Emma & Little Mr. Knightley

I have read nearly every variation on Jane Austen's Emma I can get my hands on, from faithful sequels to retellings, gender flip updates and YA revisions, and set everywhere from the Deep South to India, so how could I resist this? Mr Knightley the fairy, who is three inches tall but imbued with magical powers and the same wry wit! Not to mention Niku (Robert Martin) the satyr, half man-half goat, and Agosta (Mrs Elton) the mermaid! An absolutely crazy reimagining of Austen's classic, but it works!

I think I was equally impressed by Caylen McQueen's fantastic imagination and her clever editing, whittling down the key events and characters of the original to fit a novella running to just under two hundred pages. 'Danavir' Knightley show more becomes a more literal interpretation of Emma's conscience, a Jiminy Cricket type figure who perches on her shoulder and travels in her pocket, warning his fairy goddaughter and friend when her meddling is getting out of control. Emma comments again and again how she couldn't live without his advice (although she rarely listens), but of course he's only the size of her thumb, so she could never fall in love with him - could she? But after she reunites Mr Elton, now a magical artist, with the mermaid he has fallen in love with, and then Frank Churchill elopes with an elven housemaid called Jayna after an uprising in his father's house, Emma begins to realise that she should listen to her heart. Mr Knightley tells her that he can relinquish his magic, which Emma has him use to heal the sick (claiming the praise for herself), and become human, but surely he wouldn't do that for her.

After the initial chapter, which seemed to be merely repeating Austen's words, I completely fell in love with this magical retelling. The heart of Emma remains, and the characters are all more or less recognisable, but I love the quirk of a fae Mr Knightley being well and truly in Emma's pocket, and Frank Churchill becoming a Harry Potter type graduate wizard (in Leeds, no less!), who flies home on a dragon! Mr Woodhouse is woefully underused and I wanted to know where Mr Knightley lived when away from Emma, but overall I loved this magical take on my favourite novel! show less