Emma stands a little apart from Jane Austen's other novels. It is perhaps the most self-aware, socially critical and ironic of all her works. Her protagonist, Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel is a beautiful in Regency England., rich girl who is also spoiled, proud and blinded by her own situation in life. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and the brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband. She begins to understand herself and life a little better when her romantic schemes - charitable good works to those around her - become entangled in tensions of class and of the heart. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking at the wedding of her best friend and former governess.　 Austen wrote of Emma, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like'