The author of the novel Sense and Sensibility is Jane Austen, a six-letter word. Austen was an English novelist who wrote during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is best known for her six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Sense and Sensibility is a novel that follows the Dashwood sisters as they navigate their way through the social norms of the time.