"I should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of return; it would do her good," remarks one of Jane Austen's characters in Emma.
Quick-witted, beautiful, headstrong and rich, Emma Woodhouse is inordinately fond of match-making select inhabitants of the village of Highbury, yet aloof and oblivious as to the question of whom she herself might marry. This paradox multiplies the intrigues and sparkling ironies of Jane Austen's masterpiece, her comedy of a sentimental education through which Emma discovers a capacity for love and marriage.
Bharat Tandon's edition of Emma is a delight to read, as pleasurable as it is thought-provoking. He captures both the delights of Austen's novel and the way that those delights are shadowed by darker intimations. --Deidre Lynch, University of Toronto
A superb new edition which combines weighty scholarship with exemplary lightness of touch. Bharat Tandon contributes not only a sparkling introduction, but also a bold set of notes that work like little keyholes, allowing us to peer into the most distant corners of Austen's world. Many of the novel's most subtle touches have been muffled by the passage of time; this edition brings them back to life. Suddenly a novel we thought we knew looks as fresh as it did on its first appearance almost 200 years ago. --Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, University of Oxford
Bharat Tandon brings Emma to life like no previous editor. His extensive and engaging annotation throws searching new light on even its most familiar moments, while his splendid choice of illustrations reveals the world of the novel its people, musical instruments, dresses, dances, games, furniture, food, carriages, books, and beautiful rural landscapes in unmatched detail and immediacy. --Robert Morrison, Queen's University