Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

Beschrijving boek

The Penguin English Library.

Edited with an introduction by Tony Tanner.

Jane Austen’s tale of two sisters carries its subject in its title: good sense on the one hand and an excess of romantic ‘sensibility’ on the other. But this, as Tony Tanner makes clear in his introduction, is only a beginning. Far from being crudely schematic, ‘Sense and Sensibility’ subtly probes, through the trials of its very real heroines, perennial questions about civilization and its discontents that have been more solemnly analysed in our times. It is high drama, though acted out in sighs and glances and unspoken thoughts, of the kind to be found in ‘a society which forced people to be at once very sociable - and very private’.

The cover shows a detail from ‘The Linley Sisters’ by Thomas Gainsborough, by permission of the Governors of Dulwich College Picture Gallery.

The portrait of Jane Austen inside the front cover is a drawing by her sister, Cassandra, in the National Portrait Gallery, London.