Sense and Sensibility was Jane Austen's first published novel, and until recently it has been the least appreciated. To the general public, as well as to a good number of literary critics, Pride and Prejudice was the model for what a novel by Jane Austen ought to be,and, set against that model, Sense and Sensibility came up short.With all the wishfulness and mercy of high comedy, the loss of affluence and status remains for the Bennet women no more than a remote threat, thanks to the improbably fabulous marriages of the eldest daughters. The worthy Dashwood women aren't so lucky, for Sense and Sensibility begins with their abrupt fall down the social ladder, and the injustice with which that fall is strongly marked shadows the entire novel.

Once second fiddle to Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility,Jane Austen's first published novel, has grown popular among scholarly as well as general audiences and is now scrutinized by a wide range of critics in complex and rewarding interpretations.The text of this Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1813 second edition, which includes Jane Austen's latest revisions and corrections. It is accompanied by explanatory footnotes, textual notes, and a map of early-nineteenth-century England.

"Contexts" explores the personal and social issues that loom large in the novel--sense, sensibility, self-control, judgment, romantic love, family, and inheritance--in works by Adam Smith,Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Mary Woll-stonecraft, Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and an anonymous contributor to Lady's Magazine.

In essays on topics such as language, sexuality, power, and movies, "Criticism" Collects six early and twelve modern assessments of Sense and Sensibility including, among others, those by Margaret Oliphant, Alice Meynell, Reginald Farrer, Jan Fergus,Raymond Williams, Marilyn Butler, Mary Poovey, Gene Ruoff,Patricia Meyer Spacks, Isobel Armstrong, Mary Ferret, Deidre Shauna Lynch, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Deborah Kaplan, and Claudia L. Johnson.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Text of Sense and Sensibility

 MAP: England in the 19th Century

 Facsimile Title Page of the 2nd Edition ( 1813)

 Sense and Sensibility

Contexts

Adam Smith · From Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

Samuel Johnson · Rambler No. 32 (1750)

  · Idler No. 72 (1759)

Edmund Burke · From Reflections on the Revolution

   in France (1790)

Thomas Paine · From Rights of Man (1791)

Mary Wollstonecraft · From A Vindication of the

   Rights of Woman (1792)

Hannah More · From Sensibility: An Epistle to the

   Honourable Mrs. Boscawen (1782)

  · From Strictures on the Modern System of

   Female Education (1799)

The Lady's Magazine · The Enthusiasm of

   Sentiment; a Fragment (1798)

Maria Edgeworth · From Mademoiselle Panache (1796)

  · From Belinda ( 1801)

Criticism

  EARLY VIEWS

Critical Review · From Unsigned Review (February 1812)

British Critic · Unsigned Review (May 1812)

W. F. Pollock · From British Novelists (1860)

Anonymous · From Miss Austen (1866)

Alice Meynell · From The Classic Novelist (1894)

Reginald Farrer · From Jane Austen (1917)

MODERN VIEWS

Jan Fergus · First Publication: Thomas Egerton,

    Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice

 Ravmond Williams · Sensibility

 Marilyn Butler · Sensibility and the Worship of Self

 Mary Poovey · Ideological Contradictions and the

    Consolations of Form: Sense and Sensibility

 Claudia L. Johnson · Sense and Sensibility:

    Opinions Too Common and Too Dangerous

 Gene Ruoff · Wills

 Patricia Meyer Spacks · The Novel's Wisdom:

    Sense and Sensibility

 Isobel Armstrong · Taste: Gourmets and Ascetics

 Mary Favret · Sense and Sensibility: The Letter,

    Post Factum

 Deidre Shauna Lynch · The Personal and the Pro

    Forma

 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick · Jane Austen and the

    Masturbating Girl

 Deborah Kaplan · Mass Marketing Jane Austen:

    Men, Women, and Courtship in

    Two Film Adaptations

Jane Austen: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography