British Library: Austen's Emma: Social Realism & the Novel

In the course of the novel's development, Jane Austen was a significant contributor to the emergence of the modern novel as we know it today. The review of Emma in the Quarterly Review (October 1815) makes clear to a modern audience how unusual and startling Austen's style was at the time. In this lesson, students will engage with the contemporary surprise of her work in a review generally attributed to the Scottish novelist, Sir Walter Scott.