Before You Begin

Before you begin.

When their father dies and Norland passes to a half-brother whose wife can always find a reason to give them nothing, the Dashwood women — a warm-hearted mother and her three daughters — leave the great house in Sussex for a small cottage in Devonshire, and a narrower world. There the two eldest sisters meet love in its two opposite tempers. Elinor, all sense, guards a quiet, clouded attachment to the modest Edward Ferrars; Marianne, all sensibility, gives her whole heart, in the sight of everyone, to the dazzling John Willoughby — while the grave Colonel Brandon looks on and says nothing.

Jane Austen's first published novel, begun as Elinor and Marianne and issued in 1811, is a comedy of manners with a bruise at its centre. Beneath the drawing-room wit and the sharp, delighted eye for selfishness and folly runs a real question about how a person ought to feel, and how much to show — whether the sister who hides her breaking heart is braver, or only lonelier, than the sister who lets hers break in public. Both will be deceived; both will be disappointed; and both, in the end, must learn something from the other.

It is a story to be enjoyed first for its pleasures — the flush of a first romance, a winter of parties in London, a scheming confidante with a secret, a sudden and dangerous illness, and two weddings at the last — and re-read ever after for the fineness of its understanding.

This illustrated edition opens with a gallery of the cast, a map of their world from Norland to Delaford, and its great scenes; and as you read, the story unfolds in six visual movements — recap plates you unlock along the way, each gathering together the tale so far, with never a glimpse of what lies ahead. Turn the page, and set out for Norland.