Sense and Sensibility

When their father dies and the estate passes to their half-brother, the Dashwood sisters and their mother are politely evicted into genteel poverty. Elinor, the elder, feels everything and shows almost nothing. Marianne, the younger, believes concealing emotion is a kind of lying. Each falls in love, each is failed in different ways by men and by the money-minded society around them, and each has something to learn from the other's way of surviving it.

Austen's first published novel is sharper-clawed than its reputation. Beneath the romance runs a cold-eyed audit of what happens to women when the wealth goes elsewhere. The comic monsters (the Steele sisters, the magnificently awful Fanny Dashwood) are among her best, and the sisters' bond gives the book its warm center.

At roughly 120,500 words, Sense and Sensibility runs about 13½ hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The edition linked here is available from Project Gutenberg under its US public-domain listing. Check the edition, translation, completeness and copyright rules where you live. LoudReader lets you browse and download Gutenberg books; they are not all stored on installation. To listen:

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