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    Emma
    Emma
    Emma
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Emma

    Written by Jane Austen

    Narrated by Anna-Juliana Clare

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Emma is one of the most delightful but also one of the most domineering of Jane Austen’s heroines. Her attempts at manipulating other people’s lives start in fun and end in hurt feelings and embarrassment for all concerned. The frothiness of the novel gives way to a deeper moral message, and all ends well – better than Emma could have imagined. Throughout the story Jane Austen loses no opportunity to describe with ironic wittiness the society of Highbury and the conventions of the day. The many characters are clearly and finely drawn to create a tiny world in which interest is sustained to the final matching of couples for wedding vows.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Copyright Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781780003061
    Author

    Jane Austen

    Jane Austen was born in 1775 in rural Hampshire, the daughter of an affluent village rector who encouraged her in her artistic pursuits. In novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma she developed her subtle analysis of contemporary life through depictions of the middle-classes in small towns. Her sharp wit and incisive portraits of ordinary people have given her novels enduring popularity. She died in 1817.

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    Reviews for Emma

    4/5

    8,254 ratings195 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Emma is from the leading family in Highbury, living alone with her widowed father at Hartfield. She loves to play matchmaker, feeling her skills quite superior after her friend's marriage went exactly as she hoped. Now Emma has set her sights on Harriet, a young woman of unknown parentage whom Emma wishes to match with the local vicar. The book is a comedy of misunderstandings and secrets. People often don't talk about how they really feel, leaving things up for interpretation, and often misinterpretation.I really enjoyed Emma. The prose is very simple, making it an easy read. I like that Emma herself is a flawed character who comes to recognize her flaws and works to correct them. Not everyone in the story is as self-aware as she is, and that's part of the fun. Austen created a cast of characters here whom you could easily recognize in real life. (How many of us know a talkative Miss Bates?) It's a romantic comedy where the matchmaker lead has no desire for marriage herself, which is perhaps unusual in this genre (and also serves to make the story more interesting). I wholeheartedly recommend reading Emma. It's a fun, low-stakes comedy, with lovable characters and a happy ending.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Not the biggest Jane Austin fan, as I find her subject matter not as engaging as some would have me believe. It's a well written book, and her humor is definitely there, but I just don't get the same feeling from Emma as I did from say, Pride and Prejudice. It was alright, but still, I needed to force myself to finish this one off.
    • 5/5
      When I first discovered Jane Austen, tearing through my one-volume edition of her works in a two-week period, Emma was certainly my least favorite. It was long, and nothing really momentous seemed to happen, and I just didn't like Emma as much as Austen's other heroines. I was hoping that my feelings would be softened after rereading, and they have been. I feel I am finally appreciating Emma for its brilliant character sketches, sly, understated humor, and firm moral footing. Be warned, this review contains spoilers.Emma is the brightest, most accomplished young woman in her retired country neighborhood of Highbury. She lives with her invalid father at their estate at Hartfield, enjoying her position of prominence. Everyone adores clever, pretty Emma... everyone, that is, except her brother-in-law George Knightley. He claims the right of a family friend to see Emma's faults and to sometimes make her see them as well, so that she might change. Despite this honesty and the disparity in their ages (Knightley was sixteen when Emma was born), the two are good friends. But when Emma turns matchmaker and begins to direct the romantic affairs of her new protegé, Harriet Smith, Knightley warns her she is not helping her friend. Emma, not lacking faith in her own wisdom, is sure she knows more about matchmaking than any