Emma represents the mature flowering of Jane Austen's singular genius. Set in a world the author made uniquely her own-the world of country gentry in Regency England-the novel centers upon a supremely self-assured young lady, determined to arrange her life and the lives of all around her into a pattern dictated by her romantic fancy. By turn intelligent and foolish, wreaking havoc with the best intentions, Miss Emma Woodhouse is a captivating embodiment of feminine contradiction, portrayed with the stylistic grace, the wit, and the wisdom that have ensured Jane Austen's continuing popularity. The book's resourceful narrative technique-with its masterly use of point of view and its skillful employment of the elements of mystery-makes it, in the words of Frank O'Connor, "a delight and a flattery for the knowing type of reader." Graham Hough writes: "Emma has a good claim to be the most perfect of Jane Austen's novels, the one in which comedy and gravity, irony and sympathy, are most completely blended."