. In a page titled "Reception History," I believe that the adaptations section could be far stronger if not only the adaptations were described but also their reviews and public reactions synthesized in much more detail.

Subheading One

Several small but noticeable grammar and usage errors also took away from the page's credibility. Here is one example with the error bolded: "One school that emerged in the United States was the New Criticism, which saw literary texts in only aesthetic terms, an object of beauty to be appreciated in and of itself without no study of the individual that had produced it or the society that she lived in."

Subheading Two

The Talk page states that the article is both a featured article and has been identified as one of the best in the Wikipedia community. I believe that the quality of the sources has greatly influenced this identification, as the frequent citing and use of scholarly sources lends the article a great deal of credibility. One reviewer took issue with the omission of Harold Bloom's criticism on Jane Austen. The talk page also indicated some conflicting views between several users, including a conversation on how best to edit a Featured article. The Talk page also indicates that this page is part of the following WikiProjects: WikiProject Novels, WikiProject Women Writers, and WikiProject Women's History.

One thing that I was surprised was not present was any mention of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), which Dr. Runge mentioned in our class. To me, this seems like an interesting site of discussion surrounding Jane Austen reception, as members of JASNA are of both the general public and the scholarly community.

Sense and Sensibility Article

What can I add?

• More details in the Plot Summary, especially about character motivations and descriptions: I found that the plot summary was somewhat scant especially when it came to insights into certain characters. Mrs. Fanny Dashwood, for example, is described as "greedy" and as convincing her husband to renege on his promise to assist his sisters.I believe that there could be more detail here about her motivations and that she uses their son as a pawn to strong arm her husband into giving as little financial assistance as possible. Additionally, the Miss Steeles are described as "vulgar." It is important to the plot to understanding why they are considered to be vulgar, such as their lack of education. I will also add more details in certain sections.
• Development: I believe that the section on the development of the novel is somewhat scant. Austen was specifically responding to certain literary traditions with Sense and Sensibility, and I think more could be added about these.
• Critical views: There are only two critics mentioned in this section, in addition to a description of the writers at Create Space. It is unclear what kind of source this is. I believe that a more thorough overview of critical approaches to Sense and Sensibility is necessary. Bibliography for Sense and Sensibility Article

Anderson, Kathleen and Jordan Kidd. "Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Palmer: The Path to Female Self-Determination in Austen's Sense and Sensibility." Persuasions, no. 30, 2008, pp. 135-148.

Armstrong, Isobel. Sense and Sensibility, Norton Critical Edition, edited by Claudia L. Johnson, W.W. Norton and Company, 2002, 363-373.

Butler, Marilyn. Jane Austen and the War of Ideas. Oxford UP, 1975.

Chamberlain, Shannon. "John Willoughby, Luxury Good: Sense and Sensibility's Economic Curriculum." Persuasions, no. 34, 2012, pp. 157-163.

"Early Views." Sense and Sensibility, Norton Critical Edition, edited by Claudia L. Johnson, W.W. Norton and Company, 2002, 313-324.

• From "Unsigned Review" in Critical Review February 1812
• Begins with the difficulty of judging novels, then explains that "there are so few worthy of any particular commendation" (313).
• Praises S and S as well written with well supported and drawn characters, realistic and "highly pleasing" plot, 'and the whole is just long enough to interest the reader without fatiguing" (313)
• Claims that S and S has a lesson and a moral (314)
• People looking for something new won't find it but will benefit from the lesson
• Praises Mrs. Dashwood, the mother, and Elinor, and notes Marianne's extreme sensibility which makes her miserable (314)
• From "Unsigned Review" in British Critic May 1812
• Claims that "the object of the work is to represent the effects on the conduct of life, of discreet quiet good sense on the one hand, and an overrefined and excessive susceptibility on the other" (315)
• Focuses on the "many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life, exemplified in a very pleasing and entertaining narrative" (315)
• W.F. Pollock's review from Fraser's Magazine on "British Novelists," Johnson terms this "an early example of what would become the customary view of Sense and Sensibility (316)
• Goes over a catalogue of the characters, praising and criticizing them in a predictable manner
• Criticizes the selfishness of John Dashwood with curiously no mention of Fanny
• Praises the contrast of the two sisters' temperaments
• Even praises Sir John Middleton and Mrs. Jennings
• Comments on the humour of Mr. Palmer and his "silly wife" (Pollock 317)
• Criticizes the Steele sisters for vulgarity
• Anonymous criticism from "Miss Austen" from The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine in 1866
• The article actually sympathizes with Marianne because Elinor is described as "too good" (318)
• Describes the "prevailing merit" of the book as "the excellent treatment of the subordinate characters" (318)
• Describes the merits of how well Austen sketches out the smaller characters
• Alice Meynell's article "The Classic Novelist" in the Pall Mall Gazette in
• Notices Jane Usten's tendency to begin a novel with a family chapter in which we learn the background of the family situation (320)
• Austen deals in small trivial manners because "that which makes life, art, and work trivial is a triviality of relations" (Meynell 320).
• States that her art is "not of the highest quality" but of "an admirable secondary quality" (Meynell 320)
• Comments on Austen's indifference to children because they only appear "to illustrate the folly of their mothers," are often spoiled and annoy people (Meynell 321)
• Reginald's Farrer's article "Jane Austen" in Quarterly Review in 1917
• The reviewer claims that with Sense and Sensibility "we approach the maturing Jane Austen" (Farrer 323)
• Claims that the novel has lengthy tedious passages and "clumsiness," that its "convictions lacks fire; its development lacks movement" (Farrer 324)