mere man could and pursues her plans anyways.Emma really is a great character. I didn't dislike her this time around, probably because I finally admitted to myself our similarities. Her dislike of Jane Fairfax and neglect of Mrs. and Miss Bates spring from a fault I must also own to. What makes Emma likeable is not her offenses, but how she responds when they are pointed out to her. She makes some foolish and even spiteful mistakes, but sincerely repents and tries to make amends. Honest friends are precious, even when the truths they speak are unpleasant to hear. Emma is a smart, generally kind person who nevertheless makes some bad mistakes — and learns from them. It doesn't make sense not to like Emma. She gives us hope!The characters are pure Austen and very funny and poignant indeed. Miss Bates is quite funny; her speeches must have been such fun to write. Mrs. Elton is the odious woman you love to hate, always conniving for compliments and treating others with a most disgusting familiarity. Her speech when they are picking strawberries made me laugh out loud. Her husband, Mr. Elton, thoroughly deserves her. His behavior really is cruel, and unlike Emma, he never repents of it. Rather, he and his wife rejoice at how they score off Emma by slighting Harriet at the ball. There's really no hope for change when people are proud of their bad behavior! One thing I realized on this reread is how badly fathers fare in Austen's work. I can't think of a single father who is portrayed in a good light; either the father is not present or is ridiculous. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet is loving but indolent, more interested in his own comfort than in the affairs of his family. In Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot is a social-climbing and vain fop. In Northanger Abbey, General Tilney is a grasping, greedy, ill-mannered man. And in Emma, Mr. Woodhouse is a hypochondriac who is incapable of imagining that others could feel differently from himself, especially on matters of health and marriage. He is always denying his guests the delicacies that Emma tries to provide, because he honestly believes those tidbits will ruin their digestion. He is much beloved, of course, and very polite and well liked in his circle, but still utterly ridiculous. I suppose the leading men represent the male of the species well enough to make up for the deficiencies of the fathers, but it's still rather troubling that fatherhood gets such a one-sided portrayal in Austen's world. Some readers are disturbed by the difference in Emma's and Knightley's ages; when the story opens she is twenty-one and he thirty-seven. Knightley has been accused of "grooming" Emma to be his bride, forming all her opinions and ironing out her faults for his own future benefit. I think this idea gives Emma far less credit than she deserves, for one thing! She isn't exactly a moldable, pliant woman like Harriet Smith. And such a view completely misunderstands Knightley's own character. He is an honorable, upright man who would never stoop to such a tactic. He never corrects Emma with the plan of marrying her once she is all improved; the thought of marrying her never enters his head until fairly late in the story. In the early chapters when Mrs. Weston speaks to him about Emma, he talks about Emma's resolution to never marry without any particular feeling on the matter. Clearly he doesn't think it concerns him at all. There is a part at the end where Emma and Knightley are joking with each other and he says he fell in love with her when she was thirteen, the first time he pointed out one of her flaws. But for all those years he doesn't realize what his feelings are, and never seeks to control Emma's social or romantic life. Surely a creepy cradle-robber would have been much more aggressive in securing his fair intended? Lastly, I should mention a few of the film adaptations of this story. My personal favorite is the Gwyneth Paltrow version; it is very lighthearted and fun, and stays fairly close to the original. Rachel Portman's score for it is just lovely, too. I've only seen the Kate Beckinsale version once, but I remember it being rather humorless and drab, and sorely lacking panache. But I know many fans prefer it, so perhaps I need to give it another try. If the Beckinsale version is your favorite, drop by my profile or challenge thread and tell me why. I love a good discussion. Emma is probably not the best place for a new Austen reader to start, and it may be that on your first read, you — with the penetration of common sense imparted by the omniscient narrative — will be as frustrated as I was with Emma's wilful mistakes. But the story is worth another visit, and Emma should be an encouragement rather than an annoyance to anyone who has ever bungled something. It can't be that I am the only one! Smart, funny, and highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Emma is a fun read. I picked this book up because I had heard that it was the inspiration for the movie Clueless. Once you begin reading it, you see the parallels immediately. A smart, sassy novel.
