Sense and Sensibility (Austen)

Book Reviews 
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It is now almost exactly two centuries since the first two of Jane Austen's six completed novels—Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice—were published, and for much of that time writers and critics have passionately disagreed about the true caliber of her work. Austen's books received a few respectful reviews and lively attention from the reading public during her lifetime, but it wasn't until nearly thirty years after her death that some critics began to recognize her enduring artistic accomplishment—and others to debate it.
(From Penguin Classics Introduction to Mansfield Park.)

About the Title
Marianne Dashwood, trusting the evidence of her senses, falls passionately in love with a man who in truth is less good than he seems. Elinor Dashwood quite sensibly "thinks very highly of, greatly esteems, and likes" a man whose worthiness in her eyes only increases when she learns why he cannot marry her. Through the sisters' stories, and the moral dilemmas they raise, Jane Austen explores in the form of a delightful and dramatically satisfying romance the limitations and pitfalls of the Romantic aesthetic in a world where money matters.

Though Northanger Abbey (originally called "Lady Susan") was Austen's first novel to be accepted for publication, the publisher never issued it, and by the time Austen bought back the rights in 1816, she didn't think it was good enough to publish. Sense and Sensibility, published in 1811, is considerably more ambitious than Northanger Abbey, both thematically and technically, and is generally considered Austen's first major novel.
(From Penguin Classics, cover image, top-right.)