While Pride and Prejudice may sit at the top of many people’s favourite Jane Austen books, Emma has to be a contender for the title too. For me Emma has a little more bite, it isn’t quite as comfortable a read as Pride and Prejudice, and that makes it more interesting. In terms of lead characters Emma is right up there, she may be headstrong, snobbish, convinced she knows best, yet because of those characteristics, because she isn't perfect, she also feels so very real. Emma is a bright, beautifully written novel with real heart and I love it.
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| Primary Genre | Classic fiction: general and literary |
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Emma stands a little apart from Jane Austen's other novels. It is perhaps the most self-aware, socially critical and ironic of all her works. Her protagonist, Emma Woodhouse, is a beautiful, rich girl who is also spoiled, proud and blinded by her own situation in life. She begins to understand herself and life a little better when her romantic schemes - charitable good works to those around her - become entangled in tensions of class and of the heart. Austen wrote of Emma, "e;I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like."e;
Emma features in the following genres: Literary Pick of the Month, Classic fiction: general and literary, General Fiction, Romance / Relationship Stories, Fiction
Emma is available in Hardback, Paperback, Ebook, CD-Audio
Emma was written by Jane Austen and published by The Floating Press
£2.69
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