    • 5/5
      Emma meddles in everyone else's love affairs, with unforeseen consequences, while also completely oblivious of her own love for family friend Mr. Knightley.This is my favorite Jane Austen.Read in college (early 1990s).
    • 5/5
      The fourth, longest and last of Jane Austen's books to appear in print during her lifetime, Emma is considered a classic romantic comedy and was first published in 1816. Written almost 200 year ago, it's inevitable that the dialogue may feel a bit stilted at times. However, this adds dimension and depth to the story which focuses on 19th century social hierarchies and the interaction between various social classes. Miss Emma Woodhouse is a shining example of a 19th century socialite. Beautiful, clever and wealthy, she fancies herself a master-matchmaker and sets in motion a laundry list of schemes to pair off the Highbury residents. Convinced a make-over would elevate her new friend Harriet's social standing and thus her marriage potential, Emma, fueled by her feeling of superiority, plotted and planned, all to no avail. Failing to realize the extent of her shortcomings and the consequences of such hurtful behavior, Emma was finally confronted by Mr. Knightley. Afterwards, embarrassed and ashamed, she reevaluated her life and began to make amends, in hopes of becoming a better person. Emma is a beautifully written, classic, laced with wit and sarcasm. Through a vastly differing cast of characters, each delightfully inspiring in his or her own way, Austen vividly captured the heart of a community. Everything is neatly tied up at the conclusion, as things literally come full circle...ending much the way it began.A sublte, yet very significant messege is hidden just below the surface--the beginning and the ending are just definitive points in the journey, in between is where we write our definition of happiness. There's a depth and sincere honesty written into the very fabric of this story- that must be recognized to fully appreciate the artistic genius of Jane Austen. Like a vintage automobile, Emma is a slow, leisurely read, perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon.
    • 5/5
      I refuse to use the word review as it would be insulting to one of Britain's greatest classic writers. I am a huge fan of Miss Austen and Emma did not disappoint in any way at all. Beautifully written with the usual descriptive scene setting that we have come to expect from this author. I love Emma who is a wonderful character full of charm but with flaws, so human. The reader wonders how can she be so blind to what is actually going on around her. It is her sense of goodwill to others that lends her tendency to read situations so incorrectly. I have seen the BBC production with Romola Garai in the lead role and when reading the book I could only picture Michael Gambon as Mr Woodhouse as his characterisation was so fitting. I found myself transported to Hartfield and could just imagine such a setting. I love the way Jane Austen always introduces characters of ridicule and Mrs Elton in particular was insufferable and also, the garrulous aunt of Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates.
    • 3/5
      These kinds of books are just not my cup of tea: Romantic classics. Maybe because I can't seem to invest or relate to the characters all that much. Maybe because the writing is usually pretty formal. Maybe because the topics simply don't get my blood going. I tend to drift and think of more present things when reading books like these. However the writing was very good, and the characters very unique.
    • 2/5
      Jane Austen threw all the most irritating people she could imagine (I hope she didn't actually know them!) together into a disfunctional community. I'll stick to the books of hers that I really enjoy from now on. This one doesn't do it for me.
    • 4/5
      I recieved this book through a GoodReads giveaway. Thank you to Goodreads and the author for making this possible!

