Emma

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2015

⏱️ 47 minutes

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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 for more details about In Our Time
0:04.0	and for our terms of use please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio4.
0:09.0	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
0:15.3	by an anonymous writer identified as the author of Pride and Prejudice, etc.
0:21.2	This writer we know to be Jane Austen and the novel was Emma.
0:24.7	Described by some of the speakers in our program today as her masterpiece and by one
0:28.8	as the greatest novel written in English.
0:31.3	The plot revolves around Emma Woodhouse, described by Austen as a heron whom no one met
0:36.5	myself will much like.
0:38.9	Several of the other characters do very much like her though, in particular for a while
0:43.1	the conceited Bicke Mr. Elton, the gentlemanly Mr. Knightley and in his way the charming
0:47.4	Frank Churchill.
0:48.4	Emma meanwhile tries to rein marriages for her female friends.
0:51.8	She claims success for that of her governess and now wants even greater success for the
0:55.8	lowly Harriet Smith.
0:56.8	It all takes place in a small sorry village, a place in which Emma is virtually immured.
1:01.8	Her father wouldn't let her leave the place and she has little inclination to displace
1:05.4	him.
1:06.4	With me to discuss Emma Ahm, John Mullan, professor of English at University College London,
1:11.6	Janet Todd, professor emeritor of Literature at University of Aberdeen and onary fellow
1:15.6	of Newham College Cambridge, and Emma Cleary, professor of English at the University of South
	...

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