The 200th anniversary of Emma, one of Jane Austen’s most popular novels, is being marked with a special exhibition at Chawton House Library in Hampshire, supported by the University.
Emma at 200: from English Village to Global Appeal, opens on 21 March until 25 September, and will celebrate the global nature of the novel, its reception through the centuries and its enduring popularity.
Jane Austen wrote and revised some of her most famous works, including Emma, while living in a cottage in the village of Chawton near Alton, making frequent visits to the neighbouring Chawton House, owned by her brother Edward Knight.
Executive Director of Chawton House Library and University Associate Professor in English, Dr Gillian Dow, is curator of the exhibition. She comments:
“Jane Austen’s Emma is often considered to be the most ‘accomplished’ of her novels, and it’s the one that is truly inspired by her setting of ‘three or four families in a country village’.”
It has been suggested that Donwell Abbey in Emma was modelled on Chawton House and that the book’s fictional village of Highbury was based in part on nearby Alton.
Among the many items on display in the exhibition is an English first edition of the novel, alongside a first edition from America and a first French translation – both published in 1816. The book has since been translated into numerous languages worldwide.