Emma

Beautiful, clever, rich—and single—Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée, Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen's most flawless work.

This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition celebrates two hundred years of Austen's beloved novel. With a beautiful cover designed by illustrator Dadu Shin and comprehensive notes drawing specially from the Jane Austen Collection at Goucher College, this is an edition to be treasured by students and collectors alike.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Review by John Purcell

I started the year by rereading Jane Austen's Emma. I felt the need to recalibrate my sensibilities after the horror year that was 2016. And nothing but the clear, sensible and wise voice of Jane Austen would do.

Why Emma, when I might have chosen Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility or the truly sublime Persuasion?

Let's face it, 2017 already looks irredeemable. Soon Trump will be king of the world. In this climate it will be easy to give up all hope in the possibility for positive change.

Which is why I turned to Emma over the other novels. Emma Woodhouse, whom Jane Austen said was 'a heroine whom no one but myself will much like', is young, beautiful, rich, headstrong, conceited and blind to many of her own faults. If alive today, Emma would be Insta-famous. But, and this is why I turned to Emma, she learns from her mistakes, eventually, and becomes a better person. This book offers hope.

Unlike other Austen heroines, Emma isn't perfect; she starts off with the great handicap of her own faults, and appears to be fixed in her ways. The world around her doesn't need to be changed, she needs to change. This is opposite to the difficulties faced by her other heroines.

And it is a good lesson in these dark days. We don't need to change the world. We need only change ourselves. Then the problems of the world will fix themselves.

About the Author

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was extremely modest about her own genius but has become one of English literature's most famous women writers. She is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey.