Important past critical analyses are summarized, illustrating the historical, social, and cultural forces that helped shape both the writing of the novel and the ways in which it has been received. Comparison to other literary texts helps readers explore Sense and Sensibility through the lens of the many literary theories currently available to serious students and readers of literature. Discussions of various film versions reveal how these visual versions can illuminate Austen’s novel, and vice versa. How this book succeeds (or fails) as a work of art is also examined, as is its continuing relevance in the twenty-first century to present-day concerns over gender, class, and race.

This volume on Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility, like all the other volumes in the Critical Insights series, is divided into several parts. It opens with an introductory essay, moves to a deliberately brief biography of Austen, transitions to a “Critical Contexts” section consisting of four essays (each with a distinctive focus).

This leads into the Critical Context section of the book which contains the following essays:

• Sense and Sensibility and the Position of Women in the Romantic Era, by Joyce E. Kelley and McKenna Odom
• Recent Criticism of Sense and Sensibility: An Overview, by Joyce Ahn
• Green with Envy: The Story of Money in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, by Edwin Wong
• Comparing and Contrasting Two Scenes from the 1995 and 2008 Films of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, by Jordan Bailey

Following the four Critical Context essays is the Critical Readings section of this book, which contains the following essays:

• “Sense and Sensibility” in Sense and Sensibility: The Use of a Key Phrase by Jane Austen’s Contemporaries and Its Relevance to Elinor, by Robert C. Evans
• Self-Command and Selfishness: Civility and Wildness in Sense and Sensibility, by Nicolas Tredell
• “No, Sir; we had talk enough, but no conversation”: Idle Talk in Sense and Sensibility, by Brandon Schneeberger
• Propriety, Privacy, and Power in Sense and Sensibility, by Melissa Anderson
• The 1995 Film of Sense and Sensibility: A Survey of Reviews, by Kathryn Duncan
• The 2008 BBC Sense and Sensibility Miniseries: A Survey of Reviews, by Robert C. Evans
• Jane Austen’s Colonel Brandon on the Screen, by Christopher Baker
  The Real Jane Austen: A Praiseworthy Filmed Documentary, by Robert C. Evans
• Kate Hamill’s Dramatic Version of Sense and Sensibility: Its Conception, Design, and Reception, by Robert C. Evans
• Kate Hamill’s Dramatic Version of Sense and Sensibility: Multiple Responses to Major Productions, by Robert C. Evans
• The Reception—of Sense and Sensibility in Spanish-Language Editions, by Cinthia García Soria