Product Description

Sense and Sensibility is Austen's first published novel and the one now most scrutinized by historicist and feminist scholars, who offer new, complex readings of the work. The text is that of the 1813 Second Edition (the origins of which can be traced back to 1795). The text is fully annotated and is accompanied by a map of nineteenth-century England. "Contexts" explores the personal and social issues that loom large in Austen's novel: sense, sensibility, self-control, judgment, romantic attachments, family, and inheritance. Included are writings by Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah Moore, and Maria Edgeworth. "Criticism" collects six early and twelve modern assessments of the novel. Contributors include Alice Meynell, Reginald Farrer, Jan Fergus, Raymond Williams, Marilyn Butler, Mary Povey, Claudia L. Johnson, Gene Ruoff, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Isobel Armstrong, Mary Favret, Deidre Shauna Lynch, Eve Sedgwick, and Deborah Kaplan.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included. About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #382132 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

About the Author
Claudia L. Johnson is Professor of English at Princeton University. She is the author of Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel and Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender, and Sentimentality in the 1790s, editor of the Mansfield Park Norton Critical Edition, and author of many articles on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature.

Customer Reviews

a five star book with a 0 star critical apparatus
Sense and Sensibility is a work of wit intelligence and genius--the critical apparatus and here I mean the work of modern critics is the work of those "favored" by stupidity. With the exception of Raymond Williams important article from "Keywords" --the critics are informed by a feminism that might be called Sexual Stalinism. Critics with agendas are always reductive, unreflective and in the case of one essay unpardonably vulgar. I name no names. William Empson's exploration of "Sense" "Sensibility" "Candour" and "Candid" which are briliantly investigated in his Structure of Complex Words apparenty was not deemed worthy of making the cut. Jane Austen would have had a good laugh had she read the sanctimonious essays that befoul this edition. If you are a good reader trust your own responses and get another edition. Of course if you are a member of the academy this edition is indispensable.