Sense and Sensibility — The Companion Edition

Two sisters, dispossessed by law on the day their father dies, must make their way in a world that prices them to the pound. Elinor Dashwood governs everything she feels. Marianne believes feeling should govern everything. Between them stands everything that decides a Regency woman's fate: the entail that takes Norland, an income of £500 a year, a rescuer on a hillside, a silent colonel, a young man who will not explain himself — and a secret, confided to the wrong sister, that Elinor must carry in silence for four months.

This is the complete text of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Jane Austen's first published novel — issued anonymously as "By a Lady" — collated against the 1811 first edition, with the full Companion Classics apparatus: an introduction tracing the novel's long gestation from its 1790s draft, Elinor and Marianne; a Who's Who of the Dashwood circle (every entry spoiler-aware); five Regency explainers, including the entail that starts the plot and the novel's money, pound for pound; a guide to the letters and set pieces the story turns on, its buried secret spoiler-marked; a short life of Austen; a period note; a three-meeting reading schedule; and 44 discussion questions, spoiler-fenced volume by volume, so a book club can argue about Lucy Steele's confidence when the text allows — and not a page before.