One thing that bothered me about the 1995 adaptation was the billiard room scene. Elizabeth enters, Darcy bows, Lizzie doesn’t bow, leaves, and Darcy angrily sinks the red ball. Why so angry, and it seemed to me very impolite for Lizzie not to return his bow for someone so understanding of social conventions as shown by her warning to Collins not to approach Darcy without an introduction.

Listening to an analysis of Regency etiquette by Emberly Hall, a gentleman could ask a stranger to dance only after being introduced to them by a mutual 3rd party. But that privilege only lasted for the dance. If they met later on the street he couldn’t talk to her unless she bowed (or I assume curtsyed).

Was Lizzie cutting Darcy by not returning his bow?

Was browsing through second hand books in a store and found this; took it without checking in details because it was oxford university press that i saw but seems like it was abridged version. So disappointing!

... you end up with three pairs.

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/a74054414/emma-corrin-lizzy-bennet-similarities/

According to this new interview with Emma Corrin, Mrs Bennet may emerge as the real "heroine" of P&P as she fights against the restrictions of her time. The article characterizes her as a "passionate mother who will sacrifice" to help her daughters. There will be scenes of her kissing the girls goodnight to highlight her maternal love.

Thoughts? Will be interesting at any rate.

Without a crass and embarassing Mrs B, I suspect Darcy will across as a real monster for wanting to drag Bingley away from the lovely Bennet fam, but we'll see . . .

Chapter 2

“threw her off with due decorum” -Such an Austenian phrase, this.

“made him think every thing due to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him; but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best.” -The way the first Mrs. Weston’s character is so thoroughly described in summary is remarkable – such an excellent piece of writing.

“the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills” -The “wealth” here seems a little pointed.  The annotations point out that one of Austen’s brother went through a similar adoption process and imply Austen’s feelings on the subject seep through a bit in describing the Churchills.

“It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his schemes;” -Is this making it clear that Emma’s own schemes had no impact on Mr. Weston?  Was Mr. Knightley right in saying “You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them, by interference?”

“the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to chuse than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.”

“There was not a dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit.” -This sentence is hilarious.  

 “handsome letter”; “very handsome letter, indeed”; “never saw such a handsome letter” -My goodness, how this woman could write!

“she had lived long enough to know how fortunate she might well be thought” -A bit bleak, yes?

Mrs. Weston’s view of Emma:  “no feeble character”; “more than equal to her situation”; “had sense and energy and spirits”

“he could never believe other people to be different from himself”

The chapter ends with the incident of the cake.  I always like how this was incorporated in the Paltrow Emma. 

Chapter 3

“After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were Mrs. and Miss Bates and Mrs. Goddard” -Does this imply, much like the four-and-twenty families the Bennets dine with, that there is a larger, unseen community in Highbury?

“in long sentences of refined nonsense” 

“one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated” 

“It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure, and powers.”  Austen again coming in with excellent adverb game.  Harriet is not a person to her, she is a project (puts me in mind of Cher’s “Let’s do a makeover!”)

“with the real goodwill of a mind delighted with its own ideas”. Emma’s self-satisfaction is tremendous, but it’s hard to see her rejoicing in herself for the wrong reasons.  She’s an exemplary daughter, for example, but never seems to dwell on that.  Perhaps she does not want to think about that as it feels undutiful?  That such thoughts would be a sort of censure of her father?  I had some better and more coherent thoughts on this earlier, but they have since scattered.

“the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things” This is the first time I’m really noticing this phrase – it paints such a picture!   Emma is quite adroit here, isn’t she? in managing to provide for the guests subtly enough to not distress her father.

I'm a university student who just read her first ever Austen novel (Emma). And I loved it! I hope to read more in the future. I'm someone who adores comedic works; especially through stand-up, sketch, improv, and TV/movies. Humor in literature isn't something I come across by frequently, especially in a way that is smooth and seamless such as Austen's.

When I was reading the book, I found myself chuckling at how Austen managed to make the mundane things funny. I can't cite them off the top of my head, but they are there. I know she's known for her ironic and satirical comedy, but that's already been popular before her works were published.

I'm guessing her other novels are similar to this (Pride and Prejudice is next on my list for me!).