Favret, Mary. Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics, and the Fiction of Letters. Cambridge UP, 1993.

Fergus, Jan. Jane Austen: A Literary Life. St. Martin's Press, 1991.

Johnson, Claudia L. Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel. U of Chicago P, 1988.

Lynch, Deirdre Shaun. The Economy of Character: Novels, Market Culture, and the Business of Inner Meaning. U of Chicago P, 1998.

• Dashwood sisters participate enthusiastically in print culture
• Discussion of booksellers, print shops, and the siseters' taste
• Marianne's insistence of individuality makes her a type from sentimental fiction (Lynch 230).
• Elinor is also an imitator. When Marianne asks what she thinks of Edward, Elinor's language is "curiously evocative of the moral essays that Mary Bennet in Pride and Prejudice parrots and copies into her commonplace book" (Lynch 230). Cites Barbara M. Benedict's discussion
• With Elinor, the language of private feeling is articulated with the language of commonplaces and crowd portraits (Lynch 231)
• Elinor aligns herself with the narrator and "avoids being the lead character in a novel about being ruined by love" (Lynch 232)

O'Rourke, James. "What Never Happened: Social Amnesia in Sense and Sensibility." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 54, no. 4, Autumn 2014, pp. 773-791.

Poovey, Mary. The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen. U of Chicago P, 1984.

Rowland, Susan. "The 'Real Work': Ecocritical Alchemy and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility." Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 20, no. 2, 2013, pp. 318-322.

Ruoff, Gene. Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Tendencies. Duke UP, 1993.

Williams, Raymond. "Sensibility." Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford UP, 1983, pp. 280-283.

This page is about the novel. For other uses, see Ericketts7184/sandbox (disambiguation).

Sense and Sensibility

Title page from the original 1811 edition
Author	Jane Austen
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Romance novel
Publisher	Thomas Egerton, Military Library (Whitehall, London)
Publication date	1811
OCLC	44961362
Followed by	Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility is an 1811 novel by Jane Austen. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the cover page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, both of age to marry.

The novel follows the young women to their new home with their widowed mother, a meagre cottage on the property of a distant relative, where they experience love, romance and heartbreak. The novel is set in southwest England, London and Sussex between 1792 and 1797.

The novel sold out its first print run of 750 copies in the middle of 1813, marking a success for its author, who then had a second print run later that year. The novel continued in publication throughout the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries.

Plot summary

Because of primogeniture, upon Mr Henry Dashwood's death, his house, Norland Park, passes directly to his son John, his first wife's child. His second wife, Mrs Dashwood, and their daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, inherit only a small income. On his deathbed, Mr Dashwood extracts a promise from his son to take financial care of his half-sisters. John's greedy wife, Fanny, soon persuades him to renege on the promise by claiming that John's promise will impoverish their son. Due to Fanny's influence, John's support of his sisters becomes extremely minimal. Soon after Mr. Henry Dashwood's death, John and Fanny immediately move in as the new owners of Norland, while the Dashwood women are treated as unwelcome guests. Due to this treatment, Mrs Dashwood seeks somewhere else to live. In the meantime, Fanny's brother, Edward Ferrars visits Norland and soon forms an attachment with Elinor. Fanny disapproves of the match and offends Mrs Dashwood with the implication that Elinor is motivated by money.

Mrs Dashwood moves her family to Barton Cottage in Devonshire, near the home of her cousin, Sir John Middleton. Their new home is modest but they are warmly received by Sir John and welcomed into local society—meeting his wife, Lady Middleton, his mother-in-law, the garrulous Mrs Jennings and his friend, Colonel Brandon. Colonel Brandon is attracted to Marianne, and Mrs Jennings teases them about it. Marianne is not pleased as she considers the thirty-five-year-old Colonel Brandon an old bachelor, incapable of falling in love or inspiring love in anyone.

A 19th-century illustration by Hugh Thomson showing Willoughby cutting a lock of Marianne's hair

While out for a walk, Marianne gets caught in the rain and slips and sprains her ankle. The dashing John Willoughby sees the accident and assists her. Marianne quickly comes to admire his good looks and outspoken views on poetry, music, art, and love. His attentions lead Elinor and Mrs Dashwood to suspect that the couple are secretly engaged. Elinor cautions Marianne against her unguarded conduct, but Marianne refuses to check her emotions. Abruptly, Mr Willoughby informs the Dashwoods that his aunt, upon whom he is financially dependent, is sending him to London on business, indefinitely. Marianne is distraught and abandons herself to her sorrow.

