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 Wollstonecraft, 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. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included. Book jacket.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 413-416).

Map: England in the 19th Century Sense of Sensibility Contexts From Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) / Adam Smith Rambler No. 32 (1750) / Samuel Johnson Idler No. 72 (1759) / Samuel Johnson From Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) / Edmund Burke From Rights of Man (1791) / Thomas Paine From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) / Mary Wollstonecraft From Sensibility: An Epistle to the Honourable Mrs. Boscawen (1782) / Hannah More From Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799) / Hannah More The Enthusiasm of Sentiment; a Fragment (1798) / The Lady's Magazine From Mademoiselle Panache (1796) / Maria Edgeworth From Belinda (1801) / Maria Edgeworth Criticism From Unsigned Review (February 1812) / Critical Review Unsigned Review (May 1812) / British Critic From British Novelists (1860) / W. F. Pollock

From Miss Austen (1866) / Anonymous From The Classic Novelist (1894) / Alice Meynell From Jane Austen (1917) / Reginald Farrer First Publication: Thomas Egerton, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice / Jan Fergus Sensibility / Raymond Williams Sensibility and the Worship of Self / Marilyn Butler Ideological Contradictions and the Consolations of Form: Sense and Sensibility / Mary Poovey Sense and Sensibility: Opinions Too Common and Too Dangerous / Claudia L. Johnson Wills / Gene Ruoff The Novel's Wisdom: Sense and Sensibility / Patricia Meyer Spacks Taste: Gourmets and Ascetics / Isobel Armstrong Sense and Sensibility: The Letter, Post Factum / Mary Favret The Personal and the Pro Forma / Deidre Shauna Lynch Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl / Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Mass Marketing Jane Austen: Men, Women, and Courtship in Two Film Adaptations / Deborah Kaplan Jane Austen: A Chronology Selected Bibliography.