Emma (Vintage Classics Austen Series)

Description

Part of the Vintage Classics Austen Series- all six of Jane Austen's major novels, beautifully designed by writer and illustrator Leanne Shapton and introduced by our finest contemporary writers '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

Jane Austen (Author) Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16 December 1775. Her family later moved to Bath, then to Southampton and finally to Chawton in Hampshire. She began writing Pride and Prejudice when she was twenty-two years old. It was originally called First Impressions and was initially rejected by the publishers and only published in 1813 after much revision. She published four of her novels in her lifetime, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Jane Austen died on 18th July 1817. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were both published posthumously in 1818. Andrew Motion (Introducer) Andrew Motion is the former Poet Laureate, co-founded the Poetry Archive and was knighted for his services to literature in 2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in London.

Whatever age you are, Austen has something for you. I would go further, in fact, to assert that a reader never comes away from an Austen novel empty-handed * Joanna Trollope * 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 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 * 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