Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since the author’s birth. In each episode, we’ll be investigating a different aspect of Austen’s personality by interrogating one of her novels with leading researchers. Along the way, we’ll visit locations important to Austen to uncover a particular aspect of her life and the times she lived in. In episode 4, we look at who were Austen’s friends, and ask what we can learn about friendship in the pages of her fourth novel, Emma.

When she created the “handsome, clever and rich” Emma Woodhouse, Jane Austen wrote that she suspected this was a character “no one but myself will much like”. It’s difficult to disagree with her assessment, and yet Emma endures as a flawed heroine with whom readers want to stay the course, shortcomings and all.

Pretty, witty, arrogant and spoilt, Emma has spent her 21 years in the lap of luxury with little to trouble her. That is, until she makes a friend and protegee of Harriet Smith, a young woman of sweet disposition and lesser social standing. There begins a highly entertaining and often twisty tale of love, friendship, secrets, crossed wires, social faux pas........

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