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