Jane Austen

New chronology and further reading; Tony Tanner's original introduction reinstated Edited with an introduction and notes by Flora Stafford.

Emma

Emma (Classic Fiction)

Paige Leitner

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more,"

Ginebra. 

Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature, and I do not think I ever shall.

Jane Austen chamou este trabalho de 'meu filho querido' e sua heroína vivaz, Elizabeth Bennet, de a criatura mais encantadora que já apareceu na imprensa. A atração irresistível que ela retrata entre a brilhante e independente Elizabeth Bennet e o solenemente austero senhor Darcy está entre as maiores, mais românticas e mais engraçadas histórias de amor já contadas. O confronto romântico entre Elizabeth e o senhor Darcy é uma esplêndida atuação de luta civilizada. A sagacidade radiante de Jane Austen transborda enquanto seus personagens dançam uma delicada quadrilha de flerte e intriga, tornando este livro a mais excelente comédia de costumes da Regência da Inglaterra.

Orgulho e preconceito

nina

"Assim fui, dos oito aos vinte e oito anos; e assim continuaria sendo se não fosse por você, querida, adorável Elizabeth."

"Meus desejos e afeição permanacem intactos, mas uma única palavra sua me fará silenciá-los para sempre."

Emma is a sweetheart for seeing this in Harriet especially after the events :( reflecting and realising a lot

hades

Harriet was the superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could do.

If she had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to wonder that he, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken her's.

"and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's."

"That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other." 

Élise

'Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.

Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen's most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.

emma reread because i miss her <3 also i wish that were me so bad

horu

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.

Penguin Cl�sicos publica en una cuidada edici�n esta obra maestra de la literatura inglesa de todos los tiempos, para conmemorar el bicentenario de la publicaci�n original de la novela en 1813. A lo largo de una trama que discurre con la precisi�n de un mecanismo de relojer�a, Jane Austen perfila una galer�a de personajes que conforman un perfecto y sutil retrato de la �poca: las peripecias de una dama empe�ada en casar a sus hijas con el mejor partido de la regi�n, los vaivenes sentimentales de las hermanas, el oportunismo de un cl�rigo adulador... El trazado de los caracteres y el an�lisis de las relaciones humanas sometidas a un r�gido c�digo de costumbres, elementos esenciales de la narrativa de la autora, alcanzan en Orgullo y prejuicio cotas de maestr�a insuperable.�Pero mi locura no ha sido el amor sino la vanidad.� ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Penguin Classics has published this all-time masterpiece of British literature in a special edition to commemorate the bicentennial of the original novel's publication in 1813. Throughout a plot that flows with the precision of clockwork, Jane Austen profiles a gallery of characters who make up a perfect yet subtle portrait of the time: the drama of a lady determined to marry off her daughters to the biggest catches in the area, the ups and downs of the sisters, the opportunism of a sweet-talking minister... the outline of the characters and analysis of the human relationships subjected to a rigid code of customs, essential elements of the author's narrative, reach insurmountable heights of mastery in Pride and Prejudice. "But vanity, not love, has been my folly."

Orgullo y Prejuicio (Edicion Conmemorativa) / Pride and Prejudice (Commemorative Edition)

Valeria

Un proyecto que promete innumerables delicias nunca puede tener éxito, y la decepción general solo se salva gracias a algún detalle molesto.

No importa el modo en que me hubiese declarado su amor, siempre lo habría rechazado.

Una triste alternativa se te ofrece, Elizabeth. Desde este día tienes que ser extraña a uno de tus padres. Tu madre no quiere volver a hablarte si no te casas con Collins, y yo no quiero volver a verte si te casas con él.

Los que jamás cambian de opinión deben asegurarse de juzgar bien al principio.

Storm

It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself!

Common sense would have directed her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him, and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring for her. - ‘But, with common sense,’ she added, ‘I am afraid I have had little to do.’

She liked his open manners, but a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher character. —General benevolence, but not friendship, made a man what he ought to be. — She could fancy such a man.

Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch; and though he did not say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening.

The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, ‘Men never know when things are dirty or not;’ and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, ‘Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares.’

I love Jane Austen's writing, she was witty and ahead of her time. I think the story, while listening on audiobook, can get a little long-winded. But generally, Austen includes a lot of detail in her writing. 

