About the Author

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of English literature's greatest and most widely-read writers - one of the four 'great English novelists' according to F. R. Leavis (along with George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad). Her novels, both romantic fiction and acerbic social commentary, include Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Sense and Sensibility was the first of Austen's novels to be published, in 1811, and she had to pay for its publication and a commission on sales - until the tables turned upon the book's great success and Austen began to make a substantial profit herself. All six titles are published in the Penguin English Library.