Emma

“Emma has always been my favorite Jane Austen novel. A lot of people tend to like Emma—she’s such a winningly flawed person…You could almost say that Austen deals in types, which normally is a very dangerous practice and doesn’t lead to anything interesting. Yet her work is stupendous. Her novels work themselves out with a tremendous clarity that feels mathematical or geometric. It’s very spare; there’s nothing extra. Her books shouldn’t work, but they do, and better than almost anyone else’s.”

Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author

“Not only is Emma one of the finest novels in the English language, but it is possibly Jane Austen’s most thought provoking and interesting book.”

Alexander McCall Smith

“Jane Austen’s most charming novel (or second most charming, it’s an endless debate)…Austen was satirical about love but reverent about money; she had an almost romantic belief in the healing powers of wealth and breeding.”

New York Times

“Emma is a novel that is new, and grows in content, on each rereading. On first encounter the reader is as duped by the ambiguously lovable heroine’s misperceptions as she is herself. On the first rereading the brilliance of Austen's management bursts upon one, and with it the scintillation of her irony. On each subsequent rereading further new layers of irony and amusement unfold, as if inexhaustibly.”

Guardian (London)