Annotated Bibliography

Berendsen, Marjet. Reading Character in Jane Austen’s Emma. 1st ed. Assen. Van Gorcum & Co.
          1991.

           Berendsen focuses on the intricate and complex nature of literary characters. She highlights the advancements Austen made in the realm of characterization, as well as how to interpret the social atmosphere she designed.



Bloom, Harold. Novelists and Novels. 1st ed. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007. 59-62. Print.

           Harold Bloom addresses Emma in this review of the novels post-Don Quixote. Regarding Emma as Jane Austen’s personal best, Bloom discusses the “imaginative” qualities of Emma, and cites her as an example of the embodied “Protestant Will.” He highlights the aesthetic and comic values of Emma and declares, “It is the most English of English novels” (Bloom 59).



Bloom, Harold. How to Read and Why. 1st ed. New York: Touchstone, 2000. 143-162. Print.

           Harold Bloom cites Emma as one of fifteen novels that teach how to read a book, and why to do so. He claims that Emma is not a novel of social reform, and that, as in all “great novels,” its “characters are not marks upon the page, but are portraits of the reality of men and women: actual, probable, and possible ones” (Bloom 144).



Copeland, Edward. "Fictions of Employment: Jane Austen and the Woman's Novel." Studies in Philology
           85.1 (1988): 144-24. Web.

           Copeland contextualizes Austen’s novels like Emma in the midst of other novels with female heroines and how they all treat women and the workfield. While other types of novels during Austen’s time treated work as a noble necessity and while Austen worked herself even if just with the pen, Austen’s novels’ women treat work with fear and abhorrence.



Downie, J.A. "Who Says She's a Bourgeois Writer? Reconsidering the Social and Political Contexts of Jane

          Austen's Novels." Eighteenth-Century Studies 40.1 (2006): 69-84. Web.

           Downie addresses the tendency of some to identify Austen’s characters, like in Emma, and even Austen herself as bourgeois. He points out that Austen and her characters, although not aristocracy, are members of the gentry class, and this allows readers to understand and discuss Austen’s novels appropriately.



"Emma." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma>.

           This basic overview provides general information about aspects of the book like the plot, the characters, and the most accepted themes and criticism. Such broad an overview of criticism will give the reader a beginning point of discovering the criticism about Emma.



Ferguson, Frances. "Jane Austen, Emma, and the Impact of Form." Modern Language Quarterly 61.1          

          (2000): 157-80. Web.

           Ferguson critically looks at the form in which Emma has been written and explores different ways of looking at its format. Specifically, the author discusses Austen’s indirect style and how it “marks a critical moment in the history of novelistic technique.”



"Jane Austen - Biography, Timeline, Books, Movies, Quotes, Fashion." Jane Austen. Web. 28 Mar. 2012.
           <http://www.janeausten.org/>.

           This website not only allows the viewer access to Austen’s major texts, including Emma, and a detailed biography about her life but also information about the Great Britain that Austen lived in and wrote about, like the Regency period. Such information will give the reader of Emma a deeper understanding of a contextualized novel and better prepare the reader for entrance into critical discussions.



Kohn, Denise. "Reading Emma as a Lesson on "Ladyhood": A Study in the Domestic Bildungsroman."
           Essays in Literature 22.1 (1995): 45-58. Web.

           This article discusses how even though Emma is a problematic novel for feminists and for modern audiences to read in a “seemingly superficial” lens like a lesson on ladyhood, this perspective allows the reader to learn more about Emma and the book as a whole. Emma does not perpetuate the then popular idea of a demure and submissive lady but rather challenges it, as Kohn discusses “female power and female propriety.”



Mandal, Anthony. Jane Austen and the Popular Novel. 1st ed. New York. St. Martin’s Press. 2007.

           When Jane Austen finished Emma, there were sixteen British authors who had written more novels than she had in that decade--Anthony Holstein, Barbara Hofland, and Anne Hatton, among a myriad of others, all of whom are virtually unknown today. Mandal views Jane Austen as a sort of underdog, rejected by publishers and fellow authors, and praises her triumph over her contemporary colleagues.



Marsh, Nicholas. Jane Austen: The Novels. 1st ed. New York. St. Martin’s Press. 1998. 1-275.

           Approaching each of Austen’s novels in language, characterization, structure, society, feminism, philosophy of change, and irony, Nicholas Marsh provides a wide view of Austen’s literary tactics, and includes elements of biographical criticism that help illuminate Austen’s intentions in writing.



Monaghan, David. Emma, Jane Austen. 1st ed. New York. St. Martin’s Press. 1992. Print.

           Monaghan presents a compendium of ten critical essays written by scholars and critics of his day. Some focus on “interrupted friendships,” others on self-containment as a technique of the novel. Overall, his compilation provides a number of useful viewpoints with which to study Emma. 

Pinion, F.B. Jane Austen: A Companion. 1st ed. London. Western Printing Services Ltd. 1973. 114-122.

           Pinion fuses biography and literary criticism to give an extensive vista of Jane Austen’s work. In Emma, particularly, he highlights didacticism as one of Austen’s strongest themes.



Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel. 2nd ed. New York. University of California Press. 2001. 296-300. Print.

           Watt traces the development of the novel as an art form, particularly through Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. Addressing the apparent mutual exclusivity of Richardson’s and Fielding’s styles, he proposes that Jane Austen found the solution, created a happy medium for future novel writers, and that “to her successful resolution of these problems, [she] owes her eminence in the tradition of the English novel” (Watt 296).



Westman, Karin E. "Perspective, Memory, and Moral Authority: The Legacy of Jane Austen in J.K. 

          Rowling's Harry Potter." Children's Literature 35 (2007): 145-65. Web.

          Westman’s article demonstrates how Jane Austen not only directly influenced the next generation of novels but how Emma is directly influencing the creation of current novels like fellow British authoress J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. This article strives to portray how wholly relevant Austen’s work is on the contemporary British.