&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:EmmaTitlePage.jpg) Title page of the first edition, 1816 | |
| Author | Jane Austen |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel of manners |
| Set in | Southern England and Yorkshire, early 19th century |
| Published | 1816 (published on 23 December 1815, although the title page is dated 1816)[1] |
| Publisher | John Murray |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print: hardback |
| Pages | 1,036, in three volumes |
| 823.7 | |
| LC Class | PR4034 .E5 |
| Preceded by | Mansfield Park |
| Followed by | Northanger Abbey |
| Text | Emma at Wikisource |
Emma is a novel written by English author Jane Austen. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families.[2] The novel was first published in December 1815, although the title page is dated 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners.
Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."[3] In the first sentence, she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition... had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her."[4] Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.
Emma, written after Austen's move to Chawton, was her last novel to be published during her lifetime,[5] while Persuasion, the last complete novel Austen wrote, was published posthumously.
The novel has been adapted for a number of films, television programmes and stage plays.
- ^ "Books Published This Day [NB: advertisement states Emma is published "tomorrow"]". The Morning Chronicle. 22 December 1815. p. 1.
- ^ Austen-Leigh, William and Richard Arthur (1965). Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. New York: Russell and Russell. p. 237.
- ^ Austen-Leigh, James Edward (1882). A Memoir of Jane Austen. London: Richard Bentley & Sons. p. 157.
- ^ Austen, Jane (2012). Justice, George (ed.). Emma (4th Norton Critical ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-92764-1.
- ^ Burrows, John Frederick Burrows (1968). Jane Austen's Emma. Australia: Sydney University Press. p. 7.