Emma

Select a format:

Retailers:

Amazon Blackwells Bookshop.org Foyles Hive Waterstones WHSmith

Summary

Discover the classic story behind the major new film

'Jane Austen's Emma is her masterpiece, mixing the sparkle of her early books with a deep sensibility' Observer

Emma is young, rich and independent. She has decided not to get married and instead spends her time organising her acquaintances' love affairs. Her plans for the matrimonial success of her new friend Harriet, however, lead her into complications that ultimately test her own detachment from the world of romance.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDREW MOTION

Reviews

Austen's characters are unquestionably one key to her greatness. Her understanding of the human heart is forensic and also frosted with the necessary detachment that gives deeper meaning to her rendering of human frailty.. In Emma, Jane Austen shows us the halting development of an adolescent girl from perky narcissism to something approaching empathy
Guardian

About the author

Jane Austen

Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818.

Learn More