Edward Ferrars pays a short visit to Barton Cottage but seems unhappy. Elinor fears that he no longer has feelings for her, but will not show her heartache. After Edward departs, Anne and Lucy Steele, the vulgar cousins of Lady Middleton, come to stay at Barton Park. Lucy informs Elinor in confidence of her secret four-year engagement to Edward Ferrars that started when he was studying with her uncle, and she displays proof. Elinor realises that Lucy's visit and revelations are the result of Lucy's jealousy and cunning calculation, and understands Edward's recent behavior towards her. She acquits Edward of blame and pities him for being held to a loveless engagement by his sense of honour.

Elinor and Marianne accompany Mrs Jennings to London. On arriving, Marianne rashly writes several personal letters to Willoughby, which go unanswered. When they meet at a dance, Mr Willoughby greets Marianne reluctantly and coldly, to her extreme distress. Soon Marianne receives a curt letter enclosing their former correspondence and love tokens, including a lock of her hair and informing her of his engagement to a young lady with a large fortune. Marianne is devastated. After Elinor has read the letter, Marianne tells her that she and Willoughby were never engaged, but she loved him and thought that he loved her.

Colonel Brandon visits the sisters and reveals to Elinor that Willoughby's aunt disinherited him after she learned that he had seduced Brandon's fifteen-year-old ward, Miss Williams, then abandoned her when she became pregnant. This is why he chose to marry for money rather than love. Brandon was in love with Miss Williams' mother as a young man, when she was his father's ward, but she was forced into an unhappy marriage to Brandon's brother that ended in scandal and divorce; Marianne strongly reminds him of her.

The Steele sisters come to London as guests of Mrs Jennings and after a brief acquaintance they are asked to stay at John and Fanny Dashwood's London house. Lucy sees the invitation as a personal compliment, rather than what it is, a slight to Elinor and Marianne who should have received such invitation first. Too talkative, Anne Steele betrays Lucy's secret. As a result, the Misses Steele are turned out of the house, and Edward is ordered to break off the engagement on pain of disinheritance. Edward refuses to comply and is immediately disinherited in favour of his brother, gaining respect for his conduct, and sympathy from Elinor and Marianne. Colonel Brandon shows his admiration by offering Edward the living of Delaford parsonage.

Mrs Jennings takes Elinor and Marianne to the country to visit her second daughter. In her misery over Willoughby's marriage, Marianne becomes dangerously ill. Willoughby arrives to repent and reveals to Elinor that his love for Marianne was genuine. He elicits Elinor's pity because his choice has made him unhappy, but she is disgusted by the callous way in which he talks of Miss Williams and of his own wife. He also reveals that his aunt forgave him after his marriage, meaning that if he had married Marianne he would have had both money and love.

When Marianne recovers, Elinor tells her of Willoughby's visit. Marianne realises that she could never have been happy with Willoughby's immoral, erratic, and inconsiderate nature. She values Elinor's conduct in her similar situation and resolves to model herself after Elinor's courage and good sense. Edward arrives and reveals that, after his disinheritance, Lucy jilted him in favour of his now wealthy brother, Robert. Edward and Elinor soon marry, and later Marianne marries Colonel Brandon, having gradually come to love him.

