Northanger Abbey

By Jane Austen and Sylvia Hunt

The novel is famous especially as a parody of Gothic fiction and for its list of "horrid" novels. More importantly, it is a bildungsroman in which an innocent, inexperienced young woman learns the differences between life as described in her favorite literary works and a reality that can be harsh, merciless, but also liberating and enlightening. This edition includes Jane Austen's "Advertisement" and her biography written by her brother, and it is accompanied by 152 explanatory notes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Universitas Press
• Release date: Sep 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781988963594

Jane Austen

Born in 1775, Jane Austen published four of her six novels anonymously. Her work was not widely read until the late nineteenth century, and her fame grew from then on. Known for her wit and sharp insight into social conventions, her novels about love, relationships, and society are more popular year after year. She has earned a place in history as one of the most cherished writers of English literature.

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Introduction

Sylvia Hunt

In a letter to James Stanier Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent, Jane Austen declared: I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned & uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress (Letters 306). The most cursory review of her novels, however, shows that this statement is a self-deprecating exaggeration. Her personal letters indicate that she was well read and had knowledge of contemporary events, politics, theatre, and music. Her father, the Rev. George Austen, had, according to his will, an estimated five hundred volumes in his library to which his children had unrestricted access during their childhoods. With respect to creative fiction, Austen was similarly knowledgeable, claiming that she came from a family who were great Novel-readers & not ashamed of being so (Letters 26). In addition to being a voracious reader, Austen was an avid writer from an early age. By the time she was 17, she had written at least twenty-seven short stories, dramatic skits, poems, and a history. Her juvenilia demonstrate her early understanding of how fiction ‘works’; they also show her ability to critique what she saw as failings in contemporary literature, correcting what she perceived to be its faults. She disliked thorough Novel slang (Letters 268), the common Novel style (Letters 275), hyperbolic diction like the vortex of Dissipation (Letters 268), and cookie-cutter characters like the beleaguered sentimental heroine who falls into fainting fits at the slightest hint of danger. In Northanger Abbey, she lumped these works under the heading of the trash with which the press now groans. The greatest targets of her criticism were the sentimental novels so popular in the eighteenth century and, in particular, the Gothic novel. It is no surprise, then, that her first novel, Northanger Abbey, is a novel about novels.[1]

A Brief History of the Eighteenth-Century Novel

In order to understand this novel (and, in particular, Austen’s authorial ‘outburst’ in Chapter 5), it is important to understand the eighteenth-century novel itself. The transition between the early-modern romance and the realistic novel takes place in the mid-eighteenth century. Unlike romances, which are set in the distant (and often foreign) past and contain fantastic heroic feats and supernatural beings, the realistic novel’s plot hinges on lifelike individuals with plausible dilemmas and emotions.[2] Ian Watt finds that economic reasons can largely account for the development of the realistic novel, linking its rising popularity and production with the rise of the middle class which demanded a literature that more accurately reflected its pragmatic views.[3] Another theory is suggested by Margaret Doody, who provides a slightly more subversive reason for the transition from romance to realism when she writes that the romance tradition created a false desire for love and militated against the civic ideal, according to which women should subordinate their desires to the larger unit’s needs (289). In other words, romances were too ‘romantic’ and created unrealistic expectations in female readers. There are many hypotheses that attempt to account for the sudden development of the novel, but, for whatever reason, by the end of the century, the novel was at the heart of Regency culture . . . and the most important literary form of the modern world (Morrison 104).

Since books were expensive, the services of circulating libraries filled a great need by providing a large, literate public access to the latest literary productions. This public was largely (but not solely) female and its demands were mainly for the latest sentimental fictions. These fictions were produced in ever-increasing quantity between 1740 and 1790, and the quality declined in inverse proportion to the increase in quantity. According to Litz, faced with an economic situation that fostered mediocrity, and hampered by the absence of intelligent critics who could assess and direct the new genre, most late eighteenth-century novelists lacked any sense of a vital and evolving tradition (6). Writers imitated one another and originality was subordinated to stock situations and characters that seemed to obey the laws of fiction rather than probability.

