Emma is Austen's most technically accomplished novel, with a hidden plot, the full implications of which are only revealed by a second reading. It is here presented for the first time with a full scholarly apparatus. The text retains the spelling and the punctuation of the first edition of 1816, allowing readers to see the novel as Austen's contemporaries first encountered it. This volume, first published in 2005, provides comprehensive explanatory notes, an extensive critical introduction covering the context and publication history of the work, a chronology of Austen's life and an authoritative textual apparatus.

"Jane Austen deserves, and here gets, the reward of other people's skillful work on her little bit of ivory, two inches wide.... The Cambridge Edition justifies its claim to the 'the first ever scholarly edition of the works of Jane Austen', and is a fine tribute to her for the twenty-first century."
-Jane Austen Society Newsletter

"scrupulous text and copious annotations"
JASNA News