Characters

Main characters

• Elinor Dashwood – the sensible and reserved eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Henry Dashwood. She is represents the "sense" half of Austen's title Sense and Sensibility. She is 19 years old at the beginning of the book. She becomes attached to Edward Ferrars, the brother-in-law of her elder half-brother, John. She sympathetically befriends Colonel Brandon, Marianne's eventual husband. Always feeling a keen sense of responsibility to her family and friends, she places their welfare and interests above her own, and suppresses her own strong emotions in a way that leads others to think she is indifferent or cold-hearted. For example, even though she is extremely distressed upon learning of Lucy Steele's secret engagement to Edward, Elinor keeps Lucy's secret and does not reveal her discomfort with the information. While the book's narrative style is 3rd person omniscient, it is Elinor's viewpoint that is primarily reflected. Thus, the description of most of the novel's characters and events reflects Elinor's thoughts and insights.
• Marianne Dashwood – the romantically inclined and eagerly expressive second daughter of Mr and Mrs Henry Dashwood. Her emotional excesses identify her as the "sensibility" half of Austen's title. She is 16 years old at the beginning of the book. She is the object of the attentions of Colonel Brandon and Mr Willoughby. She is attracted to young, handsome, romantically spirited Willoughby and does not think much of the older, more reserved Colonel Brandon. Marianne undergoes the most development within the book, learning her sensibilities have been selfish. She decides her conduct should be more like that of her elder sister, Elinor.
• Edward Ferrars – the elder of Fanny Dashwood's two brothers. He forms an attachment to Elinor Dashwood. Years before meeting the Dashwoods, Ferrars proposed to Lucy Steele, the niece of his tutor. The engagement has been kept secret owing to the expectation that Ferrars' family would object to his marrying Miss Steele. He is disowned by his mother on discovery of the engagement after refusing to give it up.
• John Willoughby – a philandering nephew of a neighbour of the Middletons, a dashing figure who charms Marianne and shares her artistic and cultural sensibilities. It is generally presumed by many of their mutual acquaintances that he is engaged to marry Marianne (partly due to her own overly familiar actions, i.e., addressing personal letters directly to him as well as his obtaining a lock of her hair); however, he abruptly ends his acquaintance with the family and leaves town, and it is later revealed that he becomes engaged to the wealthy Sophia Grey because of the discontinuance of his financial support from his aunt. He is also contrasted by Austen as being "... a man resembling "the hero of a favourite story"".
• Colonel Brandon – a close friend of Sir John Middleton. He is 35 years old at the beginning of the book. He falls in love with Marianne at first sight, as she reminds him of his father's ward whom he had fallen in love with when he was young. He is prevented from marrying the ward because his father was determined she marry his older brother. He was sent into the military abroad to be away from her, and while gone, the girl suffered numerous misfortunes—partly as a consequence of her unhappy marriage. She finally dies penniless and disgraced, and with a natural (i.e., illegitimate) daughter, who becomes the ward of the Colonel. He is a very honourable friend to the Dashwoods, particularly Elinor, and offers Edward Ferrars a living after Edward is disowned by his mother.

Minor characters

• Henry Dashwood – a wealthy gentleman who dies at the beginning of the story. The terms of his estate — entailment to a male heir — prevent him from leaving anything to his second wife and their children. He asks John, his son by his first wife, to look after (meaning ensure the financial security of) his second wife and their three daughters.
• Mrs Dashwood – the second wife of Henry Dashwood, who is left in difficult financial straits by the death of her husband. She is 40 years old at the beginning of the book. Much like her daughter Marianne, she is very emotive and often makes poor decisions based on emotion rather than reason.
• Margaret Dashwood – the youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs Henry Dashwood. She is thirteen at the beginning of the book. She is also romantic and good-tempered but not expected to be as clever as her sisters when she grows older.
• John Dashwood – the son of Henry Dashwood by his first wife. He intends to do well by his half-sisters, but he has a keen sense of avarice, and is easily swayed by his wife.
• Fanny Dashwood – the wife of John Dashwood, and sister to Edward and Robert Ferrars. She is vain, selfish, and snobbish. She spoils her son Harry. She is very harsh to her husband's half-sisters and stepmother, especially since she fears her brother Edward is attached to Elinor.
• Sir John Middleton – a distant relative of Mrs Dashwood who, after the death of Henry Dashwood, invites her and her three daughters to live in a cottage on his property. Described as a wealthy, sporting man who served in the army with Colonel Brandon, he is very affable and keen to throw frequent parties, picnics, and other social gatherings to bring together the young people of their village. He and his mother-in-law, Mrs Jennings, make a jolly, teasing, and gossipy pair.
• Lady Middleton – the genteel, but reserved wife of Sir John Middleton, she is quieter than her husband, and is primarily concerned with mothering her four spoiled children. She likes the Steele sisters only because they make a deliberate show of indulging her children.
• Mrs Jennings – mother to Lady Middleton and Charlotte Palmer. A widow who has married off all her children, she spends most of her time visiting her daughters and their families, especially the Middletons. She and her son-in-law, Sir John Middleton, take an active interest in the romantic affairs of the young people around them and seek to encourage suitable matches, often to the particular chagrin of Elinor and Marianne. Marianne is particularly rude to her.
• Robert Ferrars – the younger brother of Edward Ferrars and Fanny Dashwood, he is most concerned about status, fashion, and his new barouche. He subsequently marries Miss Lucy Steele after Edward is disowned.
• Mrs Ferrars – Fanny Dashwood and Edward and Robert Ferrars' mother. A bad-tempered, unsympathetic woman who embodies all the foibles demonstrated in Fanny and Robert's characteristics. She is determined that her sons should marry well. After having disowned her eldest son for his engagement to Lucy Steele, she probably also later disinherited her younger son for his marriage to the self-same girl.
• Charlotte Palmer – the daughter of Mrs Jennings and the younger sister of Lady Middleton, Mrs Palmer is jolly, but empty-headed, and laughs at inappropriate things, such as her husband's continual rudeness to her and to others.
• Thomas Palmer – the husband of Charlotte Palmer who is running for a seat in Parliament, but is idle and often rude. He is considerate toward the Dashwood sisters.
• Lucy Steele – a young, distant relation of Mrs Jennings, who has for some time been secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars. She assiduously cultivates the friendship with Elinor Dashwood and Mrs John Dashwood. Limited in formal education and financial means, she is nonetheless attractive, manipulative, and scheming.
• Anne/Nancy Steele – Lucy Steele's elder, socially-inept, and less clever sister.
• Miss Sophia Grey – a wealthy and malicious heiress whom Mr Willoughby marries to retain his comfortable lifestyle after he is disinherited by his aunt.
• Lord Morton – the father of Miss Morton.
• Miss Morton – a wealthy woman whom Mrs Ferrars wants her eldest son, Edward, and later Robert, to marry.
• Mr Pratt – an uncle of Lucy Steele and Edward's tutor.
• Eliza Williams (Jr.) (daughter) – the ward of Col. Brandon, she is about 15 years old and bore an illegitimate child to John Willoughby. She has the same name as her mother.
• Eliza Williams (Sr.) (mother) – the former love interest of Colonel Brandon. Williams was Brandon's father's ward, and was forced by him to marry Brandon's older brother. The marriage was an unhappy one, and it is revealed that her daughter was left as Colonel Brandon's ward when he found his lost love dying in a poorhouse.
• Mrs Smith – the wealthy aunt of Mr Willoughby who disowns him for seducing and abandoning the young Eliza Williams, Col. Brandon's ward.

