23 DECEMBER 1815
Jane Austen's Emma is published
The author is convinced that her new protagonist will be highly unpopular
Emma Woodhouse is a character who has remained beloved for two centuries. The young gentlewoman's feckless, fearless but generous and well-meaning attempts to matchmake, orchestrating the romantic lives of others, firmly established her in the canon of great fictional personalities.
However, when was first published, its author, Jane Austen, feared that her character would be deeply unpopular. Her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, wrote in his 1870 memoir that his aunt “was very fond of Emma, but did not reckon on her being a general favourite; for, when commencing that work, she said: ‘I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself
