Sense & Sensibility: A Novel

by Joanna Trollope

Overview

From Joanna Trollope, one of the most insightful chroniclers of family life writing fiction today, comes a contemporary retelling of Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen’s classic novel of love, money, and two very different sisters.

John Dashwood promised his dying father that he would take care of his half sisters. But his wife, Fanny, has no desire to share their newly inherited estate. When she descends upon Norland Park, the three Dashwood girls—Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret—are faced with the realities of a cold world and the cruelties of life without their father, their home, or their money.

With her sparkling wit, Joanna Trollope casts a clever, satirical eye on the tales of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.

Reimagining Sense and Sensibility in a fresh, modern new light, she spins the novel’s romance, bonnets, and betrothals into a wonderfully witty coming-of-age story about the stuff that really makes the world go around. For when it comes to money, some things never change....

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062200471
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	11/04/2014
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Joanna Trollope is the number-one bestselling author of eighteen highly acclaimed contemporary novels, including The Other Family, Daughters-in-Law, and The Soldier's Wife. She was appointed OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and was the chair of judges for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She lives in London and Gloucestershire.

Editorial Reviews

PRAISE FOR JOANNA TROLLOPE

Various

Jane Austen’s bestie sisters ditch the corsets (but keep the Downton-style estate) in a 2013 take on Sense & Sensibility.

Cosmopolitan

Supremely sure of her material and purpose, compassionate but never sentimental.

Sunday Times (London)

A fizzy, pop-fiction Jane Austen update....Trollope’s comic romp is a satisfying tribute….When Sir John arrives to invite the displaced family to live at Barton Cottage, he gets his laptop out and plays a slideshow of the house. ‘It’s a charmer,’ he tells them. Likewise Trollope’s book.

Boston Globe

Jane Austen’s tale of two sisters is vividly brought into the 20th century by one of our best-loved storytellers.

Woman and Home

Trollope is at her best analyzing the complex strands of DNA that bind families-and sometimes threaten to strangle them.

People

You don’t have to have read the original Sense & Sensibility to enjoy this breezy new take on Austen’s 1811 debut….Wittily, stylishly and sensitively written with lots of delicious upmarket detail. A must for Trollope and Austen fans alike.

Daily Mail (London)

Trollope has clearly had enormous fun with her updating, and part of the delight for the reader is wondering what she’s going to do next.

The Observer

Her books are . . . readable without being trivial, accessible without being pat, psychologically astute without being labored.

Wall Street Journal

Trollope is a gifted chronicler of modern life and mores; she also clearly knows and appreciates Austen’s world. Her update retains the essence of the characters Austen created...with a true Janeite’s dry sense of humor and the occasional sly reference to the original.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Like a good kitchen chat, Joanna Trollope’s novels dish out equal measures of reassuring warmth and sobering insight....... [Her] gift is her ability to capture far-flung perspectives with compassion.

New York Times Book Review

As ever, Trollope writes about family life with wit, intelligence and verve.

The Guardian (London)

In many ways, Trollope and Austen are a natural marriage….The moments in which she moves away from the original are satisfying, and well chosen….The fidelity of the retelling has clever consequences.

The Guardian

By updating Austen’s first published novel to reflect modern slang, dress, and conveniences, Trollope brings an accessibility to this romantic comedy of manners that may appeal to the Bridget Jones crowd.

Booklist

Jane Austen’s story and Joanna Trollope’s voice make the perfect marriage. I loved every page. It’s witty and fresh, whilst completely respecting the original, timeless story. What a delight!

Sophie Kinsella

[Trollope] aims for the heart… and she hits it.

The New Yorker

Trollope has kept the framework of Austen’s novel but modernised the surfaces….Trollope adds verbal fizz. It’s a faster, zestier read than the original....A fun exercise and one that provokes serious thought.

The Times (London)

Trollope is as poised and intricate a portraitist as her famous novelist ancestor, Anthony Trollope.

Washington Post

Joanna Trollope is the most emotionally intelligent of contemporary British novelists.

The Independent

Wonderfully and compulsively readable. She can be as subtle as Austen, as sharp as Brontë. Trollope’s brilliant.

Mail on Sunday (London)

A bloody good read. From Twitter and Taylor Swift to the lure of the wrong man, the Dashwood girls, who I still can’t help but love, are drawn to painterly perfection by Trollope; their dreams and dramas as real as they were in 1811.

Stylist

Trollope is as poised and intricate a portraitist as her famous novelist ancestor, Anthony Trollope.

Washington Post

[Trollope] aims for the heart… and she hits it.

The New Yorker

Her books are . . . readable without being trivial, accessible without being pat, psychologically astute without being labored.

Wall Street Journal

PRAISE FOR JOANNA TROLLOPE

Various

Jane Austen’s bestie sisters ditch the corsets (but keep the Downton-style estate) in a 2013 take on Sense & Sensibility.

