Emma (Jane Austen) Trivia
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59 free Emma (Jane Austen) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jane Austen warned that no one but herself would much like Emma Woodhouse, and readers have been arguing with her ever since. This quiz covers the whole of the novel: Highbury, Hartfield and Donwell Abbey, the Weston wedding that starts the meddling, Harriet Smith and Robert Martin, the Eltons, Frank Churchill's secret, Jane Fairfax's piano, the disaster at Box Hill and the marriage that closes the book. It also digs into the book's history, from the December 1815 first edition and the dedication to the Prince Regent to John Murray's offer, Walter Scott's anonymous review and the price of a three-volume set, before turning to the screen: Clueless and Bronson Alcott High, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rachel Portman's Oscar, Kate Beckinsale, Romola Garai, Anya Taylor-Joy and the earliest surviving BBC serial. Easy questions suit anyone who has read the novel once; the expert tier asks for ages, dowries and screenwriters. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the novel and its adaptations, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you enjoy this, try our quiz on Jane Austen and her other novels.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Emma is set in which fictional village?
Highbury
Highbury is just what Austen ordered: while writing Emma she told her niece Anna that 'three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on'.
Q 02In which English county is Jane Austen's Emma set?
Surrey
Surrey puts Emma's village just sixteen miles from London, near enough for her to pack Harriet off to her sister's house in town when, late in the novel, she cannot bear to face her.
Q 03What is the name of the Woodhouse family home?
Hartfield
Hartfield is where Emma stays even as a bride: she will not leave her nervous father, so her husband leaves his own estate and moves in for as long as the old man lives.
Q 04Which estate, with extensive grounds and farms, belongs to Emma's neighbour and only critic?
Donwell Abbey
Donwell Abbey must go to her little nephew Henry, Emma insists, so its owner must never marry. Then she marries him herself.
Q 05In Emma, which house do the newly married couple of the opening chapter make their home?
Randalls
Randalls was the house its owner had long set his heart on. He would not settle down until he could afford it, so he made his money in business first, bought it, and only then married.
Q 06Emma was written at a cottage, now a museum to Jane Austen, in which village?
Chawton
Chawton. Her brother Edward gave his mother and sisters a cottage on his estate there in 1809, and from that settled home Austen at last saw her novels into print, four of them by 1815, Emma the last.
Q 07Emma's publisher, John Murray, published which Romantic poet?
Lord Byron
Lord Byron's publisher drove a hard bargain. Austen called Murray 'a rogue of course, but a civil one', refused his offer for her copyrights and had him publish Emma on commission instead.
Q 08To whom is Emma dedicated?
The Prince Regent
The Prince Regent kept her novels in each of his residences, and his librarian hinted she might dedicate the next to him. Austen disliked the Prince, but it was a request she could hardly refuse.
Q 09Jane Austen said of Emma, 'I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much' what?
Like
Like. She put the prediction to the test, writing down what friends and family made of the book: her niece Fanny, she noted, 'could not bear Emma herself'.
Q 10Jane Austen's famous first sentence describes Emma Woodhouse as 'handsome, clever, and' what?
Rich
Rich enough, in fact, to do without a husband: she tells Harriet she has 'none of the usual inducements' to marry, wanting neither fortune, employment nor consequence.
Q 11What does Emma Woodhouse, who rarely finishes anything, complete for Harriet?
A portrait
A portrait. The vicar admires it so warmly, even carrying it to London to be framed, that Emma is sure he loves the sitter, when it is really the artist he is after.
Q 12Emma's former governess, whose wedding opens the novel, was known as what before her marriage?
Miss Taylor
Miss Taylor spent sixteen years with the family, more friend than governess. Emma's father, who hates any change, can only pity the bride and goes on calling her 'poor Miss Taylor'.
Q 13Which vicar does Emma try to pair with Harriet Smith?
Mr Elton
Mr Elton has been aiming higher all along: he proposes to Emma instead, and is insulted to learn that she meant him for Harriet, whom he thinks far beneath him.
Q 21In Emma, which gift arrives anonymously for Jane Fairfax and sets the whole village guessing?
