Emma

Austen’s characters are unquestionably one key to her greatness. Her understanding of the human heart is forensic and also frosted with the necessary detachment that gives deeper meaning to her rendering of human frailty.. In Emma, Jane Austen shows us the halting development of an adolescent girl from perky narcissism to something approaching empathy * Guardian *It is the cleverest of books. I especially love the dialogue - every speech reveals the characters’ obsessions and preoccupations, yet it remains perfectly natural…absolutely gripping – Susannah ClarkeJane Austen is my favourite author! Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers – E.M. ForsterThe wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste – Virginia WoolfLike Irvine Welsh, I am a great admirer of Jane Austen – Alexander McCall SmithFor those of us who suspect all the mysteries of life are contained in the microcosm of the family, that personal relationships prefigure all else, the work of Jane Austen is the Rosetta Stone of literature – Anna QuindlenHow could these novels ever seem remote…the gaiety is unextinguished today, the irony has kept its bite, the reasoning is still sweet, the sparkle undiminished, as comedies they are irresistibly and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be – Eudora WeltyThat young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with – Sir Walter ScottI’d like to write a play as perfect as Emma – Simon Gray

Jane Austen was born in Steventon rectory on 16th December 1775. Her family later moved to Bath and then to Chawton in Hampshire. She wrote from a young age and Pride and Prejudice was begun when she was twenty-two years old. It was originally called First Impressions. It was initially rejected by the publisher she submitted it too and eventually published in 1813 after much revision. All four of her novels published in her lifetime were published anonymously. Jane Austen died on 18th July 1817. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously.