Two sisters lose their home and their money, one loves too loudly and one too quietly, and the quiet one keeps a four-year secret for fifteen chapters.
A sharp, funny social comedy about money and feeling, with an ending that rewards patience. The first chapters are heavy with inheritance talk and the last third speeds up, but Elinor's silence is the book's best idea. Four and a half out of five, in my view.
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
A full-spoiler Sense and Sensibility summary built on one count: Elinor learns in chapter 22 that Edward is engaged to Lucy and tells no one until chapter 37, fifteen chapters and four months later. Plot, Willoughby, Cleveland and the ending, from the Project Gutenberg text.
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen about two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, who lose their family home and start again in Devonshire. We read the text of Project Gutenberg ebook 161, Sense and Sensibility, whose title page gives 1811. It has fifty chapters in three volumes, so every chapter number on this page comes from a text you can read for free.
Below you’ll find a summary built around one counted thing: how long Elinor keeps the secret that Edward Ferrars is engaged to Lucy Steele. It runs from chapter 22 to chapter 37, and the page covers Norland, Willoughby, London, Cleveland and the ending. The page has full spoilers, since the whole novel is covered.
A sharp, funny social comedy about money and feeling, with an ending that rewards patience. The first chapters are heavy with inheritance talk and the last third speeds up, but Elinor's silence is the book's best idea. Four and a half out of five, in my view. Read it if: you like austen's wit and her eye for money and manners; you enjoy slow-burn romances where the heroine hides her feelings; you are studying it and need the plot, the secret and the ending; you want to see where the fifteen-chapter secret leads. Skip it if: you dislike long regency dialogue and visiting scenes; you want a fast plot: the middle volume moves slowly; you have already read it and only need a plot refresher.
A full-spoiler Sense and Sensibility summary built on one count: Elinor learns in chapter 22 that Edward is engaged to Lucy and tells no one until chapter 37, fifteen chapters and four months later. Plot, Willoughby, Cleveland and the ending, from the Project Gutenberg text. Sense and Sensibility Summary: The Secret Elinor Kept →
A novel by Jane Austen. After their father dies, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood move to a Devonshire cottage with their mother. Marianne falls for John Willoughby, who abandons her, while Elinor secretly learns that the man she loves, Edward Ferrars, has been engaged to Lucy Steele for four years. Both sisters end the book married.
Elinor marries Edward Ferrars. After a servant reports that Mr. Ferrars is married, Edward arrives at Barton and explains that Lucy has married his brother Robert instead. About three hours after he arrives, he has asked Elinor to marry him. They marry at Barton church in early autumn and live at Delaford.
By our count, from chapter 22 to chapter 37, fifteen chapters and about 31 percent of the book's words. Elinor herself tells Marianne, I have known it these four months, and says her promise to Lucy obliged her to be secret.