Development of the novel

Jane Austen wrote the first draft of the novel in the form of a novel-in-letters (epistolary form) sometime around 1795 when she was about 19 years old, and gave it the title Elinor and Marianne. She later changed the form to a narrative and the title to Sense and Sensibility. The title of the book, and that of her next published novel, Pride and Prejudice (1813), may be suggestive of political conflicts of the 1790s, as well as the movement from the Neoclassic to the Romantic Era (Elinor representing the Neoclassic, and Marianne representing the Romantic).

Austen drew inspiration for Sense and Sensibility from other novels of the 1790s that treated similar themes, including Adam Stevenson's "Life and Love" (1785) which he had written about himself and a relationship that was not meant to be. Jane West's A Gossip's Story (1796), which features one sister full of rational sense and another sister of romantic, emotive sensibility, is considered to have been an inspiration as well. West’s romantic sister-heroine also shares her first name, Marianne, with Austen’s. There are further textual similarities, described in a modern edition of West's novel.

Title

"Sense" means good judgment or prudence, and "sensibility" means sensitivity or emotionality. "Sense" is identified with the character of Elinor, while "sensibility" is identified with the character of Marianne. By changing the title, Austen added "philosophical depth" to what began as a sketch of two characters.

Critical views

Sense and Sensibility, much like Austen's other fiction, contains a large body of criticism from many different critical approaches. Early reviews of Sense and Sensibility focused on the novel as providing lessons in conduct (which would be debated by many later critics) as well as reviewing the characters. The Norton Critical Edition of Sense and Sensibility, edited by Claudia Johnson, contains a number of reprinted early reviews in its supplementary material. An "Unsigned Review" in the February 1812 Critical Review praises Sense and Sensibility as well written with well supported and drawn characters, realistic, and with a "highly pleasing" plot in which "the whole is just long enough to interest the reader without fatiguing." This review praises Mrs. Dashwood, the mother of the Dashwood sisters, as well as Elinor, an claims that Marianne's extreme sensibility makes her miserable. It claims that Sense and Sensibility has a lesson and moral which is made clear through the plot and the characters. Another "Unsigned Review" from the May 1812 British Critic further emphasizes the novel's function as a type of conduct book. In this author's opinion, Austen's favoring of Elinor's temperament over Marianne's provides the lesson. The review claims that "the object of the work is to represent the effects on the conduct of life, of discreet quiet good sense on the one hand, and an overrefined and excessive susceptibility on the other." The review states that Sense and Sensibility contains "many sober and salutary maxims for the conduct of life" within a "very pleasing and entertaining narrative." W. F. Pollock's 1861 review from Frasier's Magazine, titled "British Novelists," becomes what editor Claudia Johnson terms an "early example of what would become the customary view of Sense and Sensibility." In addition to emphasizing the novel's morality, Pollock reviews the characters in catalogue-like fashion, praising and criticizing them in according to the notion that Austen favors Elinor's point of view and temperament. Pollock even praises Sir John Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, even commenting on the humor of Mr. Palmer and his "silly wife." Pollock criticizes Sir John Dashwood's selfishness without mentioning Fanny's influence upon them. He also criticizes the Steele sisters for their vulgarity.

An anonymous piece titled "Miss Austen" published in 1866 in The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine departs from other early criticism in its sympathizing with Marianne over Elinor, claiming that Elinor is "too good" of a character. The article also differs from other reviews in that it claims that the "prevailing merit" of the book is not in its sketch of the two sisters; rather, the book is effective because of its "excellent treatment of the subordinate characters." Alice Meynell's 1894 article "The Classic Novelist" in the Pall Mall Gazette also concurs with Austen's attention to small things. Meynell claims that Austen deals in lesser characters and small matters because "that which makes life, art, and work trivial is a triviality of relations." In her attention to secondary characters, Meynell discusses the children's function to "illustrate the folly of their mothers," especially Lady Middleton.

