As LJ approaches its 150th year helping librarians curate collections, we offer modern reviews of titles published decades and centuries ago. These reviews highlight iconic works and provide professional assessments of classics that have appeared on banned-book lists.

★Austen, Jane. Emma: 200th-Anniversary Annotated Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). Penguin Classics. Sept. 2015. 496p. ed. by Juliette Wells. ISBN 9780143107712. pap. $18. F

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. VERDICT This often less-read novel, here with annotations by Wells (English, Goucher Coll.), holds many of the strong pleasures of Austen, most centrally her keen characterizations and social observations.

★Austen, Jane. Persuasion. Union Square & Co. Mar. 2023. 248p. ISBN 9781435172678. $18. F

Austen’s last completed novel is her most melancholy, even as it is also an achingly romantic story featuring a second-chance-at-love trope. Anne Elliot is 27 years old, long past the accepted age to marry, and has been reduced to being both ignored and taken advantage of by her family. At 19, she was engaged to the dynamic Frederick Wentworth, but she was persuaded to end the engagement due to his lack of prospects, even though she loved him deeply and remains in love with him still. Wentworth is now a rich, dashing naval captain and returns to Anne’s neighborhood to look for a bride—but is not, it seems, interested in Anne. As the story unfolds, readers gain intimate access to Anne’s thoughts and feelings while she watches her beloved court other women and slowly finds her sense of self again. Austen’s work is slyly subversive, speaking to her contemporary audience about issues that remain relevant today. How does one choose what to do when faced with difficult decisions and murky, at best, data upon which to base them? How does one truly forgive? How does anyone make up for a past mistake? VERDICT Redemptive, heartrending, and emotionally powerful, this finely crafted, deeply observant novel is among the treasures of 19th-century British fiction.

★Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. 3rd ed. Oxford Univ. Feb. 2020. 384p. ed. by James Kinsley. ISBN 9780198826736. pap. $5.95. F

Arguably Austen’s most popular novel today, the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy has spun out endless adaptations, in print and on screen, and is the source of one of literature’s most quoted lines: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The very rich Mr. Darcy fails that supposition immediately. He is not searching for a wife and is in fact disdainful of most women and certainly of Elizabeth. This suits Elizabeth just fine, as the two are immediately at odds and remain so while their paths cross again and again. But underneath the simmering joint animosity is a growing attraction and slow path to, perhaps, mutual appreciation. Austen’s wit and keen eye are on full display as she skewers the marriage market and writes about the perils women face as they try to navigate their futures in a world that offers few attractive options. The plot is brilliantly managed, as both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy circle each other within the smaller and larger circles of the society in which they engage, colliding in interesting ways that reveal much about themselves and their world. VERDICT Quick-moving, clever, and interrogative, Austen’s popular love story, edited by the late literary scholar Kinsley and with a new introduction by Christina Lupton (English, Univ. of Warwick), is far more than a quest for a happily-ever-after.