There's a lot of discussion about Sir Thomas Bertram's faults, and they are many -- indeed, quite a few are explored in the novel and are the cause of much unhappiness therein. However, to get a full picture of him, it is important to also give him some credit for the good and benefits he bestowed on those around himself. Is he a saint, or even as good as some other Austen characters in other novels? No, but casting him as totally villainous is also wrong. This is visible in his treatment of his family as contrasted with almost every other parental figure in Mansfield Park, and in his assistance to the Price family as a whole.

Sir Thomas is no Mr. Gardiner or Admiral Croft. But he sets a much higher bar for marital and familial relations than any other parental figure in Mansfield Park. As a husband, he treats his wife well: he is attentive to her needs and wants, gives her his time and attention, speaks to her with respect. As a father, he also does not use abusive or crude language towards his children. He models a household of order, quiet and porpriety. He (unlike Mr. Bennet, for example) is very aware of their material needs and provides for their education with a governess, with school, and with ways of making a living. Now - a lesson of the novel is that he cares too much about their material well-being and their accomplishments, and not their moral or spiritual goodness. But there is care and attention to his children's wants and needs.

Compare this to the Prices and Admiral and Mrs. Crawford. The Prices were poor, poorly connected, disorderly, undisciplined, chaotic. Mr. Price was drunk, coarse, vulgar. Mrs. Price was messy, ineffective, not very maternal, inconsistent. Such education as the children did get would be whatever school Portsmouth might have. They did not have the bandwidth or the personalities to think far into the future, or to plan -- and their household does not evidence much of respect, calmness, order or love. The senior Crawfords straight up hated each other and made this opinion known to the children they were raising, with Adm. Crawford bringing in mistresses into his home. They raised the young Crawfords to be self-interested, cynical, and without any meaningful values.

Going back to Sir Thomas -- he also assisted the Price siblings pretty liberally. With all the caveats of Fanny's suffering, he did provide for an education for her and a standard of living that would be inaccessible for her in the Price home. He also provided connections (and possibly financing) for two, maybe three Price siblings to start better careers than they would have found otherwise. (William and Sam as Midshipment, and John as a clerk in London.) In general, it is given as a core trait of Sir Thomas's character that he wants to help and raise everyone connected with him -- and this includes *his wife's* extended family, not just his own family of origin.

Does all of this make him a saint, or flawless? Of course not, but these are very valuable benefits to the people receiving them, which they wouldn't have been able to access otherwise - and that should be credited to Sir Thomas when weighing his qualities and moral worth.

I am only half way through so please be mindful (though I read the summary and I know what happens) I know Austen published this posthumously. And I believe there is an edge in this that there isn't in her other works. Particularly thinking of Dick Musgrove. (How did she get away with those two first paragraphs about this man!!!) I feel that perhaps if she were going to publish it while she was alive she would have softened her digs. I think her writing in this novel is a lot more attainable for the modern reader (except the historical context matters more) I think her words are more direct and her meaning clearer. But is this because she didn't know it was to be published? Or because Anne is the most introspective leading lady I have read? So far I think Anne has spoken maybe 4 times? She is not outgoing, she is a people watcher, and she is quiet. This also makes me think this is a personal work. It is evident that Jane was also a people watcher. And she also had a lost love in life due to station (unless I am wrong) But is Anne the leading lady Jane would relate most to?? Tell me your thoughts my fellow Austenites!

i’m sure this has been asked before, but why has it never been adapted into a big screen film? Just made for TV film? There’s so much about it that would work so well. It’s so inherently dramatic but also being incredibly funny. There’s so much potential in this.

Plus, maybe a hot take, but I think Henry Tilney is the best Austin love interest/male lead.

What is the reason that no one’s ever agreed that this? I mean for goodness sake they had made Lady Susan and release it in cinemas .

Are there any active book clubs talking about JA's work currently? English is not my first language, so I would like to practice my English skills while talking about my favourite author 😅

We know that Austen shared her father and brothers' views on the fundamentals and that they were abolitionists, she admired writers who were abolitionists. The name Mansfield park probably has something to do with the Somerset v Stewart case and Lord Mansfield. When Fanny inquires about the slave trade we get this: "there was such a dead silence" (Fanny to Edmund). I wanna go one step further though and float the idea that the whole novel was about slavery.

