Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contextual overview -- Chronology -- Contemporary documents -- Opinions of Emma collected and transcribed by Jane Austen (1816) -- Austen, 'Love and freindship' (1790) -- Austen, 'The Watsons' (1804) -- Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar Of Wakefield (1766) -- John Gregory, A father's legacy to his daughters (1774) -- James Fordyce, The character and conduct of the female sex (1776) -- Mary Wollstonecraft, A vindication of the rights of woman (1792) -- Fanny Burney, Camilla; or a picture of youth (1796) -- Thomas Dibdin, The birth-day (1799) -- Hannah More, Strictures on the modern system of female education (1799) -- Walter Scott, unsigned review in Quarterly review (1816) -- Unsigned review in The champion (1816) -- Unsigned notice in The gentleman's magazine (1816) -- Walter Scott, Journal entry (1826) -- Charlotte Brontë on Jane Austen (1850) -- George Henry Lewes, 'The novels of Jane Austen' (1859) -- Richard Simpson, Unsigned essay (1870) -- Henry James, 'The lesson of Balzac' (1905) -- A. C. Bradley, 'Jane Austen' (1911) -- Reginald Farrer, 'Jane Austen, ob. july 18, 1817' (1917) -- W Harding, 'Regulated hatred : an aspect of the work of Jane Austen' (1940) -- Edmund Wilson, 'A long talk about Jane Austen' (1945) -- F. R. Leavis, The great tradition (1948) -- Arnold Kettle, 'Jane Austen : Emma' (1951) -- Marvin Mudrick, 'Irony as form : Emma' (1952) -- Lionel Trilling, 'Emma and the legend of Jane Austen' (1957) -- Mark Shorer, 'The humiliation of Emma Woodhouse' (1959) -- Wayne Booth, 'Control of distance in Jane Austen's Emma' (1961) -- Alistair Duckworth, 'Emma and the dangers of individualism' (1971) -- Marilyn Butler, 'Emma' (1975) -- Julia Prewitt Brown, 'Civilization and the contentment of Emma' (1979) -- Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 'Jane Austen's cover story (and its secret agents)' (1979) -- Jane Nardin, 'Jane Austen and the problem of leisure' (1981) -- David Aers, 'Community and morality : towards reading Jane Austen' (1981) -- Joseph Litvak, 'Reading characters : self, society, and text in Emma' (1985) -- Nancy Armstrong, 'The self-contained : Emma' (1987) -- James Thompson, Between self and world (1988) -- Claudia L. Johnson, 'Emma : "woman, lovely woman reigns alone"' (1988) -- John Wiltshire, 'Emma : "the picture of health"' (1992) -- Valentine Cunningham, "Games texts play" (1994) -- Claudia L. Johnson, '"Not at all what a man should be!" : remaking English manhood in Emma' (1995) -- Juliet McMaster, 'Class' (1997) -- Edward Copeland, 'Money' (1997) -- Jonathan Bate, 'Culture and environment : from Austen to Hardy' (1999) -- Brian Southam, 'Emma : England, peace and patriotism' (2000) -- Miranda Burgess, 'Austen, Radcliffe, and the circulation of Britishness' (2000) -- Nora Nachumi, '"As if!" translating Austen's ironic narrator to film' (1998) -- Introduction -- Key passages of Emma -- Recommended editions -- Further reading.