LoveReading Says
While Pride and Prejudice may sit at the top of many people’s favourite Jane Austen books, Emma has to be a contender for the title too. For me Emma has a little more bite, it isn’t quite as comfortable a read as Pride and Prejudice, and that makes it more interesting. In terms of lead characters Emma is right up there, she may be headstrong, snobbish, convinced she knows best, yet because of those characteristics, because she isn't perfect, she also feels so very real. Emma is a bright, beautifully written novel with real heart and I love it.
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Emma Synopsis
From what acclaimed novelist Jane Austen wrongly suspected was the least-liked of her protagonists comes a character unlike any other. Emma is the story of a fiercely independent young woman who defines the boundaries of what a conventional lady was supposed to resemble in 19th century Britain. Emma Woodhouse is a bit of an anomaly in her sleepy town of Highbury. Curious, intelligent, and spoiled rotten, Emma is a young lady whose nose is always in other people's business. With nothing but time on her hands, Emma delights in the chaos of her good intentions gone awry. With an inclination towards matchmaking, she decides this skill is one that must be perfected, even at the expense others. Quickly becoming the self-professed village matchmaker, it isn't until Emma's own heart is on the line that she realizes she's gone perhaps a bit too far.Now a major Hollywood film starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma, Johnny Flynn as Mr. Knightly, and Bill Nighy as Mr. Woodhouse, Jane Austen's Emma continues to resonate with readers of all ages. With an eye-catching new cover, and a cleanly typeset manuscript, this edition of Emma is both modern, and readable.
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About Jane Austen
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on 18 July 1817.
As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives.
Fellow novelist Katharine McMahon on Jane Austen...
I can't not choose her. And whichever I've read last is always my favourite. The nuance of emotion, the understanding of human nature revealed by Austen constantly delights me. When I reread Sense and Sensibility recently, for the first time Elinor came across as quite prissy and destined to marry a rather spineless husband. I wonder if that was intended?
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