MOVIE NEWS – Jane Austen’s classic Sense and Sensibility arrives in theaters in September: directed by Georgia Oakley, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles play the two Dashwood sisters. The premiere is a good opportunity to look back at how the story came to be, a story that, more than two centuries later, continues to inspire new filmmakers to adapt it.

Jane Austen did not write an autobiography, as she died painfully young. She passed away in 1817 at just 41 years old, and the exact cause of her illness remains unknown to this day. For a long time, Addison’s disease, a rare hormonal disorder, was suspected, but more recent analyses suggest that Hodgkin lymphoma, a malignant disease of the lymphatic system, may also have caused her death. It has also been suggested that tuberculosis, one of the widespread diseases of the era, took her life. Fortunately, the author’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, wrote extensively about her life in his memoir published in 1870, preserving many details about his aunt’s early career. Vogue has now drawn on this account to revisit the creation of Sense and Sensibility.

Austen worked on the story for a long time: an early version was titled Elinor and Marianne, while she began writing the novel in the form we know today in November 1797. Interestingly, although this became her first published novel, she had already completed Pride and Prejudice – then titled First Impressions – in August 1797.

Sense and Sensibility did not finally reach readers until 1811. According to Austen-Leigh, the author earned 150 pounds from it and regarded this as a tremendous success. (The sum was equivalent to five years’ earnings for an agricultural laborer, or enough to buy three good horses.) Austen was long portrayed as a modest, puritanical spinster, but later researchers have added nuance to this family legend. Her letters to her sister Cassandra show that Austen was very much concerned with money and negotiated persistently with publishers over her fees.

Even Austen’s contemporaries believed they recognized Jane and Cassandra Austen in the two Dashwood sisters. Her nephew denied this in his memoir: Cassandra was indeed thoughtful and calm, much like Elinor in the novel, but Jane, he said, was nothing like the passionate Marianne.

The new adaptation is expected to provide the long-awaited breakthrough for the increasingly prominent Daisy Edgar-Jones, who has already tried her hand at several genres, from romantic drama through horror and thrillers to spectacular disaster movies. With the new Sense and Sensibility, she will be seen for the first time in the leading role of a truly substantial period literary adaptation.

(Sense and Sensibility – release: November 5, 2026.)

Source: UIP-Duna Film