Emma is a novel written by English author Jane Austen. It is set in the fictional Surrey village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls, and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, although the title page is dated 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners.
Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In the first sentence, she introduces the title character by stating "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied; she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives; and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.
Emma, written after Austen's move to Chawton, was her last novel to be published during her lifetime. The last complete novel Austen wrote, Persuasion, was published posthumously.
Emma has been adapted for a number of films, television programmes, and stage plays.
Plot summary Emma Woodhouse's friend and former governess, Miss Taylor, has just married Mr Weston. Emma takes credit for bringing them together and feels herself skilled at matchmaking. Against the advice of her friend Mr Knightley, Emma attempts to match her new friend, Harriet Smith, with Mr Elton, the vicar of Highbury. Emma persuades Harriet to refuse a marriage proposal from respectable young farmer Robert Martin, although Harriet likes him. Mr Elton, a social climber, mistakenly believes Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. When Emma reveals she believed him attached to Harriet, he is outraged, considering Harriet socially inferior. Mr Elton goes to Bath and returns with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife, as Mr Knightley had predicted. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma feels ashamed for misleading her.
Mr Weston's son Frank Churchill arrives for a two-week visit. Adopted as a boy by his wealthy and domineering aunt, Frank has rarely visited his father. Jane Fairfax also arrives to visit her aunt, Miss Bates, and grandmother, Mrs Bates. She is now twenty-one and intends to support herself by becoming a governess. She is the same age as Emma and has received an excellent education through her father's friend, Colonel Campbell, but has no financial resources. Emma envies her and is annoyed by everyone's praise of Jane. Mrs Elton takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find her a governess post.
Emma decides that Jane arrived earlier than expected because of an attraction to Mr Dixon, Colonel Campbell's new son-in-law. She confides this to Frank, who met Jane and the Campbells at Weymouth the previous year, and he apparently agrees. Suspicions are further fuelled when a piano is sent anonymously for Jane. Emma believes she is falling in love with Frank, but it does not last. The Eltons treat Harriet poorly, culminating in Mr Elton publicly snubbing Harriet at a ball. Mr Knightley, who normally refrained from dancing, gallantly asks Harriet to dance. The day after the ball, Frank brings Harriet to Hartfield, as she fainted after a rough encounter with local gypsies. Emma mistakes Harriet's gratitude for being in love with Frank. During an excursion to Box Hill, a local scenic spot, Frank and Emma are joking when Emma thoughtlessly mocks Miss Bates's loquaciousness.
When Mr Knightley scolds Emma for making fun of Miss Bates, she is ashamed. The next day, she visits Miss Bates to atone for her bad behaviour. During the visit, Emma learns that Jane has accepted a governess position from one of Mrs Elton's friends. However, Jane is ill and refuses to see Emma or receive her gifts. When word comes that Frank's aunt has died, he and Jane reveal to the Westons that they have been secretly engaged since autumn. Frank knew his aunt would disapprove of the match. Maintaining the secrecy strained the conscientious Jane and caused the couple to quarrel, with Jane ending the engagement. Frank's easy-going uncle readily gives his blessing to the match. The engagement is made public, leaving Emma annoyed to discover that she had been so wrong.
Emma believes Frank's engagement will devastate Harriet, but instead, Harriet says she loves Mr Knightley. Though she knows the match is too unequal, Emma's encouragement and Mr Knightley's kindness have given her hope. Emma is startled and realises that she is in love with Mr Knightley. He returns to console Emma about Frank and Jane's engagement. When she admits her foolishness, he proposes, and she accepts. Harriet accepts Robert Martin's second proposal, and they are the first couple to marry. Jane and Emma reconcile, and Frank and Jane visit the Westons. Once the mourning period for Frank's aunt ends, they will marry. Before the end of November, Emma and Mr Knightley are married with the prospect of "perfect happiness". They will live at Hartfield with Mr Woodhouse.
Principal characters Emma Woodhouse, the protagonist of the story, is a beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, and somewhat spoiled young woman from the landed gentry. She is nearly twenty-one when the story opens. Her mother died when she was young, and she has been mistress of the house (Hartfield) since her elder sister got married. Although intelligent, she lacks the discipline to practise or study anything in depth. She is portrayed as compassionate to the poor but at the same time has a strong sense of class status. Her affection for and patience towards her valetudinarian father are also noteworthy. While she is in many ways mature, Emma makes some serious mistakes, mainly due to her lack of experience and her conviction that she is always right. Although she has vowed she will never marry, she delights in making matches for others. After a brief flirtation with Frank Churchill, she realises that she loves Mr Knightley.
