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    Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
    Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
    Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
    Ebook80 pages55 minutes

    Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

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    Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Jane Austen
    Making the reading experience fun!
    Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster.   Geared to what today's students need to know, SparkNotes provides:   *Chapter-by-chapter analysis
    *Explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols
    *A review quiz and essay topics Lively and accessible, these guides are perfect for late-night studying and writing papers
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSparkNotes
    Release dateAug 12, 2014
    ISBN9781411477513
    Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

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      Book preview

      Sense and Sensibility (SparkNotes Literature Guide) - SparkNotes

      Cover of SparkNotes Guide to Sense and Sensibility by SparkNotes Editors

      Sense and Sensibility

      Jane Austen

      © 2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing

      This Spark Publishing edition 2014 by SparkNotes LLC, an Affiliate of Barnes & Noble

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

      Sparknotes is a registered trademark of SparkNotes LLC

      Spark Publishing

      A Division of Barnes & Noble

      120 Fifth Avenue

      New York, NY 10011

      www.sparknotes.com /

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4114-7751-3

      Please submit changes or report errors to www.sparknotes.com/.

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Contents

      Context

      Summary

      Characters

      Chapters 1-5

      Chapters 6-10

      Chapters 11-15

      Chapters 16-19

      Chapters 20-22

      Chapters 23-27

      Chapters 28-32

      Chapters 33-36

      Chapters 37-41

      Chapters 42-45

      Chapters 46-50

      Overall Analysis and Themes

      Questions for Study

      Review & Resources

      Context

      In 1811, Sense and Sensibility became the first published novel of the English author Jane Austen (1775-1817). The first version of the novel was probably written in 1795 as an epistolary novel (novel in letters) entitled Elinor and Marianne. At this point, Austen was still living in the home of her father, George Austen, a local Anglican rector and the father of eight children. She rewrote the early manuscript in 1797-98 as a narrated novel and then further revised it in 1809-10, shortly after she moved with her mother and sister Cassandra to a small house in Chawton on her brother Edward's estate. In 1811, Thomas Egerton of the Military Library in Whitehall accepted the manuscript for publication in three volumes. Austen published on commission, meaning she paid the expenses of printing the book and took the receipts, subject to a commission paid to the publisher. The cost of publication was more than a third of her household's 460-pound annual income, so the risk was substantial. Nonetheless, the novel received two favorable reviews upon its publication, and Austen made a profit of 140 pounds off the first edition.

      When the first edition of Sense and Sensibility was published, it sold out all 750 copies by July 1813, and a second edition was advertised in October 1813. The first edition was said only to be by a lady. The second edition, also anonymous, contained on the title page the inscription "by the author of Pride and Prejudice," which had been issued in January 1813 (though Austen had not been credited on the title page of this novel either). Only Austen's immediate family knew of her authorship of these novels. And although publishing anonymously prevented her from acquiring an authorial reputation, it also enabled her to preserve her privacy at a time when entering the public sphere was associated with a reprehensible loss of femininity. Indeed, Austen used to write at Chawton behind a door that creaked when visitors approached; she would avail herself of this warning to hide her manuscript before they entered. Austen may have wanted anonymity not only because of her gender and a desire for privacy, but because of the more general atmosphere of repression pervading her era: her early writing of Sense and Sensibility coincided with the treason trial of Thomas Hardy and the proliferation of government censors as the Napoleonic War progressed. Whatever the reasons behind it, Austen's anonymity would persist until her death until 1817.

      Contemporary critics of Austen's novels tended to overlook Sense and Sensibility in favor of the author's later works. Mansfield Park was read for moral edification; Pride and Prejudice was read for its irony and humor; and Emma was read for its subtle craft as a novel. Sense and Sensibility did not fall neatly into any of these categories, and critics approached it less eagerly. However, although the novel did not attract much critical attention, it sold well, and helped to establish the author of Pride and Prejudice as a respected writer.

      Only in the twentieth century have scholars and critics come to address Sense and Sensibility's great passion, its ethics, and its social vision. In recent years, the book has been adapted into feature films. Today, the three-volume novel by an anonymous lady has become a famed and timeless favorite.

      To read further about the life and works of Jane Austen, see the SparkNotes on Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Mansfield Park.

      Summary

      When Mr. Henry Dashwood dies, leaving all his money to his first wife's son John Dashwood, his second wife and her three daughters are left with no permanent home and very little income. Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters (Elinor, Marianne,

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