Despite their enormous popularity, novels were generally seen as a shameless commercial assault on time-honored classical culture and a particularly bad influence on the young, in whom it fostered immoral and rebellious desires (Morrison 105).[4] Samuel Johnson believed that they were morally ambiguous and dangerous in the hands of those who could not draw correct moral inferences from them. According to Johnson,

These books are written chiefly to the young, the ignorant and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and introduction into life. They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impression; not fixed by principles, and therefore easily following the current of fancy; not informed by experience, and consequently open to every false and partial account. (Rambler 4: 7)

Johnson does not specifically mention women, but the image of young ladies improperly slumped over the latest romantic novel was already familiar and criticized.[5] As Margaret Kirkham states, ignorant young women were not the only readers likely to be unhinged by fiction of doubtful moral import, but it was widely believed that they were peculiarly vulnerable (13). In making the target audience primarily female, the novel was perceived to be unimportant as a genre. In Northanger Abbey, Catherine refers to this low opinion of novels and their perception as a ‘feminine’ form of literature when she tells Henry they [novels] are not clever enough for you—gentlemen read better books. Novelists like Henry Fielding with his dubiously exuberant and promiscuous Tom Jones posed a problem for the masses of reading women. To enjoy the novel was to applaud sexual license in both men and women, and to encourage respectable women to openly discuss the double standards placed on chastity. For example, Johnson rebuked Hannah More about her finding "some witty passage in Tom Jones with the following scathing comment: I am shocked to hear you have read it; a confession which no modest lady should ever make. I scarcely know a more corrupt work (quoted in Roberts I, 169). Samuel Richardson’s novels, however, provided the public with male and female standards up to which it was impossible to measure. Despite her misjudgment of Lovelace’s character, and her ordeal and rape, Clarissa maintains a spiritual purity that is almost angelic, exemplified most strikingly in the scene near the end of the novel when Belford describes her dressed in white and patiently awaiting death. Sir Charles Grandison is a male Clarissa in his moral perfection. It is interesting that Austen would choose Richardson’s novels as some of her favourites since she remarked in a letter that pictures of perfection made her sick & wicked" (Letters 335). She preferred novels that were grounded in fact, not fantasy, and characters that were realistically fallible yet endearing. Elizabeth Bennet, Marianne Dashwood, Emma Woodhouse, and Catherine Morland are all imperfect in their perceptions of themselves and their world, yet these imperfections make them human and believable.

Despite the strong condemnation of novels by both male and female moralists, there was also equally strong support. This support, however, came with a proviso, namely the education that readers required in order to know the difference between reality and fiction. Mary Wollstonecraft, for example, viewed novels as relatively harmless provided the reader was equipped with a sensible education. Most young ladies were given an education based largely on the acquisition of accomplishments (music, dance, non-classical languages, etc.) and, thus,

These are the women who are amused by the reveries of the stupid novelists, who, knowing little of human nature, work up stale tales, and describe meretricious scenes, all retailed in a sentimental jargon, which equally tend to corrupt the taste, and draw the heart aside from its daily duties. (Wollstonecraft 330)

Wollstonecraft does not advocate a complete prohibition against novel reading, claiming that any kind of reading I think better than leaving a blank still a blank (331). Instead of avoiding the entire genre, Wollstonecraft proposes a course of action in the understanding of novels:

The best method, I believe, that can be adopted to correct a fondness for novels is to ridicule them; not indiscriminately, for then it would have little effect; but, if a judicious person, with some turn for humour, would read several to a young girl, and point out both by tones, and apt comparisons with pathetic incidents and heroic characters in history, how foolishly and ridiculously they caricatured human nature, just opinions might be substituted instead of romantic sentiments. (332)

Austen seems to have taken up Wollstonecraft’s challenge since this novel gently ridicules silly novels and silly novel readers. There is no proof that Austen read either of Wollstonecraft’s Vindications, but it is not a wild conjecture to suppose that she had. She was sixteen when the first, A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790), was published and eighteen when the second appeared. Since Wollstonecraft’s polemics were generally highly acclaimed by critics, it is doubtful that the Austen family would not have at least heard of, if not read, them. Many of the concerns about female education, female exploitation in marriage and economic dependency outlined in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) find expression in Austen’s novels.

The Gothic Novel

A subset of the realistic novel is the Gothic novel, one of the most popular genres to emerge in the late eighteenth century. In 1764, Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto, presenting it as a discovered and translated document which describes a ‘true’ relation of the supernatural events and horrors in an Italian castle in the thirteenth century. This novel established the conventions of what would become ‘the gothic novel’: overwrought emotion, gloom, remote foreign settings, a tyrant and a persecuted heroine, horrendous crime (including incest, rape, and murder) and supernatural occurrences. Most importantly, the strange, frightening old edifice in which all of the action takes place establishes the atmosphere of the novel and is as much a character as the people.