Austen biographer Claire Tomalin argues that Sense and Sensibility has a "wobble in its approach", which developed because Austen, in the course of writing the novel, gradually became less certain about whether sense or sensibility should triumph. Austen characterises Marianne as a sweet lady with attractive qualities: intelligence, musical talent, frankness, and the capacity to love deeply. She also acknowledges that Willoughby, with all his faults, continues to love and, in some measure, appreciate Marianne. For these reasons, some readers find Marianne's ultimate marriage to Colonel Brandon an unsatisfactory ending.

As quoted by the writers at Create Space "Other interpretations, however, have argued that Austen's intention was not to debate the superior value of either sense or sensibility in good judgment, but rather to demonstrate that both qualities are equally important, but must be in balance." The novel is an early example of the category romance novel.

The American scholar Rachel Brownstein wrote that the novel begins with the Dashwood sisters being disinherited and cast of their homes, and the narrator offers in the account of how this came to be that men would always use women and cast them aside when they are not longer convenient; that one's good character counts for nothing in a society dominated by greed, ingratitude and selfishness; and that one can behave badly yet still remain eminently respectable as one has money. Brownstein said that in a world where men are generally greedy, selfish, dishonest, and generally cold is "...a harsh one for young women". The marriage of John and Fanny Dashwood is portrayed as devoid of love and held together only by greed with Mrs. Dashwood being "more narrow-minded and selfish" than her repulsive husband. Likewise, Sir John and Lady Middleton are described as having a "total want of talent and taste" with Sir John's interests being only hunting while Lady Middleton's being spoiling her children. Lady Middleton condemns the Dashwood sisters for being "satirical" despite the fact as the narrator notes that she does not know what the word satirical actually means. Most of the gentry characters are in varying ways stupid, selfish and malicious with for example Mrs. Palmer breaking out laughing and saying "It is so ridiculous!" when she learns her husband has been elected to the House of Commons, Mrs. Jennings telling painfully unfunny jokes at the expense of Edward Ferrars and Sir John laughing at jokes and remarks that he does not really understand..

Brownstein noted the dismal picture the novel draws of well-established gentry families is not counterbalanced by the men who court the Dashwood sisters which has the effect of "further dimming the view of romantic love" as all three men have a "depressing similarity" to make the same mistakes as each had another relationship with another women and each leaves the Dashwood sisters with no explanation. The interchangeability of Colonel Brandon, Willoughby, and Edward Ferrars is stressed by the fact that at various points in the novel the Dashwood sisters keep confusing one of the men for another. Even the mother of the Ferrars brothers has trouble distinguishing between them as both brothers go through an "annihilation". In this regard, Brownstein wrote that Marianne's insistence on an absolute, all-consuming romantic love for only one man once with no "second attachments" to another man ever being possible seems quixotic and absurd, all the more as Elinor points out that their father had married twice.. Brownstein noted that while Elinor is "judgemental" about Marianne's romantic creed, Colonel Brandon is more understanding, all the more so as Marianne reminds him of a woman he once loved and lost.

The Dashwood sisters stand apart from this world as being virtually the only characters capable of intelligent thought and any sort of deep thinking. Browstein wrote that the differences between the Dashwood sisters have been exaggerated, and in fact the sisters are more alike than they are different, with Elinor having "excellent heart" and capable of the same romantic passions as Marianne feels while Marianne has much sense as well. Elinor is more reserved, more polite and less impulsive than Marianne who loves poetry, taking walks across picturesque landscapes and believes in intense romantic relationships, but it is very closeness between the sisters that allows these differences to emerge during their exchanges..

Many critics explore Sense and Sensibility in relation to authors and genres popular during Austen's time. One of the most popular forms of fiction in Austen's time was epistolary fiction. This is a style of writing in which all of the action, dialogue, an character interactions are reflected through letters sent from one or more of the characters. In her book Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics, and the Fiction of Letters, Mary Favret explores Austen's fraught relationship with epistolary fiction, claiming that Austen "wrestled with epistolary form" in previous writings and, with the publication of Sense and Sensibility, "announced her victory over the constraints of the letter." Favret contends that Austen's version of the letter separates her from her "admired predecessor, Samuel Richardson" in that Austen's letters are "a misleading guide to the human heart which, in the best instances, is always changing and adapting." According to Favret, with the character of Elinor Dashwood is an "anti-epistolary heroine" whose "inner world" of thoughts and feelings does not find "direct expression in the novel, although her point of view controls the story." Sense and Sensibility establishes what Favret calls a "new privacy" in the novel, which was constrained by previous notions of the romance of letters. This new privacy is a "less constraining mode of narration" in which Austen's narrator provides commentary on the action, rather than the characters themselves through the letters. Favret claims that in Sense and Sensibility, Austen wants to "recontextualize" the letter and bring it into a "new realism." Austen does so by imbuing the letter with dangerous power when Marianne writes to Willoughby; both their love and the letter "prove false." Additionally, Favret claims that Austen uses both of the sisters' letter writing to emphasize the contrasts in their personalities. When both of the sisters write letters upon arriving in London, Elinor's letter is the "dutiful letter of the 'sensible sister'" and Marianne writes a "vaguely illicit letter" reflecting her characterization as the "sensitive" sister. What is perhaps most striking about Favret's analysis is that she notes that the lovers who write to one another never unite with each other.

