Sense and Sensibility

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson

Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

When Mrs. Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement which she longs for. The contrasting fortunes and temperaments of the two girls as they struggle to cope in their different ways with the cruel events which fate has in store for them are portrayed by Jane Austen with her usual irony, humour, and profound sensibility.

©2005 Naxos Audiobooks Ltd. (P)2005 Naxos Audiobooks Ltd.

What a spectacular reading!

The reader, Juliet Stevenson, made the book across between great fiction and great theater. My guess is, Jane Austen would have loved to listen to her.

Stevenson does it again

I bought this at a 4.95 sale because I had already listened to one decent audio version - but Stevenson reading is worth a full credit. I suspect she may have been influenced by Emma Thompson's screenplay in her delivery of a couple of the minor characters -- but why try to trump gold?

Stevenson reading any classic like this is a great comfort listen - a warm bath for your ears. Recommended for head colds.

Just about any Naxos version of a classic has turned out to be an excellent version in my experience. They uphold their 5 star reputation from their music label.

Austen is always worth a listen

Elinor Dashwood is "sense" — the sensible, even-tempered sister who is mindful of propriety and the necessities of life. Marianne Dashwood, the younger sister, is "sensibility," which in the Austenian sense means something more like "sensitivity" — Marianne is the passionate, feeling sister who wears her heart on her sleeve.

...

"Nay, Mama, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!—but we must allow for difference of taste. Elinor has not my feelings, and therefore she may overlook it, and be happy with him. But it would have broke MY heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility. Mama, the more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much! He must have all Edward's virtues, and his person and manners must ornament his goodness with every possible charm."

...

(There's a third Dashwood sister, Margaret, but she's thirteen and barely enters the plot.)

We can see here the "formula" Austen was working on. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion... each book examines a particular set of character traits and their effects on the person marked by them. (Her other books did the same thing, if not in the titles.) Elinor is the protagonist of Sense and Sensibility; she initially falls for a man named Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of a rich family, whose problem is that he wants to become a humble clergyman while his mother, who controls the family fortune, has great ambitions for him and certainly doesn't want to see him marrying some poor girl from an impoverished no-account family of minor gentry. (Shades of Lady Catherine from Pride and Prejudice.)

Marianne, meanwhile, falls for the rake who always wreaks romantic havoc in Austen novels. In this one, his name is Mr. Willoughby. Initially set up as a true scoundrel who leads Marianne on, even forms an "attachment" to her (i.e., an engagement in all but name), only to later break it (which in Regency times was a very grave moral offense if not a legal one), and then turns out to have left one of his other conquests ruined and with child. Austen does a clever job of making Willoughby out to be a villain, only to somewhat redeem him later by revealing that, while he is no saint, his conduct wasn't quite as bad as it appeared to the uninformed Dashwood sisters.

Waiting in the wings is the other Austen prototype, Colonel Brandon, the very serious old bachelor who'd be a fine catch for the right girl who doesn't mind marrying someone twenty years her senior. (Colonel Brandon is unmarried and in his early thirties — for a woman that would be beyond hope, and even for a man, in Regency times, that was getting well past prime marrying years.)

Having read all of Austen's other novels, Sense and Sensibility did suffer a bit from being yet another story about two sisters with contrasting temperaments, living in reduced circumstances thanks to the ungenerosity of their more affluent relatives, facing spinsterhood due to their lack of prospects before happy engagements with men who fortuitously turn out to be well-heeled, not without first surmounting a number of misunderstandings and existing engagements as obstacles.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes, certainly. Every Austen is worth reading. But I finished it for completeness' sake. I would recommend that everyone read something by Austen, and if you like the first one, read some more. But I don't think anyone but the true Austen fan needs to read all of her works, and I'd really only recommend Sense and Sensibility as either your first Austen (in which case all the tropes and devices will be fresh, and you'll see them used more skillfully in later books) or if you are a true fan wanting to read her complete works.

Suzan

A splendid reading of the classic. Unabridged is always the way to go, even with the verbose Jane Austen. I found the reader's voice to be pleasant. Enjoyed every hour.

Wonderful reading of a wonderful book

If you only know Sense and Sensibility from the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson film adaptation, do yourself a favor and get to know the original. The film is lovely, but the book is better.

Juliet Stevenson gives a wonderful reading, rendering each character clearly, and giving full value and meaning to Austen’s pellucid prose.

I could listen to this a hundred times.

Love this book

Like all the books by Jane Austen, this is a masterpiece. Stevenson does a great job narrating this.
That’s really all I need to say.
- calliope matthews, age 13

A classic to compare with Pride and Prejudice

I am a great fan of Pride and Prejudice. This book, unlike Emma is readable, and dare I say, entertaining?!?
It's characters are understandable, and not so wordy and needlessly long as some other Jane Austin's.

I am an independent and stoic person, so I love and identify with the main character.

#FemaleProtagonist #PrideandPrejudice #HappyEnding #witty #Victorian
#tagsgiving and #sweepstakes

LOVE IT !!!

I try to read Miss Austen's books every year or 2, and if ever there is a difficult time in lide, such as the death of my husband, nothing disreacts me from the misery accept to get lost in Austen. Wonderfully read by Miss Stevenson, she is surely the best! Highly recommend, over and over again.

Good

Everything was good! I work as I listen so I need something that I can listen and know what is going on without too much effort. I had to back a few times and listen again to a few passages. That would be only negative...love Jane Austen in general and narrator was good. She wasn't over the top with the annoying characters.

Highly entertaining

If you live Jane Austin this is a must and Juliet Stevenson is an enjoyable reader. I love this version.