In Our Time Archive: Emma
How Austen Found Her Literary World
- Austen’s village upbringing and unconventional literary family shaped her focus on domestic community life.
- Her father encouraged novels, home education, amateur theatricals, riddles, and family writing before Chawton enabled publication.
Austen Was A Radical Fictional Innovator
- Austen wanted both financial independence and artistic innovation, despite her reputation as a restrained traditionalist.
- John Mullan argues that Mansfield Park onward represents entirely new fiction rather than revisions of earlier experiments.
Emma Turns Harriet Into A Matchmaking Project
- Emma adopts Harriet as a social project, steers her away from Robert Martin, and mistakenly promotes Mr Elton.
- Elton wants Emma’s fortune, rejects Harriet with contempt, and returns married to the wonderfully snobbish Mrs Elton.
Misha Glenny delves in to the In Our Time archive to select ten episodes for listeners to revisit. His ninth choice is the episode on Jane Austen’s novel Emma, first released in November 2015. Austen described her leading character as "a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." Emma is one of Austen’s most popular novels and arguably her masterpiece, a brilliantly sparkling comedy of manners published in December 1815 by John Murray, the last to be published in Austen's lifetime. This followed Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Mansfield Park (1814), with her brother Henry handling publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1817).
With
Janet Todd Professor Emerita of Literature, University of Aberdeen and Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge
John Mullan Professor of English at University College, London
And
Emma Clery Professor of English at the University of Southampton.
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas (first published 1975; Oxford University Press, 1988)
Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Richard Jenkyns, A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Claudia Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics and the Novel (University of Chicago Press, 1988)
Peter Knox-Shaw, Jane Austen and the Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
David Monaghan (ed.), Emma (New Casebook Series, Palgrave Macmillan, 1992)
Anthony Mandal, Jane Austen and the Popular Novel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
John Mullan, What Matters in Jane Austen?: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved (Bloomsbury, 2012)
Bharat Tandon, Jane Austen and the Morality of Conversation (Anthem, 2003)
Tony Tanner, Jane Austen (first published 1986; Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
Janet Todd, The Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
John Wiltshire, The Hidden Jane Austen (Cambridge University Press, 2014)
John Wiltshire, Jane Austen and the Body (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
In Our Time is a BBC Studios production
Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.