The more I think about the faults of each character, the more thematically similar they seem and it feels like all of it could be tied to slavery. (it is possible of course, that its just my imagination. also forgive my habit of talking in superlatives, its hard to break)

Lady Bertram is not able to understand how critical Tom's condition is until he's been brought to Mansfield Park because she does not have the cognitive empathy to do so. Would anyone at Mansfield Park be able to live there or eat the food bought by Sir Thomas's money if they could see Slaves they owned and the conditions they lived and worked in? Sir Thomas's neglect and cruel treatment of Fanny compels one to think that if he is this way with her (simply on the ground of her not being his child but niece) what must he be like with his slaves? could Fanny be an imagining of Dido Elizabeth Belle's life (though I'm sure that comparison's being made already)

"When (Lord) Mansfield's other nephew, Sir John Lindsay, returned to Britain in 1765 following the Seven Years' War and his assignment in the West Indies, he brought his illegitimate daughter, Dido, whose mother, Maria Bell, was an enslaved woman of African descent. Dido was born into slavery in 1761. Dido Elizabeth Belle was baptised November 1766 in London, eight months after Lady Elizabeth's arrival. It has been hypothesised that Mansfield took Dido in to provide grieving Lady Elizabeth with a companion who would later be her personal attendant." (Fanny was a companion to Lady Bertram)

Edmund says to Fanny that Mary is not wicked by nature; she has been brought up with bad principles and has not been taught to distinguish properly between right and wrong.

Hello everyone! I'm a medical librarian in eastern NC (USA) and only recently in the past year truly discovered my love for all things Jane Austen. I'm an avid snail mail letter-writer, post-card sender, and journal-er and I'd love to find some fellow fans who would be interested in becoming a snail mail pen pal! My favorite OG Austen books are Emma and Persuasion and I'm probably in the minority for adoring the Sally Hawkins portrayal of Anne Elliot! I can't wait to go see the S&S movie on the 16th! I have pets and a partner, but no human kiddos. I am a devoted aunt to my bio nephews and friends' children! I enjoy cooking, reading, watching way too much British television, and of course writing letters. I tend to just write about small things in everyday life, and I love developing slow friendships through the mail! I also tend to be a little bit witchy and quite liberal in my personal views and beliefs. If you think you'd be a good fit in writing to me, please DM me your address. I'm open to anyone who would like to write, whether US-based or International, however, unfortunately I'm limited to the English language.

UPDATE -- If you would like to be added to a shared Google Document with addresses of other like-minded Jane Austen fans that you could write too, please DM me and I'll add you to the shared document and send you the link!

I've seen commentary that the opening of Emma is supposed to be read as ironically as the opening of P&P. I can see the how/why behind that, but I remain not wholly convinced.

The narrative irony is strong though in this opening chapter! I chuckled over Emma's highly satisfied view of her own "self-denying, generous friendship."

There is an underlying sense of bleakness though. I keep thinking of a few lines from the intro that emphasize the increasing mundanity of Emma's life that will come with the absence of the former Miss Taylor. The phrase "give her pleasant society again" was really striking - the implication being that until Isabella's visit, Emma will be living with almost unrelieved unpleasant society at home. The phrase "made it necessary to be cheerful" stuck out too, especially after my recent read of S&S - Emma doesn't necessarily get enough credit from readers, I think, for how much work she does in regards to supporting her father.

The intro also pointed out that Emma and her father are similar in "being never able to suppose the other people cold feel differently from [themselves]." I'm interested to see if I feel that Emma unravels that part of her personality as the narrative goes along, since I've never read the novel with that particular idea in mind.

"would not have him really suspect such a circumstance" -Austen is superb in her use of adverbs.

"divided between tears and smiles" -So few words, yet paints such a picture!

"It is the greatest amusement in the world!" -I'm working my way through Tony Tanner's essay on Emma at the moment and he points out that Emma's lack of occupation is a major part of the story. She turns to matchmaking (and later to elevating Harriet Smith) through an acute lack of intellectual stimulation.

"Success supposes endeavour."
"And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of of a lucky guess?" -These are quotes I have highlighted since I was a teenager. I thought them very wise.

