Emma
by Jane Austen 1775–1817
The book, and the century it came out of.
Emma Woodhouse is handsome, clever, rich, and quite certain she knows what everyone else should want. Austen said she was taking on a heroine whom no one but herself would much like, and then wrote the funniest of her novels around her — a comedy in which every piece of matchmaking misfires because the matchmaker cannot read her own heart. The plot is a puzzle: every clue is on the page, and almost no reader spots them. Illustrated with 35 full-page plates — paintings by Constable and Reinagle among them.
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, 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 with very little to distress or vex her.
Emma, by Jane Austen, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Love & Society
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 480 pages
- Reading time
- about 10 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501714328
35 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
England, 1815
Written and published in the year of Waterloo, and there is not a soldier in it. Twenty years of war with France had just ended, prices were about to collapse, and Austen wrote a novel in which the largest public event is a ball at the Crown Inn.
That is deliberate. The gentry of a village like Highbury lived through the war as a series of rumours and shortages, and the things that actually decided their lives — who inherited, who could afford to marry, who was received — went on exactly as before.
This book in culture: 10 versions
Most people meet a book like this one on a screen first. Here are 8 of them, the earliest and the most recent among them — and none of them is the book.
The whole afterlife of Emma — screen, stage and beyond →
- 1948 Emma Michael Barry
- 1960 Emma Campbell Logan TV series
- 1996 Emma Douglas McGrath
- 1996 Emma Diarmuid Lawrence TV film
- 2009 Emma Jim O'Hanlon miniseries
- 2010 Aisha Rajshree Ojha
- — Emma John Glenister TV series
- — Clueless KT Tunstall dramatico-musical work
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Emma, first published 1815, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Love & Society shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501714328, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Emma?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Jane Austen's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 480 pages, which is roughly about 10 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
