Emma Woodhouse Emma Woodhouse Emma Woodhouse is the 21-year-old protagonist of Jane Austen's novel "Emma". She is described in the novel's opening sentence as "handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition." Jane Austen, while writing the novel, called Emma, "a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." Emma is an independent, wealthy woman who lives with her father in their home Hartfield in the English countryside near the village of Highbury. The novel concerns her attempts to be a matchmaker among her acquaintances and her own romantic misadventures. Emma professes that she does not ever wish
Jane Austen Austen novel. Austen was greatly annoyed by Clarke's often pompous literary advice, and the "Plan of A Novel" parodying Clarke was intended as her revenge for all of the unwanted letters she had received from the royal librarian. In mid-1815 Austen moved her work from Egerton to John Murray, a better known London publisher, who published "Emma" in December 1815 and a second edition of "Mansfield Park" in February 1816. "Emma" sold well but the new edition of "Mansfield Park" did poorly, and this failure offset most of the income from "Emma". These were the last of Austen's novels to