Emma
Classic Fiction · No. 71 — The matchmaker who gets everyone wrong, especially herself.
- Classic Fiction
- 29 min
- Ages 10–14
- 6 chapters
About this audiobook
Emma Woodhouse, mistress of Hartfield at twenty-one, congratulates herself on arranging her former governess's marriage and decides to make a better match for her new friend Harriet Smith. She persuades Harriet to refuse the worthy farmer Robert Martin and misreads the attentions of the vain Mr. Elton, who proposes to Emma herself. The charming Frank Churchill arrives, apparently flirts with Emma, and helps turn Highbury into a theater of guesses, while quiet Jane Fairfax bears the strain of their secret engagement. After Emma insults kind Miss Bates at Box Hill, her honest friend Mr. Knightley makes her see the harm her confidence can do. Harriet then reveals that she hopes to marry Knightley, and Emma finally understands her own heart. Frank and Jane's secret comes out, Harriet and Robert Martin reunite, and Emma and Knightley marry on terms that let her continue caring for her anxious father.
Why it's worth a listen
Emma Woodhouse is clever, rich, generous, and disastrously certain that she understands everyone else's heart. Her matchmaking tangles Harriet Smith between three men, blinds Emma to a secret engagement happening in plain sight, and leads to one cruel joke she cannot laugh away. Austen's warmest comedy is also a sharp story about privilege, humility, and the courage to admit that the person most mistaken may be yourself.
A question to keep
How do you learn to see other people as they are, rather than as characters in your own story?
Chapters
- The Matchmaker of Hartfield
- Riddles and Carriage Rides
- Arrivals and Departures
- The Day on the Hill
- The Truth of Hearts
- A Question to Keep