Emma: 200th-Anniversary Annotated Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

The eponymous Emma is one of Austen’s most polarizing characters. She is so busy deciding what is best for everyone around her that she not only misses what her very clever mind should have noticed but runs the risk of ruining her future. Emma lives with her father in the town of Highbury, practically ruling over all she surveys. Only her brother-in-law Mr. Knightley has the power to reign in her spoiled and self-satisfied behavior, and usually only for short periods of time. Meddling in others’ lives leads to a great deal of trouble for both Emma and those she is trying to arrange on her neat little chessboard, and it is only after causing great harm, and suffering through a rare public moment of disapproval, that she realizes her mistakes. Austen is acute as she portrays the privileged life of Emma and the residents of the village and beyond, painting a vivid portrait of the ways in which gossip, power, secrets, and an insular, confined community operate. While the love story central to all Austen novels spools out slowly here, it is nonetheless brightly romantic, especially as the book begins to conclude.