"The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex."

Quotation: "His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathise with her own, was estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five-and-thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling, and every exquisite power of enjoyment." Sense and Sensibility Chapter 7

No, I did not choose that quotation because it jumped out at me for its creativity, but rather because it displays one of the first traits that an Austen reader will notice. RUN-ON SENTENCES. Jane Austen is famous for her exhausting sentences and her lack of dialogue. This is a prime example. In fact, I find this sentence long enough to merit copy-and-pasting it off the internet :)

As you can see, I am well into Sense and Sensibility. It is a wonderful story, and one that Austen spent a great deal of time writing. It was published in 1811 (200 years ago) and Jane actually had to pay for its publication. This sounds ludicrous considering her world wide following and popularity, but her naïve publisher must have not had much faith in it. She published it under the name, "a Lady", but still only made a minute profit when the novel gained popularity. Sense and Sensibility actually started life as early as 1796, in the form of a novella, titled Elinor and Marianne; a story of two sisters told in letter-format. It obviously underwent extensive revision, and many drafts before 1811. Its gain in popularity required her to be referred to as the author of Sense and Sensibility in her next novel, Pride and Prejudice.

Her dedication to editing this novel so extensively paid off, and despite the plethora of run-on sentences, it has class. I love how dynamic the characters are. Elinor is strong and poised, and is definitely virtuous. I hope that she rubs off on me by the end of the novel. Reading the first 8 or so chapters has already enlightened me on the lifestyle of the Regency period. For example, several times in a month were more popular than others for visiting with friends. This all had to do with the types of carriages that they drove. Apparently, when one dwelled in the country, travel from a friend's estate to your own could be perilous. It was all because of the luminosity of coach lanterns. When the moon was high in the sky, travel was safe. They must have been party animals when the moon was full, because Sir John, "had been to several families that morning, in hopes of procuring some addition to their number; but it was moonlight, and everybody was full of engagements. " Chapter 7. I do not know about you, but I think that waiting for moonlight would be no imposition if I were fortunate enough to possess an estate.