Book description
With an essay by David Lodge.
'I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I
do not think I ever shall'
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 prot g e
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.
The Penguin English Library - 100 paperbacks of the best fiction
written in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first
novels to the beginning of the First World War.
Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of English literature's greatest
and most widely-read writers - one of the four 'great English
novelists' according to F. R. Leavis (along with George Eliot, Henry
James and Joseph Conrad). Emma was the fourth of Austen's six
novels to be published. Of the eponymous Emma, Austen wrote 'I am
going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like'.
Whether or not readers agree with the assessment, Emma endures as one
of the strongest female characters to emerge from eighteenth-century
English fiction.
Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice,
Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
are also published in the Penguin English Library.
