Emma

Emma Woodhouse is handsome, clever, rich, and entirely convinced that she has a gift for matchmaking. After taking credit for her governess’s fortunate marriage, she sets her sights on finding a husband for her new friend Harriet Smith – with results that are anything but what she intended.

Published in 1815, Austen’s fourth novel is a comedy of self-deception set in the small village of Highbury, where Emma’s well-meaning meddling creates a tangle of mismatched affections, wounded feelings, and secret attachments. As Emma schemes to pair Harriet with one eligible man after another, she remains blind to the feelings of those closest to her, including the steadfast Mr. Knightley, the only person willing to tell her when she is wrong. Austen herself famously said she had created “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,” yet Emma’s warmth, wit, and capacity for growth make her one of fiction’s most endearing characters.

A brilliantly constructed novel about the distance between what we think we see and what is actually there, Emma is Austen at the height of her powers.