Miss Bates: Emma Revisited: A Novel
Catherine Cliff
Jul 2026 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
Ebook
336
Pages
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Eligible
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About this ebook
A daring re-imagining of an Austen classic from the unflinching viewpoint of the misunderstood Miss Bates.
Henrietta Bates, the iconic bore of Austen's Emma, is the opposite of handsome, clever, and rich Emma: she is plain, ill-educated, and impoverished. An unmarried woman of quite a different order from that novel's proudly single heroine, she is an object of scorn and pity, whose survival depends upon the generosity of her neighbors which she barters for with an unrelenting shower of banal and grateful chatter.
But what if the woman we see in Emma were actually deliberately assuming a role, donning a mask, as a means of managing an untenable situation? What if there was a world of difference between her inward and outward voice? What would the Woodhouses’s Highbury look like from her perspective?
Miss Bates by Catherine Cliff imagines answers to these questions as it chronicles Henrietta Bates's unexpected and, at times, violent life, navigating a world with no ready-made opportunities, where the stakes are of the highest order. In a debut that is by turns comedic, tragic, startling, and altogether brilliant, Miss Bates turns Austen’s poignant and ridiculous side character into a feminist force who understands innately the life she has been dealt and how to slyly play it to her advantage.
This is no marriage plot; it is a spinster plot. Or maybe, the spinster’s plot.
Henrietta Bates, the iconic bore of Austen's Emma, is the opposite of handsome, clever, and rich Emma: she is plain, ill-educated, and impoverished. An unmarried woman of quite a different order from that novel's proudly single heroine, she is an object of scorn and pity, whose survival depends upon the generosity of her neighbors which she barters for with an unrelenting shower of banal and grateful chatter.
But what if the woman we see in Emma were actually deliberately assuming a role, donning a mask, as a means of managing an untenable situation? What if there was a world of difference between her inward and outward voice? What would the Woodhouses’s Highbury look like from her perspective?
Miss Bates by Catherine Cliff imagines answers to these questions as it chronicles Henrietta Bates's unexpected and, at times, violent life, navigating a world with no ready-made opportunities, where the stakes are of the highest order. In a debut that is by turns comedic, tragic, startling, and altogether brilliant, Miss Bates turns Austen’s poignant and ridiculous side character into a feminist force who understands innately the life she has been dealt and how to slyly play it to her advantage.
This is no marriage plot; it is a spinster plot. Or maybe, the spinster’s plot.
A daring re-imagining of an Austen classic from the unflinching viewpoint of the misunderstood Miss Bates.
Henrietta Bates, the iconic bore of Austen's Emma, is the opposite of handsome, clever, and rich Emma: she is plain, ill-educated, and impoverished. An unmarried woman of quite a different ...
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About the author
Catherine Cliff grew up in New York City. She has a BA in Classics and English from Harvard and a doctorate in English literature from Yale, specializing in English Renaissance poetry. She lived in London and Basel for many years and is now settled in western Massachusetts. This is her first novel.
Catherine Cliff grew up in New York City. She has a BA in Classics and English from Harvard and a doctorate in English literature from Yale, specializing in English Renaissance poetry. She lived in London and Basel for many years and is now settled in western Massachusetts. This is her first novel.
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