Emily of New Moon
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This book offers a deeply moving and beautifully written exploration of a young girl's resilience, creativity, and search for belonging, making it a timeless classic for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.
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Book Summary
After her father's death, orphaned Emily Starr is taken in by her stern Murray relatives at New Moon. Through her vivid imagination, fierce independence, and the beauty of Prince Edward Island, she navigates grief, social cruelty, and the struggle to belong while pursuing her dream of becoming a writer.
Emily Starr lives a solitary life with her widowed father Douglas in a secluded hollow until his death forces her into the care of her Murray relatives. At a family conclave, Aunt Elizabeth is chosen by lot to be her guardian, and Emily moves to New Moon, where she faces Aunt Elizabeth's cold rigidity and the community's judgment of her Murray pride. She finds solace in her friendship with the fiery Ilse Burnley, the artistic Teddy Kent, and the kind Cousin Jimmy, as well as in her secret writing. Emily endures humiliations at school, a terrifying visit to Wyther Grange where she learns the scandalous story of Ilse's mother, and a near-fatal fall rescued by the enigmatic Dean Priest. She defends her privacy fiercely when Aunt Elizabeth discovers her letters to her dead father, and later falls ill with a fever that reveals a vision of Ilse's mother's fate. After recovering, she receives a harsh but encouraging critique from her teacher Mr. Carpenter, affirming her talent and inspiring her to continue writing. The novel ends with Emily beginning a diary, determined to pursue her literary dreams despite the constraints of her new life.
Reading guide
Go deeper in Emily of New Moon
Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
Emily Byrd Starr
After her father's death leaves her penniless, Emily is claimed by the Murray aunts she has never met and transplanted to the stern, beautiful world of New Moon. She is a creature of vivid inner life—writing stories in her Jimmy-books, cursing those who speak ill of her dead father, and refusing to be ashamed of either. Her hunger to become a writer and her un-Murray-like defiance set her at odds with Aunt Elizabeth, but it is precisely this stubborn spark that makes her the story's beating heart.
Aunt Elizabeth Murray
Aunt Elizabeth rules New Moon with a code of duty, dignity, and unbending principle, and she takes Emily in less from love than from Murray obligation. She is genuinely scandalized by Emily's writing, her curses, and her Starr blood, yet she is also a woman of real integrity who would never shirk what she believes is right. Her slow, grudging accommodation to Emily's spirit is one of the novel's quietest and most affecting arcs.
Miss Brownell
Miss Brownell is the kind of teacher who mistakes cruelty for discipline, and she takes an immediate, personal dislike to Emily's imaginative independence. Her public humiliations drive Emily into a private anguish that Aunt Elizabeth's own anger only deepens, leaving the child sleepless and heartsick. She matters because she is the first adult outside the family to test Emily's spirit—and because her pettiness teaches Emily something about the cost of being different.
Dean Priest
Dean Priest is a Murray cousin by blood and a wanderer by temperament, a man whose bitterness and erudition make him a strange companion for a young girl. He talks to Emily as an equal, feeding her hunger for Athens, Rome, and the magic of well-wedded words, while gently warning her that a thrilling life demands suffering as its price. His attention is flattering and formative, but his cynicism and his loneliness cast a shadow over the friendship that a careful reader will not forget.
Aunt Laura Murray
Where Aunt Elizabeth commands, Aunt Laura soothes; she is the aunt who slips Emily small comforts and defends her when she can, without ever quite daring to defy the family code outright. Her tenderness is real but timid, and her position as the unmarried sister under Elizabeth's roof makes her both ally and bystander. She matters because she shows Emily—and the reader—that Murray pride is not the only inheritance available at New Moon.
Father Cassidy
Emily's beloved, poetic father who dies before the story begins.
Imagination and Creativity
Emily's inner life is defined by her poetic imagination, her 'flash' of inspiration, and her compulsion to write stories and poetry, which she defends against the repression of her strict Aunt Elizabeth.
Loss and Grief
The novel opens with the death of Emily's beloved father, and her journey through orphanhood, displacement, and the struggle to find belonging at New Moon is a central emotional arc.
Family and Belonging
Emily is taken in by her Murray relatives, and the story explores her complex relationships with them, the tension between duty and love, and her search for a true home.
Pride and Social Class
The Murray family's pride and social standing in Blair Water are a constant force, influencing how Emily is treated by others and creating conflicts, such as the feud with Lofty John.
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