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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Sense and Sensibility
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(1811)
The first novel by Jane *Austen to be published, based on a story called Elinor and Marianne which she wrote in 1795. Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are two sisters of contrasting character, personifying sense and sensibility (Elinor reserved, Marianne extremely emotional). They are living in straitened circumstances with their widowed mother in a cottage in Devon, where they fall in love, respectively, with Edward Ferrars and John Willoughby. But when the sisters visit London, the young men treat them coolly – for different reasons, as it turns out.
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Ferrars has been secretly engaged for four years to Lucy Steele, a relationship which he now regrets. His mother, discovering the secret, is so angry that she settles her fortune upon his younger brother, whereupon Lucy becomes engaged to him instead. This double reversal liberates Ferrars; he is now free to pursue his real aim in life, that of becoming a clergyman, and to propose to Elinor. Willoughby, by contrast, is revealed as an adventurer; his mood to Marianne has changed because he has found an heiress. This shock has a sobering effect on her (inclining her from sensibility to sense), and she marries a family friend of sterling qualities, Colonel Brandon.
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