Emma
Jane Austen x Puffin in Bloom with a gorgeous illustrated cover by Anna Bond, the artist behind the renowned lifestyle brand Rifle Paper Co.
Beautiful, clever, rich—and single—Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée, Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen’s most flawless work.
Beautiful, clever, rich—and single—Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr. Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée, Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen’s most flawless work.
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Readers say *Emma (Puffin in Bloom)* showcases Jane Austen’s wit and social insight, with many praising Emma as a captivating, strong-willed heroine a...
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Emma is the story of a rich girl who needs better hobbies and the occasional gentle shove off her high horse. I find Emma the most interesting and, by far, the cleverest of Jane Austen’s books. While Emma, the character, can require a fair bit of patience, Emma, the novel, is comical, witty, revealing, intelligent, and ridiculously entertaining.
The cast here is one of Austen’s best. Harriet clearly needs better friends and a firm rule about never taking life advice from people who haven’t lived anything close to her life. George Knightley is basically the sensible auntie Emma needs, steadily drip-feeding wisdom, awareness, and reality checks. Jane Fairfax, despite lacking Emma’s wealth and freedom to remain single, becomes the only person capable of making Emma properly jealous. Frank Churchill, despite everyone’s assumptions, turns out to be the sharpest observer of them all when he explains he never feared leading Emma on because he understood she felt nothing for him, while everyone else was busy imagining a romance that wasn’t there.
It’s easily one of my top classics and proof that no one does social comedy with this much precision quite like Austen.
When I first started reading Emma, I'll admit she got on my nerves a bit. Beautiful, rich, spoiled, convinced she knows what's best for everyone... the kind of person I'd avoid in real life. But Jane Austen is cleverer than me: page after page, she let me inside Emma's head, into her hidden insecurities, her sincere mistakes, her heart that keeps searching for love even when it aims at the wrong target.
In the end, when I closed the book, I missed her. Like those friends you can't stand at first and then become indispensable.
And Mr. Knightley? He's the man everyone deserves. Patient, honest, and capable of telling you "you're wrong" without ever stopping to love you. That's not nothing.
In the end, when I closed the book, I missed her. Like those friends you can't stand at first and then become indispensable.
And Mr. Knightley? He's the man everyone deserves. Patient, honest, and capable of telling you "you're wrong" without ever stopping to love you. That's not nothing.
I love "Emma". It's my favourite Jane Austen novel. I love the "friends-to-lovers" kind of romance in this particular novel, between Mr. Knightley and Emma. Because love is latent throughout all the novel.
It's VERY satisfactory to read, so fresh and spring-like. I love the part when the whole group goes to collect strawberries at Donwell Abbey! And I love the main character too!!!
It is well written, a pretty story. I imagine it to be a sort of turn of the 19th century soap opera. I appreciate it, but I am not personally enamored by it. It deserves a higher rating by those who find stories like this entertaining. I am more inclined to mysteries and the novels of dark, brooding enigmas; romance and social status fail to pique my interest.
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