Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6142 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780141040370
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Review
"As nearly flawless as any fiction could be." --Eudora Welty

About the Author
Jane Austen (1775-1817) was extremely modest about her own genius but has become one of English literature's most famous women writers. She is also the author of Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. Ros Ballaster is a Fellow and Tutor in English at Mansfield College, Oxford. Tony Tanner was a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Cambridge.

Similar Items

	Emma (Penguin Classics) Price: $20.00 $10.84 Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid...
	Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Penguin Classics) Price: $20.00 $10.84 When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its...
	Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) Price: $20.00 $10.84 Perhaps Dickens's best-loved work, Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, a young man with few prospects for advancement until a mysterious benefactor allows him to escape the Kent marshes for a more promising life in London. Despite his good fortune, Pip is haunted by figures from his past--the escaped convict Magwitch, the time-withered Miss Havisham, and her proud and...
	Cranford (Penguin Classics) Price: $20.00 $10.83 Gaskell's best known work is set in a small rural town, inhabited largely by women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister Miss Matty. But domestic peace is constantly threatened in the form of financial disaster, imagined burglaries, tragic accidents, and...
	Pride and Prejudice (Insight Edition) Price: $13.99 $5.00 Pride and Prejudice is at once a deeply felt love story, a deft romantic comedy, and a sharp exploration of social life and manners in Georgian England. With Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, Jane Austen created two characters whose battles over love have entertained and delighted millions of readers and moviegoers. In this new edition of Pride and Prejudice, readers...

ListmaniaLists Items

• Books to be Read Immediately, According to Francine Prose
• Penguin Classics
• Lovely Penquin Classics 2009 Coralie
• Penguin Classics Clothbound

Customer Reviews

One of the most beautiful books I own
Sense & Sensibility has been reviewed ad infinitum, but I wanted to say that this is one of the most beautiful books I own.

I was looking for a series of classics that I could purchase in hardcover to spruce up my personal library. I stumbled upon these special editions from Penguin Classics, with covers designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. I love books, but these books still make me giddy with delight when I pick them up. The covers have so much character and they're sturdy. The fonts are classic and easy to read, and the paper is substantial. The ribbon bookmarks, that match the cover, are a really nice touch. The only bad thing I can say, and it's so minor, is that the binding is a little stiff when the book is new. It loosens as you read.

There are more titles available, though some are still exclusive to the UK. I truly hope Amazon and Penguin make all editions available in the US and keep them coming!

The sensible and the sensitive
One of the Dashwood daughters is smart, down-to-earth and sensible. The other is wildly romantic and sensitive.

And in a Jane Austen novel, you can guess that there are going to be romantic problems aplenty for both of them -- along with the usual entailment issues, love triangles, sexy bad boys and societal scandals. "Sense and Sensibility" is a quietly clever, romantic little novel that builds up to a dramatic peak on Marianne's romantic troubles, while also quietly exploring Elinor's struggles.

When Mr. Dashwood dies, his entire estate is entailed to his weak son John and snotty daughter-in-law Fanny. His widow and her three daughters are left with little money and no home.

Over the next few weeks, the eldest daughter Elinor begins to fall for Fanny's studious, quiet brother Edward... but being the down-to-earth one, she knows she hasn't got a chance. Her impoverished family soon relocates to Devonshire, where a tiny cottage is being rented to them by one of Mrs. Dashwood's relatives -- and Marianne soon attracts the attention of two men. One is the quiet, much older Colonel Brandon, and the other is the dashing and romantic Willoughby.

But things begin to spiral out of control when Willoughby seems about to propose to Marianne... only to abruptly break off his relationship with her. And during a trip to London, both Elinor and Marianne discover devastating facts about the men they are in love with -- both of them are engaged to other women. And after disaster strikes the Dashwood family, both the sisters will discover what real love is about...

At its heart, "Sense and Sensibility" is about two girls with completely opposite personalities, and the struggle to find love when you're either too romantic or too reserved for your own good. As well as, you know, the often-explored themes in Austen's novels -- impoverished women's search for love and marriage, entailment, mild scandal, and the perils of falling for a sexy bad boy who cares more for money than for true love... assuming he even knows what true love is.

Austen's formal style takes on a somewhat more melancholy flavor in this book, with lots of powerful emotions and vivid splashes of prose ("The wind roared round the house, and the rain beat against the windows"); and she introduces a darker tone near the end. Still, there's a slight humorous tinge to her writing, especially when she's gently mocking Marianne and Mrs. Dashwood's melodrama ("They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it").

And Marianne and Elinor make excellent dual heroines for this book -- that still love and cherish each other, even though their polar opposite personalities frequently clash. What's more, they each have to become more like the other before they can find happiness. There's also a small but solid supporting cast -- the hunting-obsessed Sir John, the charming Willoughby (who has some nasty stuff in his past), the emotional Mrs. Dashwood, and the gentle, quiet Colonel Brandon, who shows his love for Marianne in a thousand small ways.

"Sense and Sensibility" is an emotionally powerful, beautifully written tale about two very different sisters, and the rocky road to finding a lasting love. Not as striking as "Pride and Prejudice," but still a deserving classic.

bbok
Beautiful book. I love the fabric cover. There is also a ribbon book marker in each of these books in a coordinating color!