Emma

This novel by English writer Jane Austen (1775-1817), published in 1816, deals with the adventures of Emma, a young woman on the threshold of public life who seeks to manage the lives of those around her, sheltering her solid economic base and acting as matchmaker, immune to the call of love, until she falls into the arms of the only character who criticizes her for her arrogance and despotism. Like the rest of the author’s novels, Austen opposes the stereotyped characters of an 18th-century British society, against others who surprise us with their vividness and contemporaneity, to illustrate her commentary and criticism of the society of the time.