Emma

by Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble (Introduction), Sabrina Jeffries (Afterword)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Jane Austen’s sass and satire are always wonderful companions, and nowhere are they more prominent than in Emma, the story of a hapless matchmaker and her genuine attempts to spark love. It’s heartfelt, hilarious and an endearing classic.

The 200th Anniversary Edition of Jane Austen’s classic novel.

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition…had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”
 
The celebrated opening of Jane Austen’s Emma introduces readers to her most unforgettable character: a supremely self-assured and accomplished young woman who believes herself immune to romance. By turns brilliant and foolish, self-aware and self-deluding, Emma “leaps from error to error,” writes Margaret Drabble in her incisive Introduction, wreaking comic havoc in the lives of those around her. The mature flowering of Austen’s singular and prolific genius, Emma is also a fascinating, hilarious, and timeless coming-of-age tale—the compelling story of a woman seeking her true nature and finding true love in the process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451530820
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/02/2008
Series:	Signet Classics Series
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.88(h) x 1.12(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born in Hampshire, England, to George Austen, a rector, and his wife, Cassandra. Like many girls of her day, she was educated at home, where she began her literary career by writing parodies and skits for the amusement of her large family. Although Austen did not marry, she did have several suitors and once accepted a marriage proposal, but only for an evening. Although Austen never lived apart from her family, her work shows a worldly and wise sensibility. Her novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together posthumously in 1818.
 
Margaret Drabble is the highly acclaimed novelist, biographer, and editor of The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Her novels include The Gates of Ivory, The Seven Sisters, and The Red Queen. She lives in London.
 
Sabrina Jeffries is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty-five novels. Despite her Ph.D. in Early Modern British Literature from Tulane University, she abandoned academics for a rewarding career writing sexy and humorous historical romances. She lives in North Carolina.

Date of Birth:

December 16, 1775

Date of Death:

July 18, 1817

Place of Birth:

Village of Steventon in Hampshire, England

Place of Death:

Winchester, Hampshire, England

Education:

Taught at home by her father

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Emma"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Jane Austen.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

	About the Series	v
	About This Volume	vii
	About the Text	xi
Part 1	Emma: The Complete Text in Cultural Context
	Introduction: Biographical and Historical Contexts	3
	The Complete Text	21
	Contextual Documents and Illustrations	382
	A Riddle	385
	Robin Adair	386
	from Unfortunate Situation of Females, Fashionably Educated, and Left without a Fortune. (1787)	387
	from Letter to His Son (1750)	389
	from Essays on the Picturesque (1810)	390
	from Our Domestic Policy. No I. (1829)	391
	Opinions of Emma (Ca. 1816)	392
	Crossed Letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra (June 20, 1808)	398
	The Frolics of the Sphynx (1820)	399
	Square Pianoforte (1805)	400
	A Barouche Landau (1805)	401
	A View of Box Hill, Surrey (1733)	401
	The Lincolnshire Ox (1790)	402
Part 2	Emma: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism
	A Critical History of Emma	405
	Gender Criticism and Emma	425
	What Is Gender Criticism?	425
	Gender Criticism: A Selected Bibliography	437
	A Gender Studies Perspective: Claudia L. Johnson, "Not at all what a man should be!": Remaking English Manhood in Emma	441
	Marxist Criticism and Emma	456
	What Is Marxist Criticism?	456
	Marxist Criticism: A Selected Bibliography	470
	A Marxist Perspective: Beth Fowkes Tobin, Aiding Impoverished Gentlewomen: Power and Class in Emma	473
	Cultural Criticism and Emma	488
	What Is Cultural Criticism?	488
	Cultural Criticism: A Selected Bibliography	503
	A Cultural Perspective: Paul Delany, "A Sort of Notch in the Donwell Estate": Intersections of Status and Class in Emma	508
	The New Historicism and Emma	524
	What Is the New Historicism?	524
	The New Historicism: A Selected Bibliography	538
	A New Historicist Perspective: Casey Finch and Peter Bowen, "The Tittle-Tattle of Highbury": Gossip and the Free Indirect Style in Emma	543
	Feminist Criticism and Emma	559
	What Is Feminist Criticism?	559
	Feminist Criticism: A Selected Bibliography	569
	A Feminist Perspective: Devoney Looser, "The Duty of Woman by Woman": Reforming Feminism in Emma	577
	Combining Perspectives on Emma	594
	Combining Perspectives: Marilyn Butler, Introduction to Emma	597
	Glossary of Critical and Theoretical Terms	615
	About the Contributors	635

What People are Saying About This

Harold. Bloom

"To me, as an American critic, Emma seems the most Englilsh of English novels....It is Austin's masterpiece, the largest triumph of her vigorous art."

From the Publisher

"No one creates silly English characters better than Austen, and Wanda McCaddon is up to the challenge." —-AudioFile

Reading Group Guide

1. Describe the class and rank of various characters in the village of Highbury. Compare the positions of Mr. Weston, Mr. Elton, Miss Taylor, Harriet, and Emma with others in Highbury. How do matters of class affect the interaction of these characters, and would you describe class as being rigid or flexible as it is depicted by Jane Austen? To what extent can class be said to be of central importance to the development of the novel, since it is one of the most important considerations in marriage? Does class seem to be treated differently by those in Highbury than it does by outsiders, for example Frank Churchill and Mrs. Elton? Do you think it is significant that no woman in Highbury is of Emma's age and rank?

2. How does the relationship between Mr. Knightley and Emma change throughout the course of the novel? Although Austen does not directly tell us what their relationship was like during Emma's childhood, their long and intimate friendship is established at the novel's opening. In light of their occasional quarrels and Knightley's criticisms of Emma, for example, the criticism he made on Box Hill, how does Mr. Knightley feel about Emma? Do Mr. Knightley's feelings change as the novel progresses? If they do, what incidents account for the changes in his feelings?

3. Does Emma act as a good friend to Harriet Smith? Are Emma's concerns for Harriet's education and refinement born of an honest desire to help, or is it something less altruistic? Are Mr. Knightley's criticisms of Emma's interference with Mr. Martin's marriage proposal justified? Does Harriet ultimately benefit from Emma's friendship or her attempts to help her?

4. While matchmaking isthe central device in Emma, both for the plot and as a backdrop to develop characters, not all of the matches made in the novel are good. Compare the matches made between Mr. Weston and Miss Taylor, Emma and Mr. Knightley, Harriet and Mr. Martin, Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, and Mr. Elton and Mrs. Elton. Which are good matches and which are bad? What character traits in the couples make them suited or unsuited for each other? Why are the mismatches so important to the story?

5. In the final analysis, is Emma a sympathetic character? Does she seem to have good intentions only marred by a slight desire to interfere with other people's lives, or is she thoughtless and unconcerned with the effects she has on others? In your estimation, is Emma ultimately moral or immoral? What specific incidents in the novel lead you to that conclusion?

Editorial Reviews

A great artist, equal in her small sphere to Shakespeare.”—Alfred Lord Tennyson

From the Publisher

No one creates silly English characters better than Austen, and Wanda McCaddon is up to the challenge.

AudioFile

Jane Austen is my favorite author!”

E. M. Forster

Jane Austen is my favorite author! ... Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers.”

EM Forster

Austen's characters are unquestionably one key to her greatness.”

Guardian (London)