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
This beautifully designed original edition of Jane Austen's beloved novel, twice released as a major motion picture, is about a spoiled, precocious, headstrong young woman, Emma Woodhouse, who is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives. Set in Regency England in the early nineteenth century, Emma lives with her wealthy, kindly, yet eccentric father who is quite the hypochondriac. Lovable, beautiful, wealthy and smart, Emma enjoys matchmaking and believes that she can determine people's emotions and whom they love simply by watching them. Unfortunately, she is also a spoiled, meddlesome snob and not at all good at arranging marriages. Her rich imagination and mistaken perceptions lead her astray in this playful comedy of manners which highlights England's country society and their obsession with social distinctions as well as the dependence of women on marriage at that time to secure their class rank and economic security. Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among England's high society with their country estates and emphasis on social standing, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her timeless stories of the landed gentry have been turned into a host of movies and television shows, and translated into multiple languages. Her realism and stinging social commentary have cemented her historical importance among scholars and critics alike. Readers, young and old, have enjoyed being a part of that era through Austen's rich and memorable characters as they romp through her detailed novels of English country life in the nineteenth century.
About This Edition
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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