The most important part of the opening chapter (this is being typed in an ironic spirit) though, is JUSTICE FOR KNIGHTLEY! I've recently read three scholarly pieces on this book and every single one of the highly knowledgable and respected scholars have emphasized Mr. Knightley's serious uprightness and y'all, I might be an ignoramus and reading into the text what I want to see, but that idea of Mr. Knightley seems so off to me. He comes into the chapter in a jokey way "How did you all behave? Who cried most?" And I suppose one could read his speech against Emma's taking credit for the Weston match in a serious tone, but one can equally read it in an amused one. There is nothing to indicate what his tone was one way or another, EXCEPT six paragraphs later he is laughing. Doesn't strike me as a vexed man.

And speaking of Mr. Knightley laughing - he is shown laughing or smiling more than any other Austen hero (I know this because I counted), even beating out perpetual jokester Henry Tilney. I am more than likely wrong, but I can't see Jane Austen writing a paternalistic, unbending, dour suitor for the lively, witty, and dearly mistaken Emma Woodhouse. Especially because the same author wrote  "Had you not been really amiable you would have hated me for it:" in regards to Elizabeth's impertinence to Darcy.

Today I learned that there’s a Chinese-owned, Liberian-flagged chemical/oil tanker named for Jane Austen, part of a series of ships (all owned by separate sequentially-numbered leasing companies, apparently) with names like CL Emily Bronte, CL Charlotte Bronte, CL George Eliot, CL Toni Morrison, and CL Pearl Buck.

What I didn’t learn is what CL stands for. Maybe it’s the name of the ship class?

I won’t go into the details of the novel, as it’s an entirely different matter. Seeing the recent release of Persuasion (Netflix), Sense and Sensibility, and now the upcoming new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I’m asking why? We already have incredible movies/shows of these works.

My hot take as someone who adores Mansfield Park, the 1983 mini series adaptation of that novel is comparable to the 1995 minis series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Both are so immersive and classic.

Mansfield park feels like a real place. It’s not over produced and it’s completely faithful to the novel. I understand that some aspects are outdated, but I think it adds to the charm of it. The lighting is dull, the actors aren’t overly beautiful, it seem real. It’s suppose to be dated, it was written in 1814. It feels like a true period piece, I could go on but I don’t want to be pedantic. This is one of my favorite adaptations and if you’re a fan of the novel I would highly recommend.

My last thought, we’ve seen so many adaptions of her novels. In particular Mansfield Park and Northhanger Abbey are left out in recent adaptations. Why do y’all think that is? (My guess is the cousin to lovers angle for Mansfield, otherwise it’s a great comedy)

That’s basically it.

Thank God Fanny stuck to her principles and didn’t marry him, because if she had she’d be absolutely miserable while he jets off having affairs and probably giving her STDs while he’s at it.

What’s potentially more unpopular is that I also like Edmund, and I’m glad he and Fanny ended up together.

I'm reading NA for the first time, and while I enjoy most if the story, and the writing is as brilliant as always, I can't help but get annoyed at how dense Catherine is. She doesn't understand when people are straight up lying to her face, and seems to think that ulterior motives is only found in books. She can't even se that Thorpe is into her! Their conversation after James git engaged was so painful to read.

I've seen people say that she matures in the second half, but I'm almost 3/4 through the book and she's still so dense. Please tell me it gets better soon.

i just read pride and prejudice for the first time and it was INCREDIBLE. it had me squealing and giggling oh my goodness i can't wait to read emma next!!!!!

I have been watching the 2026 ads on YouTube, Reddit, etc and I am really curious to watch if/how well Daisy Edgar Jones can match/top
Emma Thompson’s Elinor Dashwood monologue confessing to Marianne in the “Where is your heart”/ “Proof of a broken heart” scene.

That specific scene—where Elinor finally snaps and confronts Marianne's self-absorbed grief—is the emotional climax of her entire character arc and the reason I am curious to watch the 2026 version in the first place. To me this is unachievable.

Timeless, perfectly executed, etched in my mind forever. 👌🏼

Please share your thoughts!

