Audiobook · read by volunteers
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen (1775–1817)
Read by Michelle Crandall, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Kirsten Ferreri, Judy Bieber, Kymm Zuckert, Susan Denney, Calliope, Sarah Key-DeLyria, Larysa Jaworski, Heather Barnett · 50 chapters · 12 h 11
About the book
Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are sisters who could hardly be less alike. Elinor keeps her feelings in check and thinks before she acts; Marianne gives her whole heart to every passion and cares nothing for caution. When their father dies, the family home passes to a half-brother whose wife has no intention of being generous, and the Dashwood women, with their mother and young sister Margaret, are left with a modest income and a small cottage in Devonshire. There, among new neighbours and unexpected suitors, both sisters must discover what it costs to love, to hope and to be disappointed. Jane Austen's first published novel is full of sharp social observation, tender comedy and quiet emotional force. It asks which is wiser, to feel deeply or to feel with care, and it declines to give an easy answer. Fifty chapters invite you to settle in for twelve unhurried hours.
Introduction
Jane Austen lived from 1775 to 1817, and Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811, was the first of her novels to reach print. It came out anonymously, with the author described only as "a lady", and it found enough readers to encourage her to go on. Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma would follow in the years that remained to her.
The book belongs to the tradition of the English novel of manners, in which small events in drawing rooms and country lanes carry large consequences. Austen's subject is the position of women who depend on family property and good marriages, and she treats it with wit rather than complaint. Her two heroines stand for two ways of meeting the world, and the novel's pleasure lies in watching each learn something from the other. Readers have argued ever since about which sister they prefer, and the argument is part of the book's life.
This recording by LibriVox volunteers is divided into fifty short chapters and lasts a little over twelve hours. Because the chapters are brief, it suits listening in small portions, a few each day, though the story has a way of making you want to continue.
Why come to it today? Because Austen's sense of how money, manners and feeling pull against one another has not dated. Her dialogue still sparkles, her minor characters, from the grasping to the kindly meddling, remain easy to recognise, and her heroines are still a pleasure to follow.
Public domain
Jane Austen died in 1817: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text