Emma

Clever, rich and idle, Emma Woodhouse amuses herself matchmaking among the little society of her Surrey village, blundering through other people's hearts and her own until she learns what she has felt all along. Austen keeps the whole comedy within a few miles of real countryside: the family house at Hartfield and the village of Highbury, Mr Knightley's Donwell Abbey, and the outing to Box Hill where Emma's thoughtlessness brings her up short.

Emma

Hartfield, Highbury

The matchmaker

At Hartfield, mistress of her doting hypochondriac father's house, Emma congratulates herself on a match she takes credit for and sets about arranging others. Austen establishes at once the heroine's charm and her fatal self-satisfaction, a young woman clever enough to be dangerous and blind exactly where she is surest.

The opening chapters

inspired by Emma's home, Hartfield, and the village of Highbury are drawn from the Surrey countryside a short way from London; sited in that region.

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