Emma is the story of the epony­mous Miss Wood­house who, hav­ing lost her close com­pan­ion Anne Tay­lor to mar­riage, sets out on an ill-​fated career of match-​making in the town of High­bury. Tak­ing as her sub­ject the pretty but dreary Har­riet Smith, she man­ages to cause mis­un­der­stand­ings with every new tac­tic she employs. Though pre­cious and spoilt, Emma is charm­ing to all around her and so it takes her some time to learn her les­son and profit from spend­ing less time wor­ry­ing about how other peo­ple should live their lives.

The book includes a sec­tion in colour, and con­tains use­ful essays from notable schol­ars on dif­fer­ent aspects of the novel: John Wilt­shire on mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tions, includ­ing TV and cin­ema; Mag­gie Lane on Regency life (food and farm­ing and the role of women); Car­o­line Sander­son on geo­graph­i­cal set­tings and Josephine Ross on a mod­ern perspective.

• the com­plete text in a mod­ern, read­able typeface
• illus­trated out­line of prin­ci­pal characters
• Jane Austen timeline
• map of Jane Austen’s England
• illus­trated sec­tion on Regency fashion
• styl­ish embossed bur­gandy cloth cover with a coloured paper panel