The faults arise from the minute detail which the author's plan comprephends. Her merits consist much in the force of a narrative conducted with much neatness and point, and a quiet yet comic dialogue, in which the characters of the speakers evolve themselves with dramatic effect. The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand but they are finished to nature, and with a precision which delights the reader. Reviewing Emma for the Quarterly Review (1816), Sir Walter Scott characterized its strengths and weaknesses: The author's knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. Contemporary reviewers found much to praise in them. Jane Austen is generally acknowledged to be one of the great English novelists, so it is no surprise that her novels have remained continuously in print from her day to the present.
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