Sense and Sensibility

Published 1811

Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, and was her first published work when it appeared in 1811 under the pseudonym "A Lady.” A work of romantic fiction, better known as a comedy of manners, Sense and Sensibility is set in southwest England, London, and Kent between 1792-1797, and portrays the life and loves of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. The novel follows the young ladies to their new home, a meager cottage on a distant relative’s property, where they experience love, romance, and heartbreak.

     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 nineteen 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. “Sense” in the book 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. The title of the book, and of her next published novel, Pride and Prejudice (1813), may be suggestive of political conflicts of the 1790s.

     Austen also drew inspiration for Sense and Sensibility from other novels of the 1790s treating similar themes, including Adam Stevenson’s Life and Love (1785), written about himself and a relationship not meant to be. Also, Jane West’s, A Gossip’s Story (1796), features two sisters, one full of rational sense and the other of romantic, emotive sensibility. West’s romantic sister-heroine shares a first name with Austen’s Marianne. There are further textual similarities, described in a modern edition of West’s novel.