A piano
A piano. Emma decides it is a love token from a married admirer and shares her theory with Frank Churchill, never suspecting that he sent it himself.
Q 22Which army officer, a friend of her late father, gave Jane Fairfax her excellent education?
Colonel Campbell
Colonel Campbell brought Jane up with his own daughter from the age of nine. His modest fortune had to go to that daughter, so a fine education was the only provision he could make for Jane.
Q 23At which scenic spot does Emma thoughtlessly mock a garrulous spinster?
Box Hill
Q 14Which respectable young farmer does Emma persuade Harriet to refuse?
Robert Martin
Robert Martin proposes by letter, and Emma all but dictates the refusal. When he asks again at the end, Harriet says yes, and theirs is the first of the novel's three weddings.
Q 15After Emma rejects him, the vicar goes to which city and returns with a wife?
Bath
Bath does the trick: within weeks he is engaged to a woman said to have £10,000, which confirms Emma's view that he only ever wanted to marry a fortune.
Q 16In Emma, the vicar's boastful bride, forever praising Maple Grove, was known before her marriage as what?
Miss Hawkins
Miss Hawkins arrives full of airs and Italian endearments: her husband is her 'caro sposo'. Emma privately sums her up as 'a little upstart, vulgar being'.
Q 17Frank Churchill was raised by his aunt and uncle at which Yorkshire estate?
Enscombe
Enscombe is ruled by Frank's imperious aunt, whose illnesses everyone takes for a ploy to keep him at her side. Then she dies suddenly, proving them wrong and leaving him free to marry.
Q 18Frank Churchill was born with which surname?
Weston
Weston. His mother's proud family, the Churchills, cast her off for marrying Captain Weston, then after her early death took in her little boy and gave him their name.
Q 19At which seaside town did Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax become secretly engaged?
Weymouth
Weymouth is also where Mr Dixon caught Jane as she was about to be swept off a boat, a rescue that Emma inflates into a secret romance with a married man.
Q 20Jane Fairfax lives in genteel poverty with her grandmother and which talkative aunt?
Miss Bates
Miss Bates, asked at a picnic for three dull things, cheerfully says that will just suit her. Emma can't resist: 'you will be limited as to number, only three at once.'
Box Hill. As the party waits to leave, her oldest friend tells her plainly how cruel the joke was, and a shamed Emma calls on her victim the very next morning to make amends.
Q 24In Emma, Frank Churchill rescues a terrified Harriet from a roadside encounter with whom?
Gypsies
Gypsies, in the novel's word: a begging child, then a noisy group, crowd round her on a quiet road. The rescue convinces Emma, wrong again, that Harriet and Frank are meant for each other.
Q 25Harriet Smith is finally revealed to be the natural daughter of whom?
A tradesman
A tradesman, comfortably off but no gentleman. So much for the gentle birth Emma had invented for her friend when talking her out of marrying a mere farmer.
Q 26What is the name of Emma's elder sister, who is married to the hero's younger brother John?
Isabella
Isabella is her father's daughter: she frets over everyone's health just as he does, and the two debate whose doctor gives the better advice.
Q 27Where is Harriet Smith living when Emma befriends her?
A school
A school: she is a parlour boarder at Mrs Goddard's. Emma takes her up at once, resolving to improve her and to detach her from the farming family she has been spending her time with.
Q 28On which festive night does the vicar propose to Emma Woodhouse?
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve. Snow breaks up a dinner party, the guests scramble for home, and Emma finds herself shut in a carriage alone with him for the ride.
Q 29Which dish is the only one Emma's father, Mr Woodhouse, can wholeheartedly recommend to his supper guests?
Thin gruel
Thin gruel. A nervous host, he loves to see the supper table laid but would rather nobody ate from it, and gently steers his guests away from anything richer than his own small basin.
Q 30At the midsummer garden party in Emma, the vicar's wife takes charge of gathering which fruit?
Strawberries
Strawberries. She starts out declaring them the best fruit in England and ends, after half an hour of stooping in the sun, tired to death and in need of a seat in the shade.