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Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. The title character, Emma Woodhouse, is queen of her little community. She is lovely and wealthy. Se has no mother; her fussy, fragile father imposes no curbs on either her behavior or her self-satisfaction. Everyone else in the village is deferentially lower in social standing. Only Mr. Knightley, an old family friend, ever suggests she needs improvement. Emma has a taste for matchmaking. When she meets pretty Harriet Smith, "the natural daughter of somebody," Emma takes her up as both a friend and a cause. Emma has a taste for matchmaking. Uninterested in marriage at the book's beginning, she happily engages herself to Mr. Knightly before its end. ~amazon review
“It is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do." - Jane Austen, (London 1816)
Jane Austen (1775-1817) is considered by many scholars to be the first great woman novelist. Her novels revolve around people, not events or coincidences. Miss Austen sets her novels in the upper middle class English country which was her own environment. Her novels have increased in stature over time. Her skills of writing, including a dry humor and a witty elegance of expression have attracted generations to her work. Jane Austen began to write Emma in January of 1814 and finished it a little over a year later, in March of 1815. At the time of completion, Austen was thirty-nine years old. Emma was published at the end of 1815, with 2,000 copies being printed—563, more than a quarter, were still unsold after four years. She earned less than forty pounds from the book during her lifetime, though it earned more after her death. Austen died a year and a half after publication. ~review
Jane Austen Quotes
"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal." -- letter of December 24, 1798
“I have read [Byron's] The Corsair, mended my petticoat, and have nothing else to do." -- letter of March 5, 1814
"I... do not think the worse of him for having a brain so very different from mine. …-- letter of March 23, 1817
