In my article about the riddle "Kitty, a Fair but Frozen Maid," in the online 2022 edition of the Jane Austen Society of North America journal Persuasions, I aim to demonstrate that modern interpretations of the "Kitty, a Fair but Frozen Maid" riddle in Emma are founded on false premises. Briefly, Jillian Heydt-Stevenson argues that the riddle has a subversive and obscene meaning which informs the entire interpretation of the novel. Here is a brief recap of Jillian Heydt-Stevenson's theory of the meaning of the riddle in Emma. I have additional background research material and thoughts here and here. You'll find the text of the Kitty riddle here.
  As I pointed out in my article, if the interpretation of the riddle is mistaken, then the interpretation of the novel built upon it is moot. Nevertheless, I will discuss that interpretation to resume an earlier discussion of Jillian Heydt Stevenson's book, Austen's Unbecoming Conjunctions, Subversive Laughter, Embodied History. 
    Heydt-Stevenson is positing an advanced and subtle degree of allusive meaning in Austen's work. I'm not an expert on the evolution of the novel, but I don't see similar examples of subtle (and I mean subtle) allusion in the novels of Austen's time. There is allegory, yes, and satire, yes, but--well, see if you can follow the extended line of thought that Heydt-Stevenson thinks Austen’s first readers would have followed after they had read the one stanza of the Kitty riddle that appears in Emma...

​    Elinor Dashwood might forgive the man she loves for not telling her he's already engaged to Lucy Steele, but modern academics are not prepared to let Edward Ferrars off the hook. They think he’s weak at best, deceitful at worst, and Dr. Helena Kelly thinks there is a Freudian connotation to his destruction of the “sheath” and the scissors in Chapter 48. 
   Like it or not, Edward Ferrars occupies the post of the hero for Sense and Sensibility. Flatly declaring that he is not a hero confuses and muddles the entire novel. Plenty of people are “meh” about the Colonel Brandon/Marianne pairing, and if we conclude that the guy who marries Elinor at the end is a wimp, a liar and a pervert, where does that leave the message of the book and where does that leave the reader?
    I thought you might be interested in knowing about Coraly, an 1819 novel whose hero is a blend of Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon. The heroine in this novel unquestionably is stronger than the hero, especially in her Spartan adherence to a rigid moral code. Yet, she loves the hero, he’s her guy, and they get married. So maybe our expectations for heroes are not quite the same as long 18th century expectations. Something to ponder...

    Chawton House, the center for early women's writing and former home of Jane Austen's wealthy brother, has made a number of obscure novels available for study on their website. You would think that scholars would fall on a novel entitled ​Yamboo, or, the North American Slave, like a duck on a June bug. But no, they are too busy poring over Mansfield Park. Too bad there are no actual enslaved persons in Mansfield Park and slavery is never discussed, let alone condemned.
   How about looking at an 1812 novel which actually has an enslaved person as the titular character? Yamboo's anti-slavery message is far more explicit than Mansfield Park and serves as yet another refutation of the notion that authors, particularly women authors, couldn't talk about slavery back then. 
     Leaving aside the literary merits of the book and focusing on its message, we can say this in favour of Yamboo:

• The novel strongly asserts the titular character’s humanity.
• It confronts the issues of racial as well as class prejudice.
• Yamboo is portrayed as having agency; that is, he acts and is not merely acted upon...