The family of Dashwood had been long settled in Sussex.
Sense and Sensibility (working title; Elinor and Marianne) is the first novel by the English author Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously: By A Lady appears on the title page where the author's name might have been. The novel is probably set between 1792 and 1797 and follows the three Dashwood sisters and their widowed mother as they are forced to leave the family estate in Sussex and move to a modest cottage on the property of distant relative in Devon. There the two eldest girls experience love and heartbreak that tries the contrasting characters of both.