With his cosy domesticity, his childlike simplicity, and kindly hospitality, Mr Woodhouse has been seen as a charming figure by generations of readers – as one of the most enchanting of chumps.

Ronald Blythe, for example, insists that "Mr Woodhouse, so wrongly and oddly regarded as an old pet by generations of readers, is actually a menace",[2] threatening Emma's future happiness by tying her to him and opposing all changes, especially marital.

He is introduced by her as "a nervous man, easily depressed... hating change of any kind", while a late vignette shows him under the weather, when "he could only be kept tolerably comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter's side".

[8] Those who see him as a confirmed egotist[9] who uses his wealth to make the world revolve around himself – "unfit for any acquaintance, but such as would visit him on his own terms";[10] and hypocritically imperious with his servants[11] – can certainly find evidence in the text to support their views; but the overall impression of a lovable charmer still remains.

There is no doubt that he idealizes her: as she tells her friend Harriet, one of her reasons for not wanting to get married is that "never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's"[13] Mr Woodhouse's supporters see an almost unconditional love as standing behind his inability to see faults in Emma.