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A. Walton Litz, American literary historian and critic, was for almost four decades a professor of English literature at Princeton University. He is the author or editor of more than twenty collections of literary criticism.
Emma is about young people trying to find suitable partners and learning to get on with each other. Emotional and sexual attractions are present throughout, though vividly implied or suggested rather than ploddingly gone into. The novel is also very moral: Emma doesn't physically harm her friends, but she does behave selfishly and thoughtlessly and hurts them - and us - quite painfully; she then feels remorse and learns to be more considerate: experiences which - being fairly general - are extremely interesting to read about. No character, no sentence could be cut out without reducing the whole. Funny, acute, and touching, Emma is the best of Jane Austen's novels. (Kirkus UK)
