In Emma, Emma Woodhouse lives in the village of Highbury. Highbury is a fictional community in Surrey, surrounded by estates and homes that shape the novel’s tightly connected social world.
Emma lives at Hartfield with her father, Mr. Woodhouse. Although Hartfield is her home, it is situated near Highbury rather than being the village itself. Other important locations include Randalls, the home of Mr. Weston and later Miss Taylor, and Donwell Abbey, the estate belonging to George Knightley. Much of the plot develops through visits, dinners, walks, rumours, and misunderstandings among these households.
Highbury is about 16 miles from London and eight miles from Richmond in the novel’s geography. Austen did not model it on one precisely identifiable village, although places she knew, including Cobham and Box Hill, may have contributed to its conception.
Readers often confuse Highbury with places from Austen’s other novels. Pemberley belongs to Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield is associated with Mansfield Park, and Sanditon is the fictional seaside resort in Austen’s unfinished novel of that name.