A common theme of Austen criticism has been on the legal aspects of society and the family, particularly wills, the rights of first and second sounds, and lines of inheritance. Gene Ruoff's book Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility explores these issues in an entire book length discussion on the novel. Ruoff's first two chapters deal extensively on the subject of wills and on the discourse of inheritance. These topics reveal what Ruoff calls "the cultural fixation on priority of male birth." According to Ruoff, male birth is by far the dominant issue in these legal conversations. Ruoff observes that, within the linear family, the order of male birth decides issues of eligibility and merit. When Robert Ferrars becomes the eldest son, Edward is no longer appealing to his "opportunistic fiance" Lucy, who quickly turns her attention to the foppish Robert and "entraps him" in order to secure the inheritance for herself. According to Ruoff, Lucy is specifically aiming for a first son because of the monetary advantage for a man in this birth order. William Galperin, in his book The History Austen, comments on the tendency of this system of patriarchal inheritance and earning as working to ensure the vulnerability of women. Because of this vulnerability, Galperin contends that Sense and Sensibility shows marriage as the only practical solution "against the insecurity of remaining an unmarried woman."

Feminist critics have long been engaged in conversations about Jane Austen, and Sense in Sensibility has figured in these discussions, especially around the patriarchal system of inheritance and earning. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's seminal feminist work The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination contains several discussions of Sense and Sensibility. Gilbert and Gubar read the beginning Sense and Sensibility as a retelling of King Lear from a female perspective and contend that these "reversals imply that male traditions need to be evaluated and reinterpreted from a female perspective." Gilbert and Gubar argue that Austen explores the effects of patriarchal control over women in which women cannot earn or inherit their money and use Sense and Sensibility as an example of this as the male heir, Mr. John Dashwood, deprives his sisters from their home as well as promised income. They also point to the "despised" Mrs. Ferrars' tampering with the patriarchal line of inheritance in her disowning of her eldest son, Edward Ferrars, as proof that this construction is ultimately arbitrary. Gilbert and Gubar contend that while Sense and Sensibility's ultimate message is that "young women like Marianne and Elinor must submit to powerful conventions of society by finding a male protector," women such as Mrs. Ferrars and Lucy Steele demonstrate how women can "themselves become agents of repression, manipulators of conventions, and survivors." Mrs. Ferrars and Lucy Steele must

In her chapter "Sense and Sensibility: Opinions Too Common and Too Dangerous" from her book Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel, Claudia Johnson also performs a feminist reading of Sense and Sensibility. She differs from previous critics, especially the earliest ones, in her contention that Sense and Sensibility not, as it is often assumed to be, a "dramatized conduct book" that values "female prudence" (associated with Elinor's sense) over "female impetuosity" (associated with Marianne's sensibility). Rather, Johnson sees Sense and Sensibility as a "dark and disenchanted novel" that views "institutions of order" such as property, marriage, and family in a negative light, making the novel the "most attuned to social criticism" out of Austen's works. According to Johnson, Sense and Sensibility critically examines the codes of propriety as well as their enforcement by the community. Key to Austen's criticism of society, per Johnson's argument, is the depiction of the unfair marginalization of women due to the "death or simple absence of male protectors." Additionally, the male characters in Sense and Sensibility are depicted unfavorably. Johnson calls the gentlemen in Sense and Sensibility "uncommitted sorts" who "move on, more or less unencumbered, by human wreckage from the past" In other words, the men do not feel a responsibility to anyone else. Johnson compares Edward to Willoughby in this regard, claiming that all of the differences between them as individuals do not hide the fact that their failures are actually identical; Johnson calls them both "weak, duplicitous, and selfish," lacking the honesty and forthrightness with which Austen endows other "exemplary gentlemen" in her work. Johnson's comparison of Edward and Willoughby reveals the depressing picture about gentlemen presented in the novel.

Mary Poovey's analysis in The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley and Jane Austen confers with Johnson's on the dark tone of Sense and Sensibility. Poovey contends that Sense and Sensibility has a "somber tone" in which conflict breaks out between Austen's engagement with her "self-assertive characters" and the moral codes necessary to control their potentially "anarchic" desires. Austen shows, according to Poovey, this conflict between individual desire and the restraint of moral principles through the character of Elinor herself. Except for Elinor, all of the female characters in Sense and Sensibility experience some kind of female excess. Poovey argues that while Austen does recognize "the limitations of social institutions," she demonstrates the necessity of controlling the "dangerous excesses of female feeling" rather than liberating them. She does so by demonstrating that Elinor's self-denial, especially in her keeping of Lucy Steele's secret and willingness to help Edward, even though both of these actions were hurtful to her, ultimately contribute to her own contentment and that of others. In this way, Poovey contends that Austen suggests that the submission to society that Elinor demonstrates is the proper way to achieve happiness in life.

