The Dashwood girls are in dire straits. They are the
daughters of their father’s
second wife, and his first wife had
a son with him. She also had a fortune that she left to him,
and their father’s
estates (Norland) and modest wealth were legally torn apart
with his Last Will and Testament, unbeknownst to him. When he died, the estates were left to his
married son and small grandson, with the promise from Mr. John Dashwood that he
would care for his step-mother and half-sisters. Each was given a modest sum of money in the
beginning, but John Dashwood’s wife, petty and small-minded, greedily convinces
him to remove not only all of their father’s annuity from them, but to remove
any access to proper carriages and the like that they would otherwise have on
their own. She even demands her
mother-in-law’s fine china from her house, given she doesn’t feel anything so
nice should be left to what she considers squalor (anything outside of
Norland).
The three
daughters are
Elinor, the eldest (at nineteen) with good sense and a temperate, stout
demeanor; Marianne, the second-born girl whose emotions were stronger than her
sister’s and whose prudence was lacking; and thirteen year old Margaret, who
was by far the least sensible and overly-romantic of the three. The four grieving women stay with their
horrid family members for six months after the demise of their father and
husband, but finally try to leave the estates – held back only, in the end, by
Elinor’s growing attachment to Edward Ferrars, her very wealthy
brother-in-law. The trouble is that
Edward has a lack of something inside him that makes Elinor doubt his unspoken
feelings towards her. Her mother finds a
cottage far from Sussex to live in with her daughters just north of Exeter, and Barton Cottage is open to visitors of family and
friends.
Despite meeting new friends and
associates there, trouble is on the horizon: a cad by the name of Willoughby stirs up the girls, and ultimately Marianne falls to
his charms, becoming broken-hearted. The
two Steele sisters enter their lives, and Lucy Steele means to make trouble for
the Dashwoods by taking Edward for herself by hook or by crook. In the end, Marianne’s disappointment doesn’t
last, and she finds a husband in Colonel Brandon who suits her better than Willoughby would have, and Elinor is reunited with her Edward,
who breaks his engagement to Lucy Steele.