      This is the first book I've read by Sarah Graves so I have no history with this series but I enjoyed it very much! I'm sure there were things I didn't catch since this is pretty far along in a series but whatever they were, they didn't change my enjoyment of the book.

      This book falls into the genre I think of as Contemporary American Cozies, my favorite genre! It's not as soft as some, it does have a few hard edges, but it's definitely still comfort food for the cozy reader. It's set in Maine, which is always a great setting for mysteries, and has a female sleuth with a distinct identity as a home repair addict.

      There were a lot of characters and a lot of intertwining story lines. In fact, that's the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars. It jumped from story line and POV to story line and POV a little more often than I was completely comfortable with but that was a minor distraction.

      The race to the finish at the end where all the story lines are tied up was great! It was definitely a page-turner and impossible to put down. A very fun read. I'll be going to back and starting at the beginning with this series!

    • 4/5
      Emma is a classic novel that still delights after all this time. It follows the spoilt but well-intentioned titular character as she develops schemes to fix her friends up with suitable husbands. For the most part, they all backfire, leaving some of her acquaintances worse off than they were before. Despite this, you can't help but still like Emma. All of the characters, including her, are very well developed and have humorous quirks and interactions throughout the story. Folks who like the movie "Clueless" might like this book as it is the very closely related basis for the film.
    • 5/5
      After many years of abhorring Emma Woodhouse after the first few pages, I finally committed to finishing. How could I call myself a true Jane Austen fan without reading all of her novels? She only wrote six! I don't know if it is because I have grown older and wiser or (probably) have been favorably swayed by repeatedly watching Clueless and the Romola Garai / Jonny Lee Miller adaptation / Emma Approved, but I am now a firmly committed Emma Woodhouse fan and I loved almost everything about this book. It was almost perfect but I am deducting one star for the shoddy treatment of Harriet Smith. Emma truly is a snob. But I still love her.
    • 4/5
      What a thoroughly enjoyable book, however, challenging to read. Emma prides herself in being a good judge of character, as well as matchmaking. As she sets about setting up the single people in her village, she finds herself learning that she isn't as good as she thought. Mr. Knightley is her voice of reason, and often reveals to Emma, the truth about her abilities, much to her chagrin. Emma, determined to never wed, finds herself the object of desire by two men. One of which is truly interested in her, and the other, is an object of her imagination.
    • 4/5
      Emma seems to have everything going for her. She is pretty and rich, she lives in a fairy tale setting, and has a doting father. She is so satisfied with her life that she has no plans for marriage, but delights in meddling in others' lives. Austen lets the reader really get to the heart of Emma through her amusing, though sometimes hurtful matchmaking. I was drawn to Emma as a character because she seemed so earnest while being so inept in her role as Cupid. It was tough to walk the line of correctness required in the 19th century world ruled by proper decorum and social hierarchy.
    • 4/5
      A lovely read. I found some parts (especially about mothers and motherhood) particularly spot-on and powerful. A bit heart-breaking, and altogether a beautiful story. The writing is not great literature, but is a much higher standard than most chick lit. You can really feel that it has been written by a mother with a lot of love in her heart, a good deal of experience understanding people, and with a lot to say. I am glad that I read it.
    • 4/5
      A book about Emma, a young lady in high society whose favorite passtime is making matches amoung her family and friends. When she tries to match a new found friend, Harriet, who is the daughter of nobody knows whom, she runs into trouble. Although Emma is adamant that she will never get married, we get the pleasure of watching as she herself falls in love, very much to her own surprise and consternation.
    • 3/5
      This book was so much fun to read. I was seriously laughing out loud at many parts. I had the audiobook version of the book and it was outstanding. They did a great job with it and made it very entertaining. I think it is very relevant to read for anyone who has been in an office setting. I definitely could relate to much of what went on. I think it is an interesting take on how mega corporations are turning their employees into nothing but cogs in a wheel.
    • 3/5
      I felt the author's point was to move slowly through the life of a family with their daughter, a budding tennis player. There is a tension which hovers as opposed to gripping your throat leaving you gasping for air. However; the tension remains, it is very present or is it? You are left questioning to the very end.
    • 3/5
      Andermaal is het hoofdthema: misleiding, niets is wat het lijkt. Andermaal happy end. De hoofdfiguur Emma is eigenlijk niet echt sympathiek, eerder meelijwekkend.Wel weer mooi societyportret en vooral enorme psychologische diepgang (in dit opzicht is Austen zelfs een voorloper van Dostojevski). Vlotte dialogen afgewisseld met beschrijving en introspectie. Vormelijk toch wel minder dan P&P, met soms langdradige stukken.
    • 4/5
      Emma is a lively young girl who has taken on match making but finds that she's not quite a good at it as she supposes when it backfires on her. The characters are memorable and Jane Austen is expert at social satire and highlighting the customs and manners of the times. The move Clueless is based on this book.
    • 5/5
      [Emma] is a most enjoyable comedy of manners. The plot, which is the same simple-minded romantic story of misunderstandings, emotional growth, and a happy ending (but perhaps it seemed fresh in the early 1800's?) leaves a lot to be desired, but the characterizations remain amazingly sharp and contemporary, even 200 years later. We've all met a Miss Bates, a Mrs. Elton, and most of us have known an Emma. Austen presents them all with remarkable vivacity and humor. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Better than I expected. Of course the usual focus on who loves who and who's going to marry who, but a few twists and turns, and considerable humor in the last half.
    • 4/5
      Lovely to get distracted by the inanities of old timey British aristocracy and happy endings.
    • 4/5
      An amiable book - virtually every character is described as “amiable” so I guess it must be. Listened to the audiobook, and kept remembering a movie version I had seen. After I finished, I realized the 2020 film of Emma was the very last movie-in-a-movie-theater I went to when the pandemic started last March, and I haven’t been to a theater since.

      I think my favorite part was when Emma dissed the tedious Mrs Bates and then felt terrible about it afterwards.