Sense and Sensibility criticism also includes ecocritical approaches. Susan Rowland's article "The 'Real Work': Ecocritical Alchemy and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility" studies the effects of alienation upon Edward and Ferrars. Edward is alienated from society because he lacks what Rowland calls "useful employment." According to Rowland, Edward's condition represents problems with the history of work in Western industrialized societies. Edward's alienation from work also represents "the culture evolution of work" as a "progressive estrangement from nonhuman nature." Rowland argues that human culture estranges people from nature rather than returning them to it. Marianne also suffers from this estrangement of nature as she is ripped from her childhood home where she enjoyed walking the grounds and looking at trees. Marianne's connection to the natural setting of her childhood home is reflected in her distraught reaction when she learns that the new owners have cut down "inconvenient trees" just to serve the economy of the household. Rowland thus connects both Edward's and Marianne's progressive discomfort throughout the novel to their alienation from nature.

Publication history

The three volumes of the first edition of Sense and Sensibility, 1811

In 1811, Thomas Egerton of the Military Library publishing house in London accepted the manuscript for publication in three volumes. Austen paid to have the book published and paid the publisher a commission on sales. The cost of publication was more than a third of Austen's annual household income of £460 (about £15,000 in 2008 currency). She made a profit of £140 (almost £5,000 in 2008 currency) on the first edition, which sold all 750 printed copies by July 1813. A second edition was advertised in October 1813.

The novel has been in continuous publication through to the 21st century as popular and critical appreciation of all the novels by Jane Austen slowly grew. The novel was translated into French by Madame Isabelle de Montolieu as Raison et Sensibilité. Montolieu had only the most basic knowledge of English, and her translations were more of "imitations" of Austen's novels as Montolieu had her assistants provide a summary of Austen's novels, which she then translated into an embellished French that often radically altered Austen's plots and characters. The "translation" of Sense and Sensibility by Montolieu changes entire scenes and characters, for example having Marianne call Willoughby an "angel" and an "Adonis" upon first meeting him, lines that not in the English original. Likewise, the scene where Mrs. Dashwood criticizes her husband for planning to subsidise his widowed stepmother might be disadvantageous to "our little Harry", Mrs. Dashwood soon forgets about Harry and it is made apparent her objections are founded in greed; Montolieu altered the scene by having Mrs. Dashwood continuing to speak of "our little Harry" as the basis of her objections, completely changing her motives. When Elinor learns the Ferrars who married Lucy Steele is Robert, not Edward, Montolieu adds in a scene where Edward, the Dashwood sisters and their mother all break down in tears where clasping hands that was not in the original.. Austen has the marriage of Robert Ferrars and Lucy Steele end well while Montolieu changes the marriage into a failure.

Adaptations

The book has been adapted for film and television a number of times, including a 1981 serial for TV directed by Rodney Bennett; a 1995 film adapted by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee; a version in Tamil called Kandukondain Kandukondain, released in 2000, starring Ajith Kumar (Edward Ferrars), Tabu (Elinor), Aishwarya Rai; and a 2008 TV series on BBC adapted by Andrew Davies and directed by John Alexander.

Sense & Sensibility, the Musical (book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow and music by Neal Hampton) received its world premiere by the Denver Center Theatre Company in April 2013 staged by Tony-nominated director Marcia Milgrom Dodge. In 2014, the Utah Shakespeare Festival presented Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan's adaptation of the novel. In 2016, the Bedlam theatrical troupe mounted a well-received minimalist production, adapted by Kate Hamill and directed by Eric Tucker, from a repertory run in 2014.

In 2013, author Joanna Trollope published Sense & Sensibility: A Novel as a part of series called The Austen Project by the publisher, bringing the characters into the present day and providing modern satire.

See also

• Sense and Sensibility (1971 TV serial)
• Sense and Sensibility (1981 TV serial)
• Sense and Sensibility (1995 film) starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet
• Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000 Tamil film) starring Tabu and Aishwarya Rai
• Material Girls (2006 film), starring Hilary and Haylie Duff
• Sense and Sensibility (2008 TV serial), BBC serial starring Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield
• Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009 parody novel)
• From Prada to Nada (2011 film), starring Camilla Belle and Alexa Vega
• Scents and Sensibility (2011 film) starring Ashley Williams and Marla Sokoloff

External links

• Sense and Sensibility ePub, Mobi, PDF versions

• Sense and Sensibility at Project Gutenberg
• Sense and Sensibility public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Map of locations in Sense and Sensibility