Emma in Love
by Emma Tennant
On This Page
Description
The sequel to Jane Austen's best-loved novel, Emma, by the author of the international best-seller 'Pemberley'. This is the story of Emma two years after she has married Mr Knightley. There may be harmony between them but Emma is frankly bored. Mr Knightley is affectionate; but he is in reality an old friend, who has, in his own words, 'lectured and blamed' Emma, sixteen years younger than he, all her life. Knightley is no Mr Darcy. To amuse herself, Emma decides to take up matchmaking show more again, whether her husband will have it or no. But this time Emma is playing for dangerously high stakes. John Knightley - her brother-in-law, poor widowed John - is in need of a wife and stepmother to his numerous family. So when a fascinating young woman enters Highbury society, Emma sees at last a golden opportunity. Eliza d'Arblay is of French birth. Her parents, the Comte and Comtesse d'Arblay, fled the French Revolution in 1795. It is now 1815, and Eliza is 20 years old. She is intriguing and romantic as only a beautiful young Frenchwoman can be. Her dresses are more elegant; her accomplishments far superior to anything Highbury has ever seen. John Knightley is introduced and begins to fall in love. But Eliza is not all she seems. Just as a marriage is announced, strange evidence of a very different past begins to emerge. And, most disconcertingly of all, we are led to ponder the meaning of Mr Knightley's statement, early on in Emma, that he would like to 'see Emma in love'. Perhaps, disastrously, she is; but the object of her desires cannot be said to be suitable to Highbury - or to Mr Knightley - at all.. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Wow. Trippy. Allow me to summarise the two hours I wasted in reading this book with an equation: Emma Tennant + Jane Austen's Emma x illegal substances = Emma In Love. What was the woman on? Never the most creditable 'continuation' writer, Tennant must have far surpassed her previous efforts by seemingly penning this novella in a chemical-induced haze. Crazy!
Jane Austen's Emma is my favourite of all her novels, yet I was not offended or disturbed by Emma Tennant's treatment. Amused, somewhat; bemused, definitely. Nothing makes sense. All the characters are reduced to caricatures, which Austen never created. Emma is childlike, wanting to 'remain a loved daughter all her days rather than a wife', and still best friends with Harriet. Mr show more Knightley is 'dogmatic, petty' and 'magisterial', not to mention suddenly rather bizarrely 'slightly deficient of stature'. With Isabella conveniently dispatched after her father, John Knightley has 'espoused his work, now his wife is gone', and constantly talks in legal jargon. Miss Bates is apparently suffering from Tourettes. And despite repeatedly referring back to Austen's original text - from the paraphrasing of the opening line ('handsome, married and rich') to Frank's London haircut, gifts of pork and apples to Miss Bates, and Frank Churchill arriving just in time to fix Mrs Bates' glasses - Emma Tennant's Highbury is a parallel universe where Frank jilted Jane Fairfax at the altar, married an heiress from Yorkshire with a cross-dressing brother, and Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston had a love child who grew up to be French lesbian. Absolutely surreal, and all this in less than 250 pages, even with large text and blank pages between the chapters. This isn't really a novel at all, much less 'Jane Austen's Emma continued', as the subtitle claims; it's an exercise in perverse ramblings, full of cribbed material, inconsistencies, and all the subtlety of a romance novel. Emma is so sexually repressed by the thought of consummating her marriage to Mr Knightley - even four years down the road - that she sees her husband as 'no more - and no less - than a father', 'friends; they were brother and sister', and 'reserved - even disgustingly so', and promptly falls in love with the 'two beautiful visitors to Highbury'. Unfortunately for Emma, Frank's beautiful brother-in-law likes to wear floaty white gowns and rouge, but the mysterious French beauty staying with Jane Fairfax at the vicarage also has her 'shining, dark orbs' on Mrs Knightley.
Are the rumours about Highbury true? Will the mistress of Donwell take a lover? Is Mr Knightley up to a threesome on the island? Why is Jane Fairfax wearing a diamond tiara in the garden? Which expletive will Miss Bates say next? Emma Tennant's sequel to Emma is not to be missed! show less
Jane Austen's Emma is my favourite of all her novels, yet I was not offended or disturbed by Emma Tennant's treatment. Amused, somewhat; bemused, definitely. Nothing makes sense. All the characters are reduced to caricatures, which Austen never created. Emma is childlike, wanting to 'remain a loved daughter all her days rather than a wife', and still best friends with Harriet. Mr show more Knightley is 'dogmatic, petty' and 'magisterial', not to mention suddenly rather bizarrely 'slightly deficient of stature'. With Isabella conveniently dispatched after her father, John Knightley has 'espoused his work, now his wife is gone', and constantly talks in legal jargon. Miss Bates is apparently suffering from Tourettes. And despite repeatedly referring back to Austen's original text - from the paraphrasing of the opening line ('handsome, married and rich') to Frank's London haircut, gifts of pork and apples to Miss Bates, and Frank Churchill arriving just in time to fix Mrs Bates' glasses - Emma Tennant's Highbury is a parallel universe where Frank jilted Jane Fairfax at the altar, married an heiress from Yorkshire with a cross-dressing brother, and Mr Knightley and Mrs Weston had a love child who grew up to be French lesbian. Absolutely surreal, and all this in less than 250 pages, even with large text and blank pages between the chapters. This isn't really a novel at all, much less 'Jane Austen's Emma continued', as the subtitle claims; it's an exercise in perverse ramblings, full of cribbed material, inconsistencies, and all the subtlety of a romance novel. Emma is so sexually repressed by the thought of consummating her marriage to Mr Knightley - even four years down the road - that she sees her husband as 'no more - and no less - than a father', 'friends; they were brother and sister', and 'reserved - even disgustingly so', and promptly falls in love with the 'two beautiful visitors to Highbury'. Unfortunately for Emma, Frank's beautiful brother-in-law likes to wear floaty white gowns and rouge, but the mysterious French beauty staying with Jane Fairfax at the vicarage also has her 'shining, dark orbs' on Mrs Knightley.
Are the rumours about Highbury true? Will the mistress of Donwell take a lover? Is Mr Knightley up to a threesome on the island? Why is Jane Fairfax wearing a diamond tiara in the garden? Which expletive will Miss Bates say next? Emma Tennant's sequel to Emma is not to be missed! show less
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Austenland
165 works; 12 members
Author Information
58+ Works 1,996 Members
Emma Tennant was born in London, England on October 20, 1937. Before becoming an author and editor, she worked as a journalist for Queen magazine and Vogue. Her first novel, The Color of Rain, was written under the pseudonym of Catherine Aydy in 1963. The novels written under her own name included The Time of the Crack, The Last of the Country show more House Murders, Hotel de Dream, The Bad Sister, Alice Fell, Queen of Stones, Two Women of London: The Strange Case of Ms. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde, Faustine, Pemberley, and An Unequal Marriage. She also wrote several memoirs including Strangers: A Family Romance, Girlitude: A Memoir of the 50s and 60s, Burnt Diaries, and Waiting for Princess Margaret. She founded and edited the literary journal Bananas and was the editor the Viking series Lives of Modern Women. She died from posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer's disease, on January 21, 2017 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Emma Woodhouse
- Dedication
- To Sabine
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 59
- Popularity
- 520,094
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (2.17)
- Languages
- English, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
