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About The Annotated Emma
Product Description From the editor of the popular Annotated Pride and Prejudice comes an annotated edition of Jane Austen’s Emma that makes her beloved tale of an endearingly inept matchmaker an even more satisfying read. Here is the complete text of the novel with more than 2,200 annotations on facing pages, including: - Explanations of historical context - Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings - Definitions and clarifications - Literary comments and analysis - Maps of places in the novel - An introduction, bibliography, and detailed chronology of events - Nearly 200 informative illustrations Filled with fascinating information about everything from the social status of spinsters and illegitimate children to the shopping habits of fashionable ladies to English attitudes toward gypsies, David M. Shapard’s Annotated Emma brings Austen’s world into richer focus. About the Author Jane Austen (1775–1817) was born in Hampshire, England, where she spent most of her life. Though she received little recognition in her lifetime, she came to be regarded as one of the great masters of the English novel.David M. Shapard is the author of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, The Annotated Persuasion, The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, The Annotated Emma, The Annotated Northanger Abbey, and The Annotated Mansfield Park. He graduated with a Ph.D. in European History from the University of California at Berkeley; his specialty was the eighteenth century. Since then he has taught at several colleges. He lives in upstate New York. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Volume One Chapter One Emma Woodhouse(1), handsome(2), clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world withvery little to distress or vex her. She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father, and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period.(3) Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses, and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.(4) Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as a governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma. Between them it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.(5) The real evils(6) indeed of Emma's situation were the powerof having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments.(7 )The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.* * * (1) Emma is the only of Jane Austen's complete novels to be named after its heroine. The title reflects the great extent to which Emma revolves around its main character, as does its beginning with a description of her (the only other Austen novel to begin this way is Northanger Abbey). the author may have chosen the name "emma" precisely because of the character's centrality, for it seems to have been a favorite name with her. she uses it for the heroine of an unfinished novel, The Watsons, and her fondness for it appears in several letters in which she expresses a wish that someone had the name, disgust that a person with it married someone with an unattractive name, or special indignation that a young lady deprived
