THE FOLIO SOCIETY

Arguably all Jane Austen’s novels are about the path to self-knowledge her characters must travel along if they are to find happiness, but none more so than Emma. Although Jane Austen famously declared, ‘I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like’, it is her genius as a writer to make us love Emma.

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

As soon as we read that first, beautifully balanced opening sentence, we know that there is trouble ahead for this heroine with a ‘disposition to think a little too well of herself’. Arguably all Jane Austen’s novels are about the path to self-knowledge her characters must travel along if they are to find happiness, but none more so than Emma. Although Jane Austen famously declared, ‘I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like’, it is her genius as a writer to make us love Emma, even as we laugh at her, to sympathise with her, even when we cannot help agreeing with Mr Knightley’s rebukes. The Box Hill picnic where Emma mocks the garrulous Miss Bates and thereby earns Mr Knightley’s grave displeasure, is one every reader remembers. As Fay Weldon writes in Letters to Alice reporting a radio performance of Emma, ‘a few thousand, with me, would be willing and wishing Emma not to say what she did say … Alice, Emma lives! … All over the country irons were held in suspension, … and cars slowed, as Emma spoke’.

Niroot Puttapipat has surpassed himself in his seven exquisitely detailed watercolours. He has a genius for understanding and reproducing the dress and fabric of the period. Clever touches portray Emma’s wealth, with fine lace and silk shawls in contrast to the patterned poplin worn by Harriet and Jane. These paintings are reminiscent of the flowing lines of Aubrey Beardsley, or the detailed charm of Arthur Rackham. There is no doubt that Niroot is one of the wave of artists creating a new golden age of illustration.