I actually haven't seen or read anything about Emma before, so this was totally new to me and I'm pleasantly surprised! 

I listened to this as an audiobook! 

I love Jane Austen's writing, she was witty and ahead of her time. I think the story, while listening on audiobook, can get a little long-winded. But generally, Austen includes a lot of detail in her writing. 

I actually haven't seen or read anything about Emma before, so this was totally new to me and I'm pleasantly surprised! 

Ronald Blythe

Emma (Penguin Classics)

Demon

** spoiler alert **
           Follow Emma through her journey to find a husband to Harriet, her friend! Emma will also give us her view upon marriage, letting us dive into questioning on friendship, relationship and neighborhood relations. Will Emma find her own place? 
I really enjoyed reading this book. It was honestly my first Jane Austen’s book so I wasn’t familiar with her writing. I had questions all along the book and still had questions at the end but I think that it is good. The book and Jane Austen’s writing give us the opportunity to think about marriage during Austen’s time and also today. It also gives us the opportunity to think about friendship (between men and women, women and women, men and men), family dynamics (death of Emma’s mother, the place of her father, her own place in her family for example), the place in society (the example of Harriet but also Miss Taylor, a governor marrying a man and so changing her status) but also relation with the neighborhood (how people saw Frank Churchill at first, the first impression on Jane). I really love how the book deals with a lot of different things and even if it is from a romantic author, I think it can be seen as realistic. Some struggles the characters encounter, in their own period of time, can be a mirror of our own struggles in our own society. It is as if the book is intemporal even though the setting is not the same as our current period and society. 
I had some hard moments with different characters and I didn’t understand them all (I still don’t understand why Jane and Frank decided to not speak about their engagement nor understand why Harriet didn’t tell Emma earlier about her feelings for Mr. Knightley and I don’t always understand Emma’s actions) but overall, I think they are all really interesting and they all bring something new, fresh and a reflection upon the book and the different topics. I also think it is quite interesting to view all the different type of “happily ever after”. It is always with a wedding, true, but the characters experience a different type of wedding and their own are not the same. I think it was great to see that even the end of a story can have multiple happily ever after. If we were to do a retelling where Emma did not marry Mr. Knightley, could we have had considered it a “happily ever after”? I think so because she would have had been happy either way. In the end what matters the most for it to be a happily ever after it is if the characters are happy more than our own vision of this sentence.

Jane Austen's sparkling and flawless comic masterpiece is the story of Emma Woodhouse- rich, charming, spoilt, obsessed with matchmaking and blind to everyone's faults - including her own. Although Austen described Emma as a character 'whom no one but myself will much like', her wit and her gradual self-realization make her one of the author's most remarkable, believably imperfect heroines.

Andrea Mack

Last summer I had been watching the BBC versions of Jane Austen’s books. Then I realized… I’ve only ever read Pride & Prejudice! That was kind of a huge bummer, especially since I call myself a book worm. So I decided I should fix that…

So I picked up Emma by Jane Austen and jumped right in.

Except it wasn’t so much as jumping in; it was more of a trudging through incredibly heavy, sticky mud. While language doesn’t typically bother me, the mood I was in at the time made it so I just couldn’t face the English. I got maybe 40 pages in before I was starting to force myself to read two pages a night. Eventually I just gave up on trying. I wanted to read “candy books”, which are books you could read in a day or two, but don’t really take much effort on the reader’s part to finish.

And that surprised me a little, because out of the film and BBC versions of Austen’s books, Emma is my favourite!! So why wouldn’t I want to read something that I already knew I would like?

With the start of the new year, I was filled with renewed determination. I would finish Emma!

I managed to fly through it this time. It’s something we talk about at work a fair amount, is that you definitely need to be in the mood for certain books. And if you’re not in the mood to read it, you’re best to put it down and try something else.

Emma turned out to be better than I had been expecting!

The problem with film versions is that so many of the nuances and character development need to be cut out to keep the films to a reasonable length. Reading Emma gives you much more development between Emma and Mr. Knightley that it surprised me. There are nuances in the story that simply get lost when it’s put on the screen, but that are definitely needed to help give the story that added kick in the bum!

I will say, though, that the latest BBC version does a fabulous job translating the book to the screen. Much better than the film version.