      I also just found out my book club will be reading Sense and Sensibility next month, so it’s more Austen for me soon. Maybe the amiability will rub off on me.
    • 4/5
      I get how peeps could not dig Jane Austen - slogging through daily life and modest romances. But I enjoy tales of women in other time periods. Sure, the individuals who loudly defied the expectations of their age are interesting but so is a portrayal of those who mostly conformed to their societies (the vast majority of humans throughout history).The audacity of Emma, damn. 'Clueless' is a super fun adaptation but it does not do credit to the damage inflicted. More like 'Cruel Intentions' except she wasn't aware of her cruelty until the end. Good intention-ed cruelty is my favorite reason for the suffering of humanity. Poor fucking Harriet. Cheers to her life without Emma.
    • 2/5
      I was very surprised. this was totally boring.
    • 4/5
      Austen really allows a 21st-century reader to get in the head of a class- and status-conscious socialite in 19th century England without reducing her to a two-dimensional caricature. Towards the end of the book Austen focuses more on the internal states of the heroine and her prose becomes a bit more convoluted.
    • 5/5
      My Fav book by Jane Austen. When I first read Jane Austen's work - omnivorously - I was only 14, and so I preferred Northanger Abbey, which is much funnier and has a teen heroine. And of course Pride and Prejudice is considered her masterpiece. It's certainly IMO the wittiest. People say that "no-one roots for Emma". But I have always had a soft spot for Emma, and for a long time now this has been my Fav Jane Austen. If you're just looking to read a romance, you'll prefer Pride and Prejudice, or as I once did, Northanger Abbey. But there's a lot more to this story than most of Jane Austen's work, a lot of life lessons that anyone could profitably take to heart, and although less witty, the characterisation is epic - a triumph. A really good read about learning to read one's own heart!
    • 4/5
      The first thing you appreciate when reading Emma, Jane Austen’s timeless comedy of means and manners, is that Miss Emma Woodhouse is definitely not the same character as Elizabeth Bennett, Elinor Dashwood, Anne Elliot, or even Catherine Moreland from the author’s other novels. In fact, Austen herself famously said of Emma “I am going to take a heroine who no one but myself will much like” and, for most of the story, that is about right. Emma is a rich, spoiled, self-important young woman whose meddlesome ways cause considerable havoc for some of her acquaintances, despite her good manners and best intentions. It is not until the end of the story that Emma understands the errors of her ways, renouncing her ill-fated attempts at matchmaking and suppressing her haughty behaviors just in time to find true love and happiness for herself.Speaking of the story in Emma, it is really rather thinly plotted, especially given the considerable length of the book. That is, not much of consequence really happens in the tale apart from the heroine’s consistent misreading of social situations or the true intentions and feelings of the people around her. She presumes that she has the power and influence to elevate the social standing of Harriet Smith, her less fortunate friend of questionable birth, by persuading her away from the man who really loves her in favor of others with improved circumstances. Of course, these attempts go horribly awry, which leaves Harriet in a very precarious position for a while. It is not until Emma becomes humbled and accepts the patient guidance of Mr. Knightley, her sister’s older and wiser brother-in-law, that her redemption begins.What then accounts for the enduring appeal of this novel, which has been the source of some of the very best adaptations of the author’s work (e.g., Clueless)? It certainly contains every bit of Austen’s keen insight into the social mores of her era, and it is also a clever, resolutely cheerful story that is quite funny at times. Beyond that, I have heard it said that it is the author’s most political novel, which if one stretches the metaphor of a rich, superior entity presuming that it knows best how other people should live before eventually realizing the error of its ways, I suppose it might be. For me, though, the real pleasure in reading any of her novels comes from allowing oneself to be immersed in the joys and travails of a set of closely observed characters who could just as easily be set in today’s society as two centuries ago. While not in the league with Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, Emma was still a joy to read.
    • 4/5
      Either times have changed, or Jane Austen was merely being coy when she described Emma Woodhouse as 'a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like'. She is perfectly delightful, more so for being 'faultless in spite of all her faults', and Mr Knightley is another inspiring leading man (surely her heroes, and not the heroines, are the secret of the author's success?) I don't dislike Emma, I want to *be* her!My eyes are finally opened to the appeal of Jane Austen's books, after years of holding out against her 'white frocks and weddings' romances. Granted, she only ever wrote six novels, and most of them share the same plot devices, but her subtle sarcasm and skilful narration make reading her limited oeuvre an education and a pleasure. Some of her sentences take a bit of unpicking, like her negative sentence construction - writing 'she could not think it so very impossible that the Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his fortnight' instead of 'she knew Frank's aunt would want him back in Yorkshire', for instance - but the careful use of formal language only adds to the necessary attention due to Austen's prose. But I know the story, from the film and the recent miniseries, and so unlike Frank Churchill, my stay in Highbury was permitted to be leisurely.Aside from Emma and Mr Knightley, and the fun of playing the omniscient reader by picking up on clues that the eponymous heroine herself is oblivious to, the real luxury of reading 'Emma' for me comes from the sense of community that Jane Austen works so well into her books. Like Mr Woodhouse, by the end of the novel I was wishing that nothing would change - the Woodhouses at Hartfield, with Mr Knightley walking the mile from Donwell to visit, and familiar faces such as Mr and Mrs Weston at Randalls and Miss Bates with her inane chatter in Highbury. All right, I could live without Miss Bates. Reading 'Emma', however, is both comforting and reassuring, like a carefree summer's day or sitting by the fire when it's snowing outside (and both scenes are pictured beautifully within). The perfect antidote to a slow Sunday afternoon, or travelling on public transport!