To the housekeeper, Mrs Firhill, Emma is a 'controller'.Įventually, on page 91, McCall Smith comes to grips with Austen's story, which he sets in Norfolk. Emma, however, is 'growing up interesting' and is 'considerably more complex' than her sister. Isabella grows up to be a 'county girl itching to find the right husband'. After her death, he becomes obsessed with vitamins and hires a governess, the sensible Miss Taylor, to care for his two small daughters, Isabella and Emma. Mr Woodhouse is an 'anxious and obsessive engineer' who makes his fortune from the invention of a 'new and improved valve for the liquid nitrogen cylinders used by dermatologists' and marries a 'warm and personable society beauty with a considerable private fortune of her own'. She, too, is indulged by an affectionate father and McCall Smith devotes his first eight chapters to Mr Woodhouse's back story. McCall Smith's Emma, however, has a degree in decorative arts from Bath University, drives a Mini Minor in British Racing Green and has plans to establish her own interior decorating business. She possesses 'a mind delighted with its own ideas' which helps her overcome the boredom of her limited world. Emma imagines a more exciting world than the one she inhabits and making plans for other people's lives becomes an obsession. She is an 'imaginist', a term created by Austen to describe her heroine's active and fanciful mind. Indulged by her invalid father, she is headstrong, wilful and deluded about her interference in the lives of others. Austen's Emma Woodhouse is 'handsome, clever and rich', and 'had lived nearly 21 years in the world with very little to distress or vex her'. James has argued, the first detective story.

For many, Emma is Austen's masterpiece, as well as, P.

Emma by Alexander McCall Smith