Emma gets three and a half stars, and only loses half a star because I couldn’t get into it the first time. But since there are no half stars here, it gets four! 

[Originally posted to A Novel Idea, February 8, 2011. ]

Selin Igten

“I cannot make speeches Emma… If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, I have lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.” 

6/10

Maleesha Fernando

Isabella 

It's a very nice light hearted book. This novel is so reflective of society, and it was really entertaining to read, however, I didn't feel invested in the story nor the characters. I love Mr. Knightley though. The way he corrects Emma for her to improve, and it showed how much he cares about her. When he said, “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more," I wanted to SOB. That line is probably one of the most romantic lines I have ever read.

Emma (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)

Bella Koch

Most books that I read are mysteries with satisfying endings because you find out "whodunnit". Emma gives that same satisfaction in reading that mystery novels do, even though the events are fairly mundane and commonplace, not flashy, complex murders. In my opinion, that's Jane Austen's real skill: taking ordinary characters in ordinary contexts and making satisfying, fun reads out of them. 

I really enjoy this book and all the characters. It's interesting to read other reviews and see how people hate on Mr. Woodhouse, Miss Bates, and Emma. Of course, if you read them seriously, Mr. Woodhouse is selfish, Miss Bates is extremely annoying and Emma is painfully vain. But if you read the book with the understanding that Mr. Woodhouse and Miss Bates are ridiculous and funny and that Emma is just a naive, young girl, then they are much more enjoyable to read. Personally, I love that the heroine of this story is heavily flawed. She makes mistakes throughout the book which make her more realistic and also enable her to grow as a character. Both her flaws and her character development make her a more interesting character than if she had been less conceited and less naive. And let's be honest, if not for her flaws, this story wouldn't be a story at all.

vanessa

Loved this and Mr. Knightley. Further proof that I will always and forever be a Jane Austen stan.

allison chen

my rating is probably biased but whatever lol
i don't know if it's because i've been primed to think so, but emma is so relatable... my mom gifted me this book in 2016 and she kept on telling me that i reminded her of emma woodhouse.. i think it was her way of telling me to stop being so meddlesome and i sincerely want to believe that i've matured a little since then. 
emma is oblivious but also self-aware, so well-meaning but also so quick to judge... she's so real

julia

this book demonstrates jane austen's scary understanding and accuracy of describing human nature more than any other work of her i've read so far. it's really absorbing to read about how the title character slowly realises that despite her obvious intelligence, she's not as infallible as she thought.

jack

unfortunately couldn’t stop thinking abt clueless while reading.

i loved the start of it - but during volume ii, it dragged on so much that i couldn't even bring myself to finish it. it was dull, austere and void of emotion. which is a shame since it had so much potential!

Jane Austen 1815’te 39 yaşındayken tamamladığı Emma’nın en sevdiği romanı olduğu söyler. Aşk ve Gurur ve Mansfield Parkı gibi romanların yazarının gözbebeğidir bu kitap. Bir taşra kasabasındaki üç genç kızın gerçek aşkı arayışını anlatan roman, bir yandan insan yaradılışının zayıf yönlerini, bir yandan da XIX. yüzyıl İngiliz toplumunun katı ve ikiyüzlü geleneklerini sorgular, inceden inceye alaya alır.

Yağmur Yıldız

Geçen yaz Zeynep Ocak’ın etkisinde kalıp yemek yerken bitirdiğim 5 sezon Downton Abbey olmasa çok anlamsız gelecek bir kitaptı, ancak dönem kafada doğru oturtulduğu zaman keyifli bir romandı. Kitabın 2/3’ü karakterleri tanımak dışında vakit kaybı olsa da, son kısımları merak ve keyifle okuduğumu söyleyebilirim. Kaldı ki ilk 50-70 sayfada hikayenin sonunu tahmin etmiş olmamın yanı sıra yazarın sanki hiç tahmin edemezmişiz gibi tüm olayları açığa çıkarmasını da “seni şeytaan” diye alaya alıyorum. 

