Emma (Word Cloud Classics) - Softcover

Austen, Jane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1607109468 ISBN 13: 9781607109464

Publisher: Canterbury Classics, 2013

Synopsis

“She was one of those who, having once begun, would be always in love.”

Best-selling Victorian author Jane Austen has created many memorable female characters, with intriguing Emma Woodhouse being perhaps the most popular. Emma, a matchmaker at heart, is obsessed with love and romance--for others. As for her own love life, she wants nothing of it. She even feels repulsed by the amorous declarations she receives. But as her matchmaking schemes go awry, and her friend Harriet shares her feelings toward a certain friend, Mr. Knightley, Emma soon becomes aware of her own heart’s longings.

 

* This beautiful book comes with luxurious endpapers, a beautiful and stylish heat-burnished cover, and is a convenient 5 x 7 trim size for easy handling.

* The classic has sold millions of copies since its first publication.

 

Emma has been one of the most charming coming-of-age love stories for nearly two centuries.

 

About the Word Cloud Classics series:

Classic works of literature with a clean, modern aesthetic! Perfect for both old and new literature fans, the Word Cloud Classics series from Canterbury Classics provides a chic and inexpensive introduction to timeless tales. With a higher production value, including heat burnished covers and foil stamping, these eye-catching, easy-to-hold editions are the perfect gift for students and fans of literature everywhere.

About this title

Review

Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennet has more wit and sparkle; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey more imagination; and Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood certainly more sense--but Emma is lovable precisely because she is so imperfect. Austen only completed six novels in her lifetime, of which five feature young women whose chances for making a good marriage depend greatly on financial issues, and whose prospects if they fail are rather grim. Emma is the exception: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." One may be tempted to wonder what Austen could possibly find to say about so fortunate a character. The answer is, quite a lot.

For Emma, raised to think well of herself, has such a high opinion of her own worth that it blinds her to the opinions of others. The story revolves around a comedy of errors: Emma befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, and attempts to remake her in her own image. Ignoring the gaping difference in their respective fortunes and stations in life, Emma convinces herself and her friend that Harriet should look as high as Emma herself might for a husband--and she zeroes in on an ambitious vicar as the perfect match. At the same time, she reads too much into a flirtation with Frank Churchill, the newly arrived son of family friends, and thoughtlessly starts a rumor about poor but beautiful Jane Fairfax, the beloved niece of two genteelly impoverished elderly ladies in the village. As Emma's fantastically misguided schemes threaten to surge out of control, the voice of reason is provided by Mr. Knightly, the Woodhouse's longtime friend and neighbor. Though Austen herself described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," she endowed her creation with enough charm to see her through her most egregious behavior, and the saving grace of being able to learn from her mistakes. By the end of the novel Harriet, Frank, and Jane are all properly accounted for, Emma is wiser (though certainly not sadder), and the reader has had the satisfaction of enjoying Jane Austen at the height of her powers. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

Emma is Austen's most technically accomplished novel, with a hidden plot, the full implications of which are only revealed by a second reading. The text presented here retains the spelling and punctuation of the first edition of 1816, allowing readers to see the novel as Austen's contemporaries first encountered it. The volume provides comprehensive explanatory notes, an extensive critical introduction, a chronology of Austen's life, and an authoritative textual apparatus. This edition is an indispensable resource for all scholars and readers of Austen.

Edition details

• Publisher: Canterbury Classics
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1607109468
• ISBN 13: 9781607109464
• Binding: Flexibound
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344