Cosmopolitan

By updating Austen’s first published novel to reflect modern slang, dress, and conveniences, Trollope brings an accessibility to this romantic comedy of manners that may appeal to the Bridget Jones crowd.

Booklist

In this funny, well-paced Mormon-themed take on Austen's often retold classic, by romance writer Jamison (Persuasion: A Latter-day Tale), Emma is a 23-year-old receptionist in modern-day Vienna, Va., who tries to parlay her penchant for meddling and doling advice into a career as a life coach. After welcoming pretty but insecure nanny Harri into the group of 20-somethings she knows from the local Mormon community, Emma misinterprets signals from Phil Elton and attempts to pair the two off—with disastrous results. Meanwhile, former classmate Jenna Farley, now a country music star, comes home for Christmas, making Emma reflect on her own lackluster accomplishments. She's briefly distracted by the arrival of Hank Weston, who seems perfect and appears to like her. Jamison's writing is engaging and full of vivid, amusing lines; a croissant is "the cotton candy version of bread," for instance. Jamison's religious perspective never comes off as awkward or didactic. The author only slips toward the end, when a saccharine resolution pales compared to the riveting angst that came before it. (Aug.) Brit author Trollope brings Austen's classic into the new millennium, with mixed results. After Henry Dashwood dies, the Dashwood sisters and their mother are given a house by kindly rich relatives John and Mary Middleton, while the estate that was the Dashwood home passes to the sisters' henpecked half-brother John and his status-conscious wife Fanny. Elinor, the responsible eldest Dashwood sister, is smitten with Fanny's brother Edward Ferrars, though she hasn't heard from him since the move, and he, unbeknownst to her, has been dating the daffy Lucy Steele. Delicate, dramatic, and gorgeous, middle sister Marianne falls for eye-candy John "Wills" Willoughby, though he treads on her heart by publicly rejecting her. All this is conveyed in formal prose with equally stiff dialogue, which makes Trollope's offhand mentions of laptops and Range Rovers somewhat jarring. And yet, Trollope's faithfulness to the tropes of this story keep her from letting the plot jibe with the modern world, though she does wink at that: "You're like those nineteenth-century novels where marriage is the only career option for a middle-class girl." The book's resolution for Marianne seems especially unlikely in this era, and could have benefitted from a more malleable adaptation. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"As ever, Trollope writes about family life with wit, intelligence and verve."

The Guardian(London)

"Trollope is at her best analyzing the complex strands of DNA that bind families-and sometimes threaten to strangle them."

People Magazine

Right now reboots are all the rage, what with Shakespeare in California kitchens (Joss Whedon's Much Ado about Nothing) and Superman sans his red trunks (Man of Steel). Now it's Jane Austen's turn. In the first in a projected series in which Austen's novels will be updated by contemporary authors, Trollope is a good (and bankable) choice to lead off. With almost 20 novels to her credit, she certainly outdistances our Jane, at least in terms of quantity, and her satires on British society have invited comparison with Austen in the past. Trollope's take on Austen's Sense and Sensibility hews closely to the original plot, with some characters, e.g., youngest sister Margaret, blossoming in the retelling. While some equivalents (the gift of a horse becomes the gift of a motor car) seem almost too pat, the satire directed at these Thames Valley girls (at one point Elinor huffily defriends Edward Ferrars) and their elders largely hits the sweet spot. VERDICT This will more than satisfy Trollope fans as well as most Austen devotees; with its sprightly mix of the old and new told in streamlined prose (most of the paragraphs might be tweeted), this twice-told tale highlights the issue of what has changed in 200 years, and what has remained constant.—Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Library Journal

Six best-selling modern writers were commissioned by the Austen Project to update the classic novels. Matchless chronicler of Middle England Trollope (Daughters in Law, 2011, etc.) was paired with Sense & Sensibility, which now morphs into upmarket chick-lit. Austen fans will be familiar with the story of the Dashwood girls--sensible Elinor, beautiful Marianne and young, spirited Margaret--who, with their mother, are cruelly cast out of the family mansion when their father dies. Trollope adds interior-design values to Austen's preoccupations--sex, money and class--by pitting the Dashwoods' shabby-chic taste (faded damask curtains; pretty but chipped china) against the stripped-down, inappropriately modern style of the thoughtless cousins who evict them. Taken in by another wealthy cousin with another decaying mansion, they move to a modern house on his estate--oh, the suffering. Trollope offers occasional flashes of Austen-esque wit, but more often, her writing, though immensely experienced, lacks the grace of the original. Without it, the girls and their misadventures in pursuit of romance and financial security seem less subtle and charming, more foolish and conventional. Marianne falls for a rotter instead of solid Col. Brandon; Elinor "ha[s] feelings for" nice-but-weak Ed, who seems to get engaged to someone else. Their various happy endings bring neatness but less joy than Austen's. A questionable remake of a classic, honorably undertaken, but coarser and less comic than the original--unsurprisingly.

Kirkus Reviews

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