> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 1 October 2007
  • ISBN: 9780099511168
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $19.99

Emma

  • Jane Austen




'The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself' - Emma, Jane Austen

Discover the classic story behind the major new film

'Jane Austen's Emma is her masterpiece, mixing the sparkle of her early books with a deep sensibility' Observer

Emma is young, rich and independent. She has decided not to get married and instead spends her time organising her acquaintances' love affairs. Her plans for the matrimonial success of her new friend Harriet, however, lead her into complications that ultimately test her own detachment from the world of romance.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDREW MOTION

  • Published: 1 October 2007
  • ISBN: 9780099511168
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $19.99

Other books in the series

Emma
Persuasion
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

Praise for Emma

Austen's characters are unquestionably one key to her greatness. Her understanding of the human heart is forensic and also frosted with the necessary detachment that gives deeper meaning to her rendering of human frailty.. In Emma, Jane Austen shows us the halting development of an adolescent girl from perky narcissism to something approaching empathy

Guardian

It is the cleverest of books. I especially love the dialogue - every speech reveals the characters' obsessions and preoccupations, yet it remains perfectly natural...absolutely gripping

Susannah Clarke

Jane Austen is my favourite author! Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers

E.M. Forster

The wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste

Virginia Woolf

Like Irvine Welsh, I am a great admirer of Jane Austen

Alexander McCall Smith

For those of us who suspect all the mysteries of life are contained in the microcosm of the family, that personal relationships prefigure all else, the work of Jane Austen is the Rosetta Stone of literature

Anna Quindlen

How could these novels ever seem remote...the gaiety is unextinguished today, the irony has kept its bite, the reasoning is still sweet, the sparkle undiminished, as comedies they are irresistibly and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be

Eudora Welty

That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with

Sir Walter Scott

I'd like to write a play as perfect as Emma

Simon Gray

Discover more

Article
QUIZ: Which Jane Austen novel do you belong in?

As Austen fans, we often imagine ourselves living between the pages of our favourite stories. With the help of this quiz, you can find out which book you'd be transported to.

penguin pop image
penguin pop image