Devonshire, present-day Devon, is the village where the Dashwood’s move to after the passing of Mr. Dashwood. The four Dashwood women leave their luxurious home in Sussex, England to live in the less-fancy, Barton Cottage, in Southwest England. The village is described by Jane Austen in Sense and Sensibility as, “chiefly on one of these hills and formed a pleasant view from the cottage windows. The prospect in front was more extensive; it commanded the whole of the valley and reached into the country beyond. The hills which surrounded the cottage terminated the valley in that direction; under another name, and in another course, it branched out again between two of the steepest of them” (Austen). Austen uses a lot of environmental imagery, which is accurate of Devonshire. It is home to many cliffs and beaches, with the largest open space in southern England (“Devon”). Readers of Austen’s novel also notice that many scenes in her text occur outside; walks throughout nature are taken, and picnics in the park happen often. Austen writes, “The whole country about them abounded in beautiful walks. The high downs, which invited them from almost every window of the cottage to seek the exquisite enjoyment of air on their summits…and towards one of these hills did Marianne and Margaret one memorable morning direct their steps, attracted by the partial sunshine of a showery sky” (Austen). This could be linked to the beautiful countryside’s that are apart of Devonshire, and not including the descriptive imagery would do the landscape of Devonshire injustice.

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. T. Edgarton, Whitehall, 1811. 

“Devon.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devon.