Sense and Sensibility Trivia
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50 free Sense and Sensibility trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Sense and Sensibility was the first novel Jane Austen ever published, and she paid for the printing herself under the byline 'By A Lady'. This Sense and Sensibility trivia quiz covers the book from Norland to Barton Cottage to Delaford: the Dashwood sisters, the wretched John and Fanny, the secret engagement of Lucy Steele, Willoughby's betrayal and Colonel Brandon's patient devotion. It also digs into how the book was written and received (the epistolary first draft, the 750-copy first edition, the French 'translation' that rewrote whole scenes) and gives plenty of room to Ang Lee's 1995 film, from Emma Thompson's five-year screenplay to Kate Winslet's audition trick and the Golden Bear in Berlin. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer is verified and cited to its reference page. If you enjoy this quiz, try our other Jane Austen and classic literature quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which novel appeared in 1813 credited only to 'the Author of Sense and Sensibility'?
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice. Its publisher had bought the copyright outright for £110, so he made more money from Austen's second novel than she did.
Q 02What was Austen's working title for Sense and Sensibility?
Elinor and Marianne
Elinor and Marianne named the 1790s draft after its heroines; the final title swaps the names for what the sisters stand for, Elinor's sense and Marianne's sensibility.
Q 03How was the author identified on the 1811 title page of Sense and Sensibility?
By A Lady
By A Lady kept her name off the title page, as was usual for women who wrote for money but wished to stay respectable; none of Austen's novels carried her name in her lifetime.
Q 04The three Dashwood sisters are Elinor, Marianne and which thirteen-year-old?
Margaret
Margaret, the youngest, is the one who lets slip at a dinner party that Elinor has an admirer whose name begins with F.
Q 05In which county is the Dashwoods' original family estate?
Sussex
Sussex is home to Norland Park, Dashwood land for generations, until an old uncle's will ties the estate to John Dashwood's small son and leaves the three sisters very little.
Q 06What is the name of the Devonshire home the Dashwoods move to?
Barton Cottage
Barton Cottage is a snug house but, Austen jokes, a defective cottage: the roof is tiled, the shutters are not painted green and no honeysuckle covers the walls.
Q 07Who talks John Dashwood out of supporting his stepmother and half-sisters?
His wife Fanny
His wife Fanny whittles the deathbed promise down in a single conversation: from £3,000 to half that, then to an annuity, and finally to occasional presents of fish and game.
Q 08Which ailment is Marianne's proof that Colonel Brandon is too old for romance?
Rheumatism
Rheumatism: he complains of a slight rheumatic feel in one shoulder on a cold, damp day, and sixteen-year-old Marianne decides that a man of thirty-five is past love.
Q 09Which mishap leads to Marianne's first meeting with Willoughby, who carries her home?
A sprained ankle
A sprained ankle: she falls running down a hillside, and a stranger out shooting with his two pointers picks her up without ceremony and carries her to the cottage.
Q 10On whom is Willoughby financially dependent, giving him an excuse to leave for London?
His elderly cousin Mrs Smith
His elderly cousin Mrs Smith casts him off, then forgives him once he has married respectably, leaving him to reflect that honour would have made him both happy and rich.
Q 11Which sisters, relations of Lady Middleton's mother, come to stay with the Middletons?
Anne and Lucy Steele
Anne and Lucy Steele win over Lady Middleton by fussing over her spoilt children; Lucy then tells Elinor in confidence that she has been secretly engaged to Edward Ferrars for four years.
Q 12Whom does Willoughby become betrothed to in London?
The rich Miss Grey
The rich Miss Grey has £50,000, and Willoughby later admits that the cold letter breaking with Marianne was his fiancée's wording, which he merely copied out.
Q 13Who was Colonel Brandon's teenaged ward, seduced and abandoned by Willoughby?
Eliza Williams
Q 21What does 'sensibility' mean as Austen uses it?
Sensitivity or emotionality
Sensitivity or emotionality: it is Marianne's quality, so the sister a modern reader would call sensible, Elinor, is the one who stands for sense instead.
