Like _Northanger Abbey_ it has a certain dependence on something else: the extravagances of Marianne satirise the Sensibility-novel just as those of Catherine do the Terror-story of the immediate past.

But it is on a much larger scale: and things of the kind are better in miniature.

Moreover, the author's sense of creative faculty made her try to throw up and contrast her heroine with other characters, in a way which she had not attempted in _Northanger Abbey_: and good as these are in themselves, they make a less perfect whole.

Indeed, in the order of thought, _Sense and Sensibility_ is the "youngest" of the novels--the least self-criticised.
Nothing in it shows lack of power (John Dashwood and his wife are of the first order); a good deal in it shows lack of knowledge exactly how to direct that power.
_Mansfield Park_ (1814), though hardly as brilliant as _Pride and Prejudice_, shows much more maturity than _Sense and Sensibility_.

Much of it is quite consummate, the character of Mrs.Norris especially: and for subtly interwoven phrase without emphasis, conveying knowledge and criticism of life, it has few equals.