By 1790, Gothic novel reading (and writing) was a rage. These novels have more in common with the medieval romance than they do with the realistic novel. In some ways, the Gothic is a step back in the novel’s development. Over time, the plots became formulaic and extravagant. As a result, they became subjects of satire and, like all good things, came to an end. However, their legacy lived on in the Gothic novels of the Victorian period. The Brontës, Poe, and Dickens are just a few of the authors who reinvented the Gothic form into something more realistic. The settings are modern and urban, and plots have a sense of verisimilitude which make the novels even more disturbing.

Northanger Abbey

With this background to the novel as a genre, a clearer understanding of Austen’s intentions regarding this novel becomes clearer. What Austen does is define the conflicts that exist in society and in individuals; conflicts between reason and feeling, restraint and freedom, society and the individual. These are the conflicts of the two ages, the Age of Reason and the Romantic Age which, as an author, Austen straddles. She extensively read books written in the former period, and participated in the political and philosophical discussions of the latter. Austen believed that there needed to be a balance between reason and sentiment, a topic she explores in her second novel, Sense and Sensibility. She also believed that women should not be classified as belonging to only one of these categories. During the Enlightenment, sentiment and emotion were viewed as the province of feminine character. As Anne Mellor states, intellectual abilities in the period were assumed to be gender-based and were socially constructed roles and functions allotted to an individual on the basis of perceived sexual difference (17). Although male writers certainly wrote sentimental works (both novels and poetry), theirs was a sublime emotionalism, an intellectualization of feeling of which female writers were assumed to be incapable. As Fay writes, women were generally held to be biologically unfit for the sublime even when some did practice it, because men writers continued to portray women as incapable of real thought or imagination, and particularly incapable of vision (14). This opinion concerning women’s capacity for imagination had not always been the case. During the Enlightenment, imagination was somewhat stigmatized, and women were assumed to possess more of it than men. With the Romantic celebration of imagination, the prevailing opinion was reversed and imagination became associated with the highest levels of intellectual ability. In short, women’s writing was to be confined to the private or domestic sphere, concerned with family, morality, and beauty. Many female writers, however, were not hampered by this relegation of their art to the private sphere. Instead, they contested their subjugation by making their domestic novels the scene of powerful struggle over the construction of gender. In her work about gender and genre in the Romantic period, Mellor contests that Romantic women novelists did not obediently reproduce in their novels the ideology of bourgeois capitalism, not relocated in an idealized middle-class patriarchal family (8). Instead, they frequently used the novel as a site of subversion, contestation, and interrogation of existing social codes. As Mellor writes,

Rather than allow the public realm to usurp the prerogatives and virtues of the private realm, they recolonized the public sphere under the governance of women and feminine virtue, celebrating the social and political domination of a domestic sphere located either in an idealised version of the feudal past or in an utopian future. (9-10)

Austen is not typically thought of as an author of novels that deal with contemporary social or political issues. Instead, her books are generally regarded as representations of the quotidian lives of 3 or 4 families in a country village (Letters 275). Austen’s fiction was and is seen as an accurate recording of current English life. Contemporary readers of her novels did not view them as ahistorical, but saw them, instead, as exact depictions of quotidian gentry life and culture. For example, Annabella Milbanke, wife to Lord Byron, described Pride and Prejudice as "the most probable fiction I have ever read because it rejected the common resources of Novel writers" (Elwin 159). In 1833, sixteen years after her death, Austen’s novels were reissued, and the Literary Gazette described them as absolute historical pictures (30 Mar. 1833; quoted from Galperin 24). Austen herself saw her writing as a record of English gentry life, and was careful to ensure that all details were factual and probable. When preparing Northanger Abbey for publication, Austen was aware of the retrospective nature of the novel and makes an apologetic preface for the novel in which she states, the public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable changes.