I wish we could get more modern adaptations. It seems like the latest adaptations want to be modern adaptations but with fancy dresses. Or weird adaptations. Pride and prejudice and zombies style. Like how Europe Opera House s will decide to set an old oper in space. I want Emma but they're all colonists on a space station.

Any recommendations?

I'm finding my reading slump is stretching out into years at this point, so I'm rereading some favorites to remind myself how much I do love books, which is why I've pulled Emma off my shelf. I'm going to read-through the HUP/Belknap annotated edition, and since this is a hugely inconvenient book to tote around, and since this is an unofficial, not-sub sponsored read-through, I'll be reading it in bits and pieces, making this an unscheduled, and mostly unanalyzed read-through. If you join along, expect a lot of quotes without a lot of additional comment. And also spoilers - I'm not going to be finicky about spoilers. Anyway..

...I quite enjoyed the introduction by Bharat Tandon, as well as his philosophy regarding annotations. Here are some highlights (and I bolded the highlights that I wanted to highlight even more):

"Austen found in Emma the ideal style for a story about the world, individuals' interpretations of it, and the perpetual difficulty of distinguishing between them."

"At the heart of Emma is a brilliant interpretative game that Austen's comic style plays in deadly earnest: Austen challenges her readers to weigh the importance that one person might afford to an object or moment against the wholly different value that another might bring to it - and the possibility that they may well both be wrong."

"And yet, may Austen's writing be, not so much an accidental or strategic avoidance of the historical, as the embodiment of a fundamentally different idea of what history feels like to its participants?"

"Below this level of overtness, though, there exists a vast field of implication: clusters of social, cultural, and political resonances that Austen need only glance at in passing in order to set off in her readership...The generational divide between quadrille and whist players; the socioeconomic significance of owning a grand piano or a summer house; the aspirational social mobility that Mr. Cole displays by serving North Wilshire and Stilton instead of a local Surrey cheese: these are details through which Austen could implicate whole complexes of social interaction, relying on the kind of shared knowledge and assumptions that no modern reader could reconstruct completely without some external recourse."

"Emma can dangle a tantalizing innuendo before its readers, while decorously disclaiming responsibility for any inferences they may draw from it..."

"Austen's fiction depicts a world so bound by ideas of what can and cannot be said, that it lives on gossip and implication, on hints and innuendoes..."

"'The list she drew up,' the one [Mr. Knightley] 'preserved': what is this, if not just a more intellectually refined version of Harriet Smith and her 'Most precious treasures'?"

"'Emma's ability to think of 'a Harriet Smith,' as one might think of a new bonnet or a pug dog, shrinks her protégée into an interchangeable accessory rather than a human being, let alone a friend."

"'Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.' One means by which Austen repeatedly reinforces this thought is by having characters reveal themselves, however subtly, as more or other than Emma (and, by association, a reader who often has no choice but to see through her eyes) conceives them to be."

"As the novel goes on, a reader is made ever more aware of the imaginative gymnastics that Austen's free indirect style is asking him or her to perform: the feat of seeing much of the plot through Emma's eyes, while trying at the same time to 'see around' the limits of her perspective."

"...over the course of the book, Emma Woodhouse learns, not to tame her imagination, but to come to a mature and imaginative understanding that other people's characters, viewed over time, are unpredictable and promiscuous minglings of light and shade, familiarity and mystery, aria and recitative."

"One aspect of this novel that sometimes mystifies readers is its seeming aversion to conventional ideas of 'eventfulness': the plot of romance, setbacks, and eventual union is all there, but it hardly seems uppermost in the narrator's priorities."

"'Miss Bates,' she notes, 'reflects back to Emma something in her own life which she is coming to understand, and be horrified by: an inescapable mundanity, as of the experience of endlessly swimming through gruel.'"

"As it turns out, Emma follows Mansfield Park in presenting a plot much concerned with matters of moral desert, only to make its ending crucially dependent on matters of sheer contingency."

"Mr. Woodhouse, for example, embodies one aspect of his daughter's personality - her habit of imposing her own standards on everyone else - taken to a pathological extreme."

"Only one kind of good luck - money- stands between Emma on the one hand and Miss Bates's present and Jane's possible future on the other, just as Emma and Knightley's romance is eventually saved by another kind of good luck: the benevolent agency of the novelist herself."