'Sense and Sensibility, The Companion Edition' Presents Austen's First Published Novel in the Text of the 1811 First Edition

NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2026, In the autumn of 1811, a novel appeared in London with no author's name on it at all, just "By a Lady." It was Jane Austen's first published novel, and she had been working toward it since the 1790s, when she drafted the story as Elinor and Marianne. A new Companion Classics edition, Sense and Sensibility, The Companion Edition, presents the complete novel, all fifty chapters across the three volumes, 118,641 words, unabridged, in the text of the first edition (Thomas Egerton, London, 1811), taken from Project Gutenberg eBook #161 and collated against scans of the 1811 first edition.

Two sisters, dispossessed by law on the day their father dies, must make their way in a world that prices them to the pound. Elinor Dashwood governs everything she feels. Marianne believes feeling should govern everything. Between them stands everything that decides a Regency woman's fate: the entail that takes Norland, an income of £500 a year, a rescuer on a hillside, a silent colonel, a young man who will not explain himself, and a secret, confided to the wrong sister, that Elinor must carry in silence for four months.

Around the novel, the companion material, all of it original to this edition, includes an introduction tracing the novel's long gestation from its 1790s draft, Elinor and Marianne; a Who's Who of the Dashwood circle in sixteen spoiler-aware entries; five Regency explainers, including the entail that starts the plot and dispossesses the Dashwood women, the eighteenth-century idea of "sensibility," letters and visits, rank and gentility, and the novel's money, pound for pound; a guide to the letters and set pieces the story turns on, its buried secret spoiler-marked; a short life of Jane Austen; a period note; a three-meeting reading schedule; and forty-four discussion questions, spoiler-fenced volume by volume, so a book club can argue about the book's buried secret when the text allows, and not a page before.

Alongside the book, the Sense and Sensibility, Book Club Kit offers the edition's discussion material as a printable PDF (27 pages, US Letter) for reading groups: the three-meeting reading schedule, the full Who's Who, the five explainers, the guide to the letters and set pieces, the short life and period note, all forty-four discussion questions in three spoiler-fenced meetings, notes pages, and a Predictions & Verdicts page for the book's buried secret, sealed before Meeting Two, judged after the final page. The kit is available for $7 through the editor's Payhip store.

Sense and Sensibility, The Companion Edition is available now as an eBook ($9.99) through Payhip, and in The Classics and Companions Shop on the editor's Linktree. Print editions follow on Amazon (paperback, $16.99; hardcover, $27.99). The novel's text is public domain worldwide (Jane Austen died in 1817); all companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent publication, not affiliated with or endorsed by any other edition or adaptation.

About the editor

Horace Harriott Jr. is a New York-based author and editor of more than two dozen books, including The Side Hustle Handbook, Master Playbook and The Ultimate Commissary Cookbook. This edition is part of his Companion Classics series of reading-together editions of public-domain classics.

About the book

Sense and Sensibility, The Companion Edition, With an Introduction, Regency Explainers, a Guide to the Letters and Set Pieces, and Discussion Questions, Jane Austen (author), Horace Harriott Jr. (editor). Companion Classics, independently published, October 2026. Text: the first edition (Thomas Egerton, London, 1811), via Project Gutenberg eBook #161, collated against the 1811 first edition; 50 chapters in three volumes; 118,641 words; interior proof 481 pages, 6 x 9 in.