Emma Woodhouse ‘had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her’, but during the course of this, the wisest and most disturbing of Jane Austen’s novels, she at last reaps her share of the world’s vexations, with consequences both comic and surprising. In this perfect comedy of manners the heroine learns to come to terms with the reality of other people, and with her own erring nature, but in the process the small town of Highbury is convulsed by Emma’s ill-judged schemes.