Emma; or, The Unfortunate Attachment

An early British novel, attributed to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, which explores the problems of first impressions and arranged marriages from the perspective of a woman who would suffer the long-term consequences of both.

Published anonymously in 1773 and attributed to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, this epistolary novel explores the "unfortunate attachment" of Emma Eggerton to William Walpole. Forbidden by her father to marry the man she loves, Emma resigns herself to marrying Walpole, her father's autocratic choice of a husband. The novel's other unfortunate attachment concerns Colonel Sutton, who falls prey to the "low" machinations of the confirmed flirt Harriet Courtney. Like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Georgiana's Emma explores the dangers of first impressions and arranged marriages, but does so from the vantage point of a woman who would suffer the long-term consequences of both.

Originally published when the author was only sixteen, and long out of print, Emma anticipates many of the major events of Georgiana's own life, and taken together with her second novel, The Sylph, it offers significant insights into the outlook of aristocratic women in the late eighteenth century. An Introduction by Jonathan David Gross sets the novel in the context of its time and explores the questions surrounding its authorship.

“This edition of this extraordinary novel, certainly sentimental, is a triumph of tenacious scholarship … Emma is impeccably annotated and given an enlightening introduction by Jonathan David Gross.” — The Byron Journal

“Jonathan David Gross, the novel’s current editor, provides a long, careful introduction … Gross claims Emma as an accomplished work of fiction and offers a detailed biographical account of its putative author … Scholars of the period must applaud the re-publication of any 18th Century novel.” — Jane Austen Society of North America News

“…impeccably annotated … with an enlightening introduction by Jonathan David Gross. Emma offers a new illuminating view of the famous Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire.” — Margot Strickland

"The contribution of the aristocracy to art has traditionally been regarded as collateral: they were patrons, not performers. Georgiana Spenser, however, was patron and author, not to mention musician and amateur scientist. As the introduction to this … novel … indicates, here was a glorious exception. Every page has an aphorism … The introduction is superb, and the text will seduce even those unimpressed by eighteenth-century prose." — The Independent

Jonathan David Gross is Associate Professor of English at DePaul University. He is the author of Byron: The Erotic Liberal and editor of Byron's "Corbeau Blanc": The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne.