Impossible to believe that Miss Emma Woodhouse could change anyone’s mood for the better. Conceited, narrow-minded, snobbish, insensitive are just a few of the adjectives that describe her.

Emma
Jane Austen
(PENGUIN CLASSICS, 512 PP, £4.99)
Tablet bookshop price £4.49 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Impossible to believe that Miss Emma Woodhouse could change anyone’s mood for the better. Conceited, narrow-minded, snobbish, insensitive are just a few of the adjectives that describe her.

In 1995 I was writing a novel about a man who has committed murder, on the face of it an unsympathetic character, who serves his time in prison, comes back to a small village and finds himself deeply unwelcome. It was a fine story, except that I was stuck. As I was not writing for hours every day, I had a chance to notice that the youngest of our four children was about to be 16. Was this the end of motherhood, a role I’d enjoyed? Worse still, my mother was about to reach 90, which could soon mean the end of being a daughter (actually she lived till 96). It seemed that, with the novel going nowhere (it was later published as Tiger Sky), and other roles closing fast, I must rethink the days ahead.

Get Instant Access

Continue Reading

Register for free to read this article in full

REGISTER

Subscribe for unlimited access

SUBSCRIBE NOW

From just £37.50 quarterly

  Print copy of The Tablet delivered directly to your door.
  Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
  Access to the weekly digital copy of The Tablet.
  Full access to The Tablet’s archive – over 180 years of back issues.

Already a subscriber? Login