Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

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Résumé :
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (age 19) and Marianne (age 16?) as they come of age. Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the impoverished Dashwood family, focusing on the sisters Elinor and Marianne, personifications of good sense (common sense) and sensibility (emotionality), respectively. The main theme in this novel is the danger of excessive sensibility. Austen is concerned with the prevalence of the sensitive attitude in the romantic novel which, after the 1760s, turned to emphasizing the emotional and sentimental nature of people rather than, as before, their rational endowments.

Biographie:
Jane Austen is best known as the author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. She wrote as many as 3,000 letters during her lifetime, but only 161 survived (the recipient of these letters, her sister Cassandra, burned the majority of them; this was, ostensibly, to stop anyone from reading Jane's sometimes acid or forthright comments on neighbours and family members).