Modern readers and some critics often view Austen’s novels as ahistorical because she omits any specific reference to contemporary political events. She began writing during the French Revolution and her later novels were written in a climate of war and resistance as Napoleon invaded and conquered most of Europe. There is, however, no specific reference to any of these events in any of her novels. Written during a time of political upheaval, her books appear to be entirely devoid of contemporary political issues. According to George Steiner, The world of an Austen novel is radically linguistic: all reality is ‘encoded’ in a distinctive idiom. . . . Entire spheres of human existence — political, social, erotic, subconscious — are absent. At the height of political and industrial revolution in a decade of formidable philosophic activity, Miss Austen composes novels almost extraterritorial to history (8-9). This, however, does not mean that she was ignorant of or uninterested in the political climate of the time. Her letters are full of news about her brothers’ naval careers, including information about their ships, promotions, and whereabouts. While Austen does not directly include specific reference to specific events, her novels do mention contemporary issues and connect those issues with specific characters. The astute reader is expected to pick up these tiny threads and create something from them. For example, there is regular reference to enclosure in Northanger Abbey. Enclosure was the process of acquiring common land for private use, creating large farms and landholdings for individual use. This privatization of land was at a peak between 1760 and 1820, and was part of the reason for a mass of displaced agricultural workers seeking employment elsewhere. In this novel, Austen suggests that General Tilney’s property is largely the result of enclosure. Instead of producing anything of value to the nation, he instead has a ‘village’ of hothouses producing pineapples for his own consumption. The General is a voracious consumer, metaphorically gobbling up land and, presumably, the former village and inhabitants, to feed his various appetites. The novel also includes a comical scene of misunderstanding between Catherine Morland and Eleanor Tilney when Catherine states that she has heard that something very shocking indeed, will soon come out in London. Catherine is, of course, referring to the publication of yet another gothic novel, but Eleanor, who does not live in the world of books, reacts with horror and asks for an explanation of this dreadful riot. In 1780, the Gordon Riots saw London gripped in seven days of rioting and looting, ending only when the army opened fire on groups of protestors. Combined with the revolutionary riots in France, the people of England viewed any civic disorders with horror. All of Austen’s novels include subtle references to current events which modern film adaptations overlook in place of the romantic plots.

What is less subtle in her novels and was of particular concern to Austen was the financially marginalized position of women in society. Her books are generally seen as romance novels; the many I ♥ Mr. Darcy t-shirts sold after the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice suggest a modern emphasis on the sexual tension and happy, romantic ending. These are expected endings of most novels from the period. What Austen wants the reader to pay attention to are the other women and men who populate her books. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, it is Charlotte Lucas who, at 27, is almost beyond the age of marriageability. She is not young, pretty, or rich, but she is sensible. While readers may loathe the obsequious Mr. Collins, Charlotte’s acceptance of his marriage proposal is based on the real concerns about female financial security. Not all marriages are romantic or happy, but the state of spinsterhood was an unenviable position of financial insecurity and dependence. We may shudder at Charlotte’s choice, but her marriage is a pragmatic solution to her current single state. This was the reality for many women; not all would or could find their Mr. Darcy. Male privilege in the form of entails,[6] inheritance and the demand for dowries meant that many genteel women were never going to be on the marriage market.

Like Mary Wollstonecraft and her novel Maria; or the Wrongs of Woman (1798), Austen believed that women inhabit a Gothic world, not one as fantastical as Gothic novels present, but a world that is just as oppressive, terrifying and confining as any Gothic novel. In Wollstonecraft’s polemical novel, the literal prison that confines Maria (and all women) is the allegorical patriarchal castle that has been turned into a prison and reconverted into a home (Ellis 45). After the French Revolution, English society radically changed, with a greater emphasis placed on the separation of the sexes. As Looser explains, civil society was reconstructed with closer self-policing and censuring of upper- and middle-class forms of society (32). Late eighteenth-century society was established on the ideal of women inhabiting only the private or domestic sphere. The idealized home, the oasis from public concern, becomes a prison for any woman with intellect or ambition.

Austen takes exception to this presentation of the passive, domestic woman. As previously stated, Northanger Abbey is a book about books and, in it, specific novels are mentioned, among which are those by Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney. Although she admired both of these women, she takes exception to the depiction of their heroines. In Belinda, Evelina, and Cecilia, for example, the heroines are all orphaned heiresses who journey from secluded, protected lives in the country to busy, corrupt London. There, they are overwhelmed by the dissipation of their acquaintances, must fend off the unwanted overtures of unsuitable men, and, as a reward for all their trials, marry an appropriately perfect gentleman.[7] We certainly have the makings of that kind of novel here; a young lady under the charge of a rather indifferent chaperone visits the bustling town of Bath; her social blunders cause embarrassment; she is pursued by unsuitable men, even abducted at one point and, in the end, marries happily. However, Austen adjusts this formula and creates something much more realistic. None of her heroines or her heroes is perfect and this is perhaps why Austen’s novels remain so popular today.

