Emma By Jane Austen

ISBN : 9781853260285

Wordsworth Editions Ltd; Reprint edition (August 31, 1997)

softcover, 393 pages 

Emma by Jane Austen. Jane Austen teased readers with the idea of a 'heroine whom no one but myself will much like', but Emma is irresistible. 'Handsome, clever, and rich', Emma is also an 'imaginist', 'on fire with speculation and foresight'. She sees the signs of romance all around her, but thinks she will never be married. Her matchmaking maps out relationships that Jane Austen ironically tweaks into a clearer perspective. Judgement and imagination are matched in games the reader too can enjoy, and the end is a triumph of understanding.\n\nEditorial Reviews\n\nReview\n'Jane Austen is my favorite author!... Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers.' --E.M.Forster\n\nFrom the Back Cover\nAusten wrote about the world she inhabited, the English countryside, but was never constrained by her relatively narrow canvas. She endures for modern readers because of her wonderful comic irony and her acute observations of the nuances of social interaction, beautifully rendered in pellucid prose. As Emma Woodhouse attempts to orchestrate the romatic lives of those around her, Austen expertly reveals that she may not be as much in control as she would like to believe. Emma was first published in 1816, the year before Jane Austen died. Austen herself thought that Emma was someone "no one but myself will much like". In spite of Austen's fears, the indomitable Emma Woodhouse continues to win the loyal hearts of each new heneration of readers.\n\nAbout the Author\nThough the domain of Jane Austen's novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the equal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventh child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775, she was educated mainly at home. At an early age she began writing sketches and satires of popular novels for her family s entertainment. As a clergyman s daughter from a well-connected family, she had an ample opportunity to study the habits of the middle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At twenty-one, she began a novel called The First Impressions an early version of Pride and Prejudice. In 1801, on her father s retirement, the family moved to the fashionable resort of Bath. Two years later she sold the first version of Northanger Abby to a London publisher, but the first of her novels to appear was Sense and Sensibility, published at her own expense in 1811. It was followed by Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). After her father died in 1805, the family first moved to Southampton then to Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Despite this relative retirement, Jane Austen was still in touch with a wider world, mainly through her brothers; one had become a very rich country gentleman, another a London banker, and two were naval officers. Though her many novels were published anonymously, she had many early and devoted readers, among them the Prince Regent and Sir Walter Scott. In 1816, in declining health, Austen wrote Persuasion and revised Northanger Abby, Her last work, Sandition, was left unfinished at her death on July 18, 1817. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Austen s identity as an author was announced to the world posthumously by her brother Henry, who supervised the publication of Northanger Abby and Persuasion in 1818.