Q 22Which good-humoured widow, with both daughters married off, takes the two elder Dashwood sisters to London for the winter?
Mrs Jennings
Mrs Jennings has, Austen says, 'nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world'; her teasing mortifies the sisters, yet she stays to nurse Marianne when the Palmers flee for fear of infection.
Q 23Where was Austen living when Thomas Egerton agreed to publish Sense and Sensibility?
Chawton
Eliza Williams is the daughter of the Colonel's lost first love, another Eliza; because he had the girl brought up in his care, local gossip has it that she must be his natural daughter.
Q 14Who blurts out the secret of Lucy's engagement to Edward?
Anne Steele
Anne Steele, Lucy's elder sister, assumes the Ferrars family now likes Lucy too well to mind; instead Edward's sister falls into violent hysterics and both Steeles are turned out of her house.
Q 15What does Colonel Brandon offer Edward after he is disinherited?
A parsonage
A parsonage: the Delaford living is worth only about £200 a year, and Brandon asks Elinor to pass on the offer, so she must hand the man she loves the means to marry Lucy.
Q 16In the 1995 film of Sense and Sensibility, how does Marianne fall gravely ill?
Walking in the rain
Walking in the rain to gaze at Willoughby's house is the film's invention; in the novel Marianne only takes twilight walks through long wet grass and sits about in her wet shoes and stockings.
Q 17Whom does the scheming Lucy Steele finally marry?
Robert Ferrars
Robert Ferrars, Edward's foppish younger brother, has just been handed the family fortune in Edward's place, so Lucy switches brothers and Edward is free to marry Elinor.
Q 18Family tradition holds that Austen's first draft of Sense and Sensibility took which form?
Epistolary (in letters)
Epistolary (in letters): her sister recalled the story being read aloud to the family in that form before 1796, and from late 1797 Austen recast it as straight narrative.
Q 19In the novel Sense and Sensibility, unlike the 1995 film, how does Colonel Brandon settle his score with Willoughby?
With a duel
With a duel: they meet by appointment, Willoughby to defend his conduct and Brandon to punish it, and both come away unwounded, so the affair never becomes public.
Q 20Marianne's great accomplishment is music; which art is Elinor's?
Drawing
Drawing: when her painted screens are passed round at a London dinner, Mrs Ferrars barely looks before praising Miss Morton's painting instead, and Marianne snatches them back in her sister's defence.
Chawton: the cottage her brother Edward provided in 1809 gave her a settled home after years of moves, and she at once began readying her old manuscripts for the press.
Q 24Who stood to lose money if Sense and Sensibility failed to sell in 1811?
The author
The author: Austen published on commission, so the risk was all hers, and it paid off when the first edition had sold out by mid-1813 and brought her a profit of £140.
Q 25In Sense and Sensibility, Elinor drily remarks that few people share Marianne's 'passion' for what?
Dead leaves
Dead leaves: Marianne has just rhapsodised about watching them fall at Norland and mourned that now they are only swept away as a nuisance.
Q 26Isabelle de Montolieu's 1815 French version of Sense and Sensibility ends with Willoughby marrying whom?
Brandon's ward
Brandon's ward: Montolieu kills off Willoughby's wife in a carriage accident, has a pious relative shelter the girl and her child, and lets the repentant rake marry her.
Q 27Which instrument does Marianne play for the Middletons' guests soon after the Dashwoods reach Devon?
The pianoforte
The pianoforte: only Colonel Brandon listens without noisy raptures, paying her 'the compliment of attention', and she respects him for it even while thinking him old.
Q 28Who directed the 1995 film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility?
Ang Lee
Ang Lee, a Taiwanese director making his first English-language film, seemed an unlikely choice for Austen, and he loosened up his British cast with tai chi.
Q 29Who wrote the screenplay for the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility and played Elinor?
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson spent five years on her first screenplay without assuming she would star; it was the film's director who could not imagine anyone else as Elinor.
Q 30Which Oscar did the screenwriter and star of the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility win for it?
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Adapted Screenplay made her the first person to win Oscars for both acting and writing, on a night when she was also up for Best Actress and lost to Susan Sarandon.