The text is that of the 1813 SecondEdition (the origins of which can be traced back to 1795). The text isfully annotated and is accompanied by a map of nineteenth-centuryEngland. "Contexts" explores the personal and social issues that loom large inAusten's novel: sense, sensibility, self-control, judgment, romanticattachments, family, and inheritance. Included are writings by AdamSmith, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft,Hannah Moore, and Maria Edgeworth. "Criticism" collects six early and twelve modern assessments of thenovel. Contributors include Alice Meynell, Reginald Farrer, Jan Fergus,Raymond Williams, Marilyn Butler, Mary Povey, Claudia L. Johnson, GeneRuoff, Patricia Meyer Spacks, Isobel Armstrong, Mary Favret, DeidreShauna Lynch, Eve Sedgwick, and Deborah Kaplan. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.