Emma is an unfinished novel that Charlotte Brontë began in her last years, and only a few chapters survive. It opens at a girls' school, where a wealthy man brings his young daughter and the staff are charged with keeping the child's background and the identity of her father in confidence. The fragment hints at questions of class, money and honesty, and at a possible mystery about the girl's real identity. Because it breaks off so early, it is chiefly of interest to readers who wish to see how the author might have begun a new kind of story.