Mr George Knightley, aged 37 years, is Emma's neighbour and close friend. He is her only critic. Mr Knightley owns Donwell Abbey, which includes extensive grounds and farms. He is the elder brother of Mr John Knightley, the husband of Emma's elder sister Isabella. Mr Knightley is considerate, hardworking, aware of the feelings of the other characters, and always exhibits good behaviour and judgment. He becomes angry with Emma for persuading Harriet to turn down Robert Martin, a farmer on the Donwell estate, and warns Emma against pushing Harriet towards Mr Elton, knowing that the vicar seeks to marry for money. He is suspicious of Frank Churchill and his motives and suspects that Frank has a secret understanding with Jane Fairfax. Mr Knightley is the local magistrate and is the leading figure of the parish select vestry which is in all practical respects, the governing authority of Highbury.
Frank Churchill, Mr Weston's son by his first marriage, is an amiable young man, who, at age 23, is liked by almost everyone. Mr Knightley, however, thinks him immature and selfish for failing to visit after his father's wedding. After his mother's death, he was raised by his wealthy aunt and uncle, the Churchills, at the family estate of Enscombe in Yorkshire. To please his aunt he assumed the name Churchill on his majority, so that he might inherit her estate in that name; but while she still lives—and she is in poor health—he remains entirely dependent on her continued approval to maintain his expectations. Frank is given to living a carefree existence and became secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax at Weymouth, although he fears his aunt will forbid the match because Jane is not wealthy. He manipulates and plays games with the other characters to ensure his engagement to Jane remains concealed.
Jane Fairfax is an orphan whose only family are her aunt, Miss Bates, and her grandmother, Mrs Bates. The three of them share genteel poverty. She is a beautiful, resourceful, bright, polite, and elegant woman. The same age as Emma, she is well educated, talented at singing and playing the piano, and the only person whom Emma envies. After her parents died, Colonel Campbell, an army friend of her father, provided her with an education while, from age nine, she shared his home and family. Needing to support her family, she becomes a governess; for unmarried girls of good family and education but no fortune, there was little other choice. The secrecy of her engagement with Frank Churchill goes against her principles and distresses her greatly.
Harriet Smith, a young friend of Emma, just seventeen when the story opens, is a beautiful but unsophisticated girl. She has been a pupil at a nearby school, where she met the sisters of Robert Martin. As a parlour boarder at the school she now helps supervise younger pupils. Emma takes Harriet under her wing, and she becomes the subject of Emma's misguided matchmaking attempts. She is revealed in the last chapter to be the natural daughter of a decent tradesman, although he is not a gentleman, as Emma believed he would be. When Harriet and Robert Martin marry, the now wiser Emma approves of the match.
Robert Martin is a well-to-do, 24-year-old tenant farmer who, though not a gentleman, is a friendly, amiable and hard-working young man, well esteemed by Mr George Knightley. He becomes acquainted and subsequently smitten with Harriet during her two-month stay at Abbey Mill Farm at the invitation of his sister, Elizabeth Martin. His first marriage proposal, in a letter, is rejected by Harriet under Emma's influence, an incident which puts Mr Knightley and Emma into disagreement. Emma had convinced herself that Harriet's class and breeding were above associating with the Martins, much less marrying one. His second marriage proposal is later accepted by a contented Harriet and approved by a wiser Emma; their joining marks the first of the three happy couples to marry in the end.
Reverend Philip Elton is a good-looking, initially well-mannered, and ambitious young vicar, 27 years old and unmarried when the story opens. He is respectable and conscientious in his religious duties and care for his parishioners and in his responsibilities in the administration and governance of the parish. He is well aware of his good looks and status, and it is only when he is around other men that he shows his true colours and reveals his intention to marry a wife with a significant private income. Emma wants him to marry Harriet; however, he aspires to secure Emma's hand in marriage to gain her dowry of £30,000. Mr Elton displays his mercenary nature by quickly marrying another woman of means after Emma rejects him.