Catherine Morland may be the heroine of the novel, but she is not really of central importance. Readers would have seen this character before: a naïve young woman, supposedly under the protection of a relative, arrives in a city and must make her way through social blunders and sexual advances in order to finally gain the attention of the hero. Catherine certainly fits this prescription: she is relatively unsophisticated, gullible and a veritable a tabula rasa. On the blank page that is Catherine others make their mark. Slowly she learns to read people and situations more clearly and, in the end, marries the eligible bachelor. This novel has much in common with another popular novel, The Female Quixote (1762) by Charlotte Lennox. In that novel, the heroine Arabella, because of her extensive reading of French romances, imagines her life will duplicate this pattern of love and adventure. The result is absolute chaos for everyone concerned and Arabella must be cured of her delusions by a wise doctor. Firmly grounded in reality, the humbled Arabella is able to marry the perfect Glanville. We can see a similar plot in Northanger Abbey, but Austen completely rejects the idea of the delusional heroine and perfect hero. Catherine is certainly enthralled by the Gothic novels she enjoys reading, but there is no resulting chaos except for a bit of confusion in a conversation with Eleanor and Henry. Henry sets Catherine up for her experience at the Abbey by ‘writing’ a Gothic tale on the journey. Although Catherine is humiliated when Henry realizes she believes his father capable of atrocious acts, it is Henry who is proven incorrect. His father is a cruel tyrant who manipulates and controls everyone and everything. In the end, Catherine is vindicated and Henry humbled.

Admittedly, Austen redefines ‘heroine’ in this novel by rejecting the formula she inherited from previous novelists. What readers should also pay attention to are the two other female characters: Isabella Thorpe and Eleanor Tilney. No two women could be more dissimilar. Isabella comes from Putney, a middle-class suburb of London. The eldest daughter of a widowed mother, she has little prospect of a financially prosperous marriage because, despite her good looks, she lacks any dowry. Her attraction to James is based on the assumption that he comes from a wealthy family and is a desperate attempt to secure a marriage offer before her other sisters ‘come on the market.’ Her disappointment at the realization that James will have no great inheritance, that her married life will be one spent in a small village parish on a limited income is an obvious shock. She might be married, but unlike Charlotte Lucas, Isabella is not pragmatic. Like the heroines in her Gothic novels, she hopes to find a prince to whisk her out of Putney and relative poverty. When the potentially better chance with Frederick Tilney presents itself, she jumps at the possibility to better her prospects. Unfortunately, he is a much more expert and experienced seducer. His reputation is not shattered at the end the way Isabella’s is. This analysis of Isabella’s character and motivation is not meant to exculpate her, but to present her as a victim of male privilege. She is not the only person to view marriage as a transaction. Her brother, the General and, to some extent, Henry both are very aware of the financial implications of marriage and the necessity (both social and financial) of marrying ‘well.’ The system of financial exchange for marriage means that women must look to their most lucrative chance. Women with little money have little opportunity. Men may flirt without reprimand; women are forever tainted and ostracized.

Eleanor is the opposite of Isabella in that she is wealthy and intelligent, but she too is a victim of male privilege despite her better social standing. Eleanor is presented as a role model for Catherine in her superior intellectual powers and self-restraint. It is not till the end of the novel that we learn about her shattered marriage prospect. Claire Grogan describes Eleanor as very much a puppet in the patriarchal system (22) since she represents Austen’s contemporary version of a Gothic heroine. Eleanor is under the control of her domineering father who dictates all aspects of her life including, and most importantly, marriage. Denied to marry the man of her choice because he did not have the social or financial means deemed acceptable by her father, Eleanor is very much a copy of the Gothic heroine, held prisoner in the castle by a tyrant. Even though Catherine discovers that the Gothic world does not exist, women like Eleanor do live in a ‘gothic’ world of obedience and oppression.

In contrast to the women whose personal value as females is based on money, readers are provided with an array of young men as prospective heroes. Unlike the traditional romance or Gothic novel where men are cast in the binaries of hero or villain, Austen produces more nuanced, realistic and imperfect male creations. Even her romantic heroes are flawed and need to change in order to be worthy of her heroines. However, because they are male, they are endowed with privilege (education, career, money, sexual freedom) which her women are denied.

James Morland is Catherine’s older brother and a student at Oxford University.[8] Like his sister, he is of mild and open disposition. After graduation, he will need to wait some time to marry in order to acquire a parsonage and income capable of supporting a family. Although assured of an eventual position and financial security, he will never be wealthy and will, in all probability, have extensive pecuniary responsibilities. As the oldest of his siblings, he will technically be financially responsible for his widowed mother, any unmarried sisters and for any brothers who require apprenticeship or schooling. As a brother to Catherine, he fails her by constantly siding with Isabella and John, almost bullying her into