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Pride and Prejudice vs Sense and Sensibility: which Austen is greater?

12 October 2026 · Books

On GOATvs right now

A new film of Sense and Sensibility opens in American cinemas on Friday 16 October, with Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood, Esmé Creed-Miles as Marianne and Caitríona Balfe as their mother, directed by Georgia Oakley. A new Dashwood sister on the big screen is the right moment for the oldest argument in any book club: is Sense and Sensibility really the lesser sister of Pride and Prejudice? GOATvs asks everyone to pick one, and the box above shows how the world splits today.

Sense and Sensibility came first. It was Jane Austen's first published novel, printed in 1811 with no name on the cover, only the words "By a Lady". It began years earlier as a story in letters called Elinor and Marianne. The two sisters are its whole design: Elinor keeps her feelings to herself and does what is sensible, Marianne feels everything at full volume and says so. Both are tested by men who are not what they seem, by money that goes to the wrong relatives, and by a family that has to leave its home.

Pride and Prejudice followed two years later, and it became the one everyone knows. Its first draft was called First Impressions, and that is still the best summary of the book: Elizabeth Bennet judges Mr Darcy too quickly, Darcy judges her family too proudly, and both have to admit they were wrong. The opening line about a single man in possession of a good fortune is one of the most quoted sentences in English, and for most readers it is the first Austen they ever open.

So the vote is really about two kinds of love story. Pride and Prejudice is sparkling: quick dialogue, a heroine who argues back and a romance built on wit. Sense and Sensibility is quieter and sadder, a book about holding on when things go badly, and many readers say it rewards a second reading more. Picking Pride and Prejudice means picking the perfect comedy; picking Sense and Sensibility means picking the deeper look at two sisters and the choices open to women without money.

Both books have lived on screen. Ang Lee's 1995 Sense and Sensibility, with a screenplay by Emma Thompson that won an Academy Award, is still the version many fans love, and the BBC's Pride and Prejudice from the same year, with Colin Firth as Darcy, is one of the most loved costume dramas ever made. Readers who want more can see how Jane Eyre does against Austen's favourite, or settle a smaller fight between Emma and Persuasion, her last finished novel.

The new film will decide whether this Elinor and Marianne join the classic versions. Real votes decide where the books stay. Pick Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility above, then try the other pairs, and see where every Austen novel and the rest of the canon stand in the classics and literature list.

Vote: Pride and Prejudice vs Sense and Sensibility

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