Summary
"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." So begins Emma by Jane Austen, describing her leading character who, she said, was "a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this, one of Austen's most popular novels and arguably her masterpiece, a brilliantly sparkling comedy of manners published in December 1815 by John Murray, the last to be published in Austen's lifetime. This followed Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Mansfield Park (1814), with her brother Henry handling publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1817).
With
Janet Todd Professor Emerita of Literature, University of Aberdeen and Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge
John Mullan Professor of English at University College, London
And
Emma Clery Professor of English at the University of Southampton.
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time. |
| 0:02.4 | For more details about in our time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. |
| 0:07.0 | UK slash radio 4. |
| 0:09.2 | I hope you enjoy the program. |
| 0:10.8 | Hello, at the end of 1815, the great London publisher John Murray brought out a novel by an anonymous writer identified as the author of pride and prejudice etc etc. |
| 0:21.0 | This writer we know to be Jane Austen, and the novel was Emma, |
| 0:25.0 | described by some of the speakers in our program today as her masterpiece and by one |
| 0:29.0 | as the greatest novel written in English. |
| 0:31.0 | The plot revolves around Emma Woodhouse, described by Austin as a heroine |
| 0:35.0 | whom no one but myself will much like. Several of the other characters do very much |
| 0:41.0 | like her though, in particular for a while the conceited vicar Mr Elton |
| 0:44.7 | the gentlemanly Mr Knightley and in his way the charming Frank Churchill. Emma meanwhile tries to |
| 0:49.8 | rein marriages for her female friends she claimed success for that of her governess and now |
| 0:54.0 | once even greater success for the lowly Harriet Smith. It all takes place in a small Surrey village, |
| 0:59.2 | a place in which Emma is virtually immured. Her father wouldn't let her leave the place and she has little inclination |
| 1:04.8 | to displease him. With me to discuss Emma R. John Mullen, Professor of English at University |
| 1:10.0 | College London, Janet Todd, Professor Emeritor of Literature, University of Aberdeen, an |
| 1:15.0 | honorary fellow of Newham College, Cambridge, and Emma Cleary, Professor of English at the |
| 1:19.9 | University of Southampton. |
| 1:21.5 | Emma Cleary, to understand Emma better, what do we need to know about Jane Austen's early life? |
| 1:27.0 | Well, it was around the time that Emma was written and published that Jane Austin began to define her specific field as a novelist. |
| 1:36.3 | She wrote to one correspondent, three or four families in a village is the very thing to work on and to another that she |
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