Emma

Published at the end of 1815 by Austen’s new publisher John Murray, Emma was Austen’s fourth novel and the last to be published in her lifetime. The plot concerns the success or otherwise of the eponymous character’s attempts at matchmaking and ultimately at her own marriage. To complicate the matter Austen deliberately made Emma an unsympathetic person, prone to righteousness and pontificating, thus creating a sense of jeopardy. Not for her, but for those she ‘helps’ along. Emma contrasts with Austen’s other novels by removing the financial imperative from the lead character; she is not obliged to marry out of concern for her security. Yet in removing this motivation, Austen doesn’t provide Emma with much sense of her own affections and when her fate is resolved, it comes about just as more by happenstance than design. A contrast indeed from her own meddling.