"The Annotated Emma" by Jane Austen (annotated and edited by David M. Shapard)

This is the first time that I have truly enjoyed reading Emma.  I've read it twice before -- once in high school in the 1990s, and once in 2012.  Both times, I laughed my way through it, but I also cringed my way through it.  Emma Woodhouse's meddlesome ways just annoyed me so much!  And, truth be told, they still do.  

But the annotations by David M. Shapard are wonderful, and they added so much to my enjoyment.  He pointed out a lot of places where Emma is extremely kind or sensitive toward her father, and he also highlighted a lot of places where she starts to grow and change much earlier than I had realized.  So, I liked that.

This will never be a top favorite Jane Austen book for me.  My rankings of her books haven't changed over the course of this year's #JaneAustenDeepDive adventure with friends on Bookstagram.  But I did enjoy both Emma and Mansfield Park a lot more this time around, which I think is a big plus!

Particularly Good Bits:

And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without good-will.  It was her own universal good-will and contented temper which worked such wonders.  She loved every body, was interested in every body's happiness, quick-sighted to every body's merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing.  The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to every body and a mine of felicity to herself (p. 34).  (And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why Miss Bates is my favorite character in this book.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for the text (illegitimate children are mentioned) and PG-13 for the annotations (which discuss sexual mores and customs a bit more frankly than Austen herself does).

This is my 33rd book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.