Publisher, Naxos Audiobooks (June 1996)

The printed version of this title was selected by The New York Review of Books' "Reader's Catalog" as one of the 40,000+ Best Books in Print!

Arrogant, self-willed and egotistical, Emma is Jane Austen's most unusual heroine. Her interfering ways and inveterate matchmaking are at once shocking and comic. She is handsome, clever and rich and has a disposition to think too well of herself. When she decides to introduce the humble Harriet Smith to the delights of genteel society and to find her a suitable husband, she precipitates herself and her immediate circle into a web of misunderstanding and intrigue, from which no-one emerges unchanged.

About the Author: Jane Austen (1775–1817) one of the greatest English novelists, was born December 16, 1775, at Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, her home for twenty-five years. She was the seventh of eight children, six of them boys, of whom, two rose to be admirals. Her father, who took pupils, gave her a better education than was common, then, for girls; she learned French and Italian and had a good acquaintance with English literature, her favourite authors being Richardson, Johnson, Crabbe, Cowper, and, later, Scott. She sang a few old ballads with much sweetness and was very dexterous with her needle. She grew up tall and remarkably graceful in person, with bright hazel eyes, fine features, rich colouring and beautiful brown curly hair. Her disposition was very sweet and charming, and she was an especial favourite with children, whom she used to delight with her long improvised stories. In her life there is a hint of an affection for a lover who died suddenly, but there is no trace of such a tragedy in her books, which are cheerful and wholesome throughout, free from anything morbid or bitter. In 1801 she went with her family to Bath, and after her father’s death in 1805, removed to Southampton, and later (1809) to Chawton near Alton. She had written stories from her childhood, but it was at Chawton that she first gave anything to the world. Four stories were published anonymously during her lifetime – Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). The first two works were written before she was more than two-and-twenty. Early in 1816 her health began to give way. In the May of 1817 she came for medical advice to Winchester, and here she died, July 18. She was buried in the cathedral. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published in 1818, when the authorship of the whole six was first acknowledged. Love and Friendship was published with other juvenilia in 1922; Sanditon, (unfinished) in 1925.

About the Performer: Juliet Stevenson, an incomparable reader, is for many the voice of Jane Austen.

Juliet Stevenson has worked extensively for the RSC and the Royal National Theatre. She received an Olivier Award for her role in Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court, and a number of other awards for her work in the film Truly, Madly Deeply. Other film credits include The Trial, Drowning by Numbers and Emma. She has recorded Lady Windermere's Fan, To The Lighthouse, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park and Hedda Gabler for Naxos AudioBooks.