Jane Austen’s novel Emma was published on this day in 1815, although this article says that the title page of the first edition gives a publication date of 1816.

The recent BBC ranking of British novels by non-English critics puts Emma at at #19, 8 ranks lower than Pride and Prejudice.  The Guardian puts it at #9 among all English-language novels.  No other Austen novels are on the list.  Huh?  (This is a pretty idiosyncratic list, actually.)

Here’s a very entertaining discussion of Emma from the BBC’s In Our Time podcast.

Time to add it to the to-be-reread list.