It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of the greatest English novelists and Emma is, for many readers, her finest achievement. It is a social comedy, with finely observed studies of the foibles and failings of a small group of characters in a small English community in the early nineteenth century. Those characters are also instantly familiar to our own experience. Moreover, Emma is a searching study of the mind and actions of a young woman who is handsome, clever and rich. Emma’s is our main perspective on the action, but she is at the same time blind to crucial aspects of both other people and herself. The triumph of Austen’s technique is to make a figure of potentially destructive egotism one who engages our profound sympathy and understanding.
Based on the first edition, published in 1816, with hyperlinked explanatory notes and extensive critical commentary by Dr W.B. Hutchings.