Dönem işi seviyorsanız okuyabilirsiniz, bazı yerleri eliniz otomatik atladığından çok sıkmaz. Ama birine de mutlaka oku diye tavsiye etmem.

i wish there were words that could sum up all the feelings i feel when i read this book. one of the most beloved couples in literature for me, nothing could express the size of my affection for this masterpiece, nor for my beloved lizzy and darcy. i will still read pride and prejudice again over the course of the year, and again, i will have the chance to feel all those sensations that only this book can cause in me.

emma, a bright young woman who leads a number of romantic mishaps due to her foolish believe in her ability to match people. 

she means well for her friends’ happiness, but constantly molds their views and beliefs into her own liking. she imposes her own ideas upon them making them believe that it would make them happy. 

a very delightful and enjoyable read but the first half was dragging. this is making me watch clueless instead.

esperanza 

iamazoo

this is officially my favorite jane austen novel. teenage me probably would have hated this one for being, i don’t know, “low brow”? but at my current age i find it honest and heartening. love it so much.

The exquisite illustrations of Marjolein Bastin meet timeless text in this elegant special edition of an English masterpiece. The Marjolein Bastin Classics Seriesis a chance to rediscover classic literature in collectible, luxuriously illustrated volumes. For the first time ever, the internationally celebrated artwork of Marjolein Bastin graces the pages of a timeless classic, Emma. Beyond bringing these stories to life, Bastin's series adds elaborately designed ephemera, such as letters, invitations, and more. Whether an ideal gift for an Austen or Brontë devotee or a treat for yourself, the Marjolein Bastin Classics Series, as a set or individually purchased, is perfect for anyone who feels a connection to these enduring literary gems.

Illustrations by Marjolein Bastin

debre

Thanks to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel for the advanced copy.


I'm a huge Jane Austen fan and Emma is one of my favorite books from her. I just love how determined and witty she is, and she always made me laugh. Mr. Knightley is too one of my faves! This edition is beautiful, couldn't keep it down just because of the illustrations, and, of course, the story!!!


I love it.

Die Geschichte war am Anfang etwas langweilig, da ist nicht viel besonderes passiert, zu lange Gespräche von den Charakteren und einige Einzelheiten wurde nicht richtig thematisiert. Der schreibstil war sehr einfach.

 Die letzen 50 Seiten waren aber dann spannend. 

Alles in einem ein schöner Klassiker. Fand aber Jayne Eyre viel schöner 

Asmae

Die Geschichte war am Anfang etwas langweilig, da ist nicht viel besonderes passiert, zu lange Gespräche von den Charakteren und einige Einzelheiten wurde nicht richtig thematisiert. Der schreibstil war sehr einfach.

 Die letzen 50 Seiten waren aber dann spannend. 

Alles in einem ein schöner Klassiker. Fand aber Jayne Eyre viel schöner 

Emma (Penguin Popular Classics)

Laura Mauler

Everything that Miss Bates said should have been cut down by 3/4. I understand that her character is irritatingly longwinded, and to show is better writing than to tell, but come on! By the end I was only reading a sentence or two of Miss Bates's page-long-or-more monologues, and then moving on; her words contained no useful content, and were merely there to demonstrate the high level of kindness and tolerance of Jane Fairfax et al. 

For that matter, most of Emma's internal monologues could have been trimmed quite a bit too and not suffered for it. 

(view spoiler)[I found the sudden rift between Emma and Harriet, after Harriet tells Emma that she has a thing for Mr. Knightley, a little odd. Okay, Emma is appalled at the idea of those two getting married because Harriet is in a lower caste, and because Emma is discovering she herself loves Knightley. But they were very good friends, spending every day together, and now after that single talk they are both done with each other? And Emma actually putting it in writing that they shouldn't hang out anymore?
That type of behavior might fit with girls of 13 or 14, but not grown women. I thought it was a little slapdash.  (hide spoiler)]

I liked "Pride and Prejudice" quite a bit, and had expected to like "Emma" just as much, but the former had much tighter (better) writing. The flowery language of the time was really let loose in "Emma" and I think it suffers because of it. This is more a 2.5 star book, but skipping/skimming over vast chunks of monologues improves the flow of the story and nudges this up to 3 stars.

Chloe Garcia

there is something so magical abt the last 50 pages of an austen novel that just makes it physically impossible to give it anything less than 20 stars.

pozie

I know this book is objectively so good but I’m realizing I’m not a classic lit girlie. I could appreciate it in moments but I spent most of the time reading it fantasizing about reading an easier book

Emily Moses

One of my favorite classics of all time, did not disappoint on this re-read

Emma

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