Sense and Sensibility (简装)

简·奥斯汀（1775～1817）英国女小说家。《理智与情感》虽是简·奥斯汀的第一部小说，但写作技巧已经相当熟练。小说的情节围绕着两位女主人公的择偶活动展开，着力揭示出当时英国社会潮流中，以婚配作为女子寻求经济保障、提高经济地位的恶习，重门第而不顾女子感情和做人权利的丑陋时尚。小说中的女主角均追求与男子思想感情的平等交流与勾能，要求社会地位上的平等权利，坚持独立观察、分析和选择男子的自由。在当时的英国，这几乎无异于反抗的呐喊。

卓越亚马逊为您带来简·奥斯汀的成名作之一《理智与情感》，带您领略十八、十九世纪英式幽默与风情。

Book Description
In 1811, Jane Austen’s first published work, Sense and Sensibility, marked the debut of England’s premier novelist of manners. Believing that “3or 4 families in a country village is the very thing to work on,” she created a brilliant tragicomedy of flirtation and folly. Romantic walks through lush Devonshire and genteel dinner parties at a stately manor draw two pretty sisters into the schemes and manipulations of landed gentry determined to marry wisely and well. Neither sense nor sensibility can guarantee happiness for either–as romantic Marianne falls prey to a dangerous rascal, and reasonable Elinor loses her heart to a gentleman already engaged. Wonderfully entertaining yet subtle and probing in its characterizations, Sense and Sensibility richly displays the supreme artistry of a great English novelist.

Amazon.com
Though not the first novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme: the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. Commenting on Edward Ferrars, a potential suitor for Elinor's hand, Marianne admits that while she "loves him tenderly," she finds him disappointing as a possible lover for her sister:

Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!

Soon however, Marianne meets a man who measures up to her ideal: Mr. Willoughby, a new neighbor. So swept away by passion is Marianne that her behavior begins to border on the scandalous. Then Willoughby abandons her; meanwhile, Elinor's growing affection for Edward suffers a check when he admits he is secretly engaged to a childhood sweetheart. How each of the sisters reacts to their romantic misfortunes, and the lessons they draw before coming finally to the requisite happy ending forms the heart of the novel. Though Marianne's disregard for social conventions and willingness to consider the world well-lost for love may appeal to modern readers, it is Elinor whom Austen herself most evidently admired; a truly happy marriage, she shows us, exists only where sense and sensibility meet and mix in proper measure.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Alix Wilber

From Library Journal
Austen is the hot property of the entertainment world with new feature film versions of Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility on the silver screen and Pride and Prejudice hitting the TV airwaves on PBS. Such high visibility will inevitably draw renewed interest in the original source materials. These new Modern Library editions offer quality hardcovers at affordable prices.

From AudioFile
It's a clich? to say that reason triumphs over emotion in a Jane Austen novel, but the struggle is always far more interesting than the outcome. That's why Marianne Dashwood's passage from grief to good sense or Edward Ferrars's from quiet, unrequited faith to modest victory all delight the listener and ensure Austen's continued popularity. But how to choose among the current glut of Austen audios? Susannah Harker, familiar to Austen fans for her portrayal of Jane Bennet in the BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice, makes that task easier. As a trained British actress, she highlights the rich consonant qualities of Austen's prose. But more important, as a skilled reader, she possesses a complete range of pitch and the acute tonal nuance needed to capture Austen's delicate satire. If "our Jane" were to select a reader today, I suspect it would be Harker. P.E.F. Winner of AUDIOFILE's Earphones Award

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Novel by Jane Austen, published anonymously in three volumes in 1811. The book, which Austen initially titled "Elinor and Marianne," tells the story of the impoverished Dashwood sisters. The open and enthusiastic Marianne becomes infatuated with John Willoughby, who seems to be a romantic lover but is in reality an unscrupulous fortune hunter. He deserts her for an heiress, and she eventually makes a sensible marriage with Colonel Brandon, a staid and settled bachelor. Marianne's older sister, the prudent and discreet Elinor, is constant toward her lover, Edward Ferrars, and, after some distressing vicissitudes, marries him.

More About the Author
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in the village of Steventon, Hampshire. Where her father was the rector. She was the seventh child in a boisterous family of six boys and two girls. Reading and playacting were favorite family pastimes, and Austen began writing as a young girl. Her Juvenillia, written between 1787 and 1795, survive in three notebooks and include Lady Susan, a short novel-in-letters. In 1796 she completed another epistolary novel called Elinor and Marianne, later revised to become Sense and Sensibility. In 1797 she finished the first version of Pride and Prejudice, called “First Impressions.” Northanger Abbey, the last of the early novels, was written in 1798 or 1799 as “Susan.”

Until 1801, when her father retired and the family moved to Bath, Austen enjoyed a comfortable life, mixing in the best society in the neighborhood, keeping a carriage and a pair of horses, and attending dances at the stately homes of the local gentry. Neither she nor her sister Cassandra married, but the reason for this remains conjectural, as Cassandra burned or censored Austen’s surviving letters after her death. The eight years following the move from Steventon were evidently unsettled and unhappy ones. The Watsons, her only writing from this period, was never completed. But from 1809, when settled again in her beloved Hampshire, until her final illness in 1817, she lived a productive life in a pleasant cottage in Chawton provided by her wealthy brother Edward.

In 1811, Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously: the title page stated only that it was “By a Lady.” Immediately successful, this first novel was followed by Pride and Prejudice in 1813 and Mansfeild Park in 1814. Emma, written between 1814 and 1815, was “respectfully dedicated” at royal command to George IV. In 1816, already in declining health, Austen wrote Persuasion and revised “Susan” into Northanger Abbey. Her last work, Sandition, was left unfinished at he death on July 18, 1817. Austen’s identity as an author was announced to the world posthumously by her favorite brother, Henry, who supervised the publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in 1818.

Book Dimension :
length: (cm)17.4 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)10.6

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