Emma (Broadview Editions) - Softcover

Jane Austen; Kristin Flieger Samuelian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 155111321X ISBN 13: 9781551113210

Publisher: Broadview Press, 2004

Synopsis

Jane Austen's Emma (1816) tells the story of the coming of age of Emma Woodhouse, "handsome, clever, and rich," who "had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Typical for the novel's time, Emma's transition to womanhood is accomplished through courtship—both of those around her and, ultimately, her own. As in other Austen works, education and courtship go hand in hand, and Emma's process of learning to relinquish the power of having her own way is also a process of falling in love. However, in Emma this classic plot is both complicated by and reflective of a collection of contemporary issues, assumptions, and anxieties that highlight just how "political" even the most conventional of courtship plots can be.

This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and an extensive collection of historical documents relating to the composition and reception of the novel, the social implications of England's shift from a rural agrarian to an urban industrial economy, the role of women in provincial society, and the contemporary preoccupation with health and the treatment of illness.

About this title

Review

"I should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of return; it would do her good," remarks one of Jane Austen's characters in Emma.

Quick-witted, beautiful, headstrong and rich, Emma Woodhouse is inordinately fond of match-making select inhabitants of the village of Highbury, yet aloof and oblivious as to the question of whom she herself might marry. This paradox multiplies the intrigues and sparkling ironies of Jane Austen's masterpiece, her comedy of a sentimental education through which Emma discovers a capacity for love and marriage.

Review

"This is an excellent package of well-edited text and thoughtful introduction, notes and sources. A handsome, clever and rich edition that sets Emma firmly in its social contexts and is ideal for introducing the historical aspects of Austen's classic courtship narrative." - Ashley Tauchert, University of Exeter

"With its wide-ranging introduction and informative appendices documenting issues of social class, gypsies and illegitimacy, women's roles, illness, and Jane Austen as an author, Kristin Flieger Samuelian's edition will be highly valued by those who read Emma with an eye to social history. Broadview Austen editions are second to none." - Devoney Looser, University of Missouri, Columbia

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 155111321X
• ISBN 13: 9781551113210
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 456