[ book tip by Ann Morgan ] A leaner, more sinuous book than Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility has always struck me as the soberer, more mature work of the two. In fact, it was published first, in 1811, when its authoress was just thirty-six. Centring on the tribulations of the Dashwood sisters, Sense and Sensibility examines the dangers of assuming too much and being too bold, at least if you are a woman, in matters of the heart.

Allowing both adult Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne, the luxury of falling passionately in love, Austen deprives them of the objects of their affections almost as a means of trying their mettle and bringing out the true quality of their characters. Neither comes through unscathed, and although the novel is resolved in classic Austen style, there is an awkwardness about the final pairings that has led some critics to suggest that Austen should have run the work ‘through the typewriter one more time’. For my money, the work stands, with its wistful, somewhat unfinished quality adding depth to what might otherwise have been too pat a denouement. A good book to curl up with by the fire on a winter afternoon.    

[ book info ] Austen, Jane : Sense and Sensibility. (Book language: English) Penguin, 1996 (1811). ISBN: 0-14-025944-9.