Emma
A Novel
Emma features one of Jane Austen's most unforgettable characters, an irresistible yet misguided young woman who must learn not to meddle with others' hearts--and in the process learn how to understand her own.
Twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominates the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people’s lives—for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, the dangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish but sweet Harriet Smith, and the ambitious young vicar Mr. Elton—and ends with her complacency shattered, her mind awakened to some of life’s more intractable dilemmas, and her happiness assured.
Austen’s comic imagination was so deft and beautifully…
$13.50
September 4, 2007Though 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 ample opportunity to study the habits of the middle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At 21, 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…