Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Books)

A marvellously perceptive portrayal of two young women in love. Sense and Sensibility s two heroines so utterly unlike each other undergo the most violent passions when they are separated from the men they love.

What differentiates them and gives this extraordinary book its complexity and brilliance, is the way each expresses her suffering: Marianne young, impetuous, ardent falls into paroxysms of grief when she is rejected by the dashing John Willoughby; while her sister, Elinor wiser, more sensible, more self-controlled masks her despair when it appears that Edward Ferrars is to marry the mean-spirited and cunning Lucy Steele.

All, of course, ends happily but not until Elinor s sense and Marianne s sensibility have equally worked to reveal the profound emotional life that runs beneath the surface of Austen s immaculate art.