本书是英国乡村中产阶级生活的工笔浮世绘,也是奥斯丁六部小说中最成功的一部,它以滑稽曲折的情节而独占鳌头,讲述一个任性自负的女子如何发现真爱就在身边的故事。奥斯丁笔下的女主人公大多热情聪明独立、言谈机智风趣,与现代女性心理有灵犀,处处相通……
Emma is the culmination of Jane Austen’s genius,a sparkling comedy of love and marriage.
Emma Woodhouse is introduced to us as ’handsome,clever and rich’ and, according to Jane Austen, a heroine ’which no one but myself would like’. Yet such is Emma’s spirited wit that, despite her superior airs and egotism, few readers have failed to succumb to her charm.
The comedy turns on Emma’s self-appointed role as energetic match-maker for her sweet, silly friend Harriet. Emma herself, meanwhile, is confidently immune to the charms of the male sex. Her emotional coming of age is woven into what Ronald Blythe has called ’the happiest of love stories, the most fiendishly difficult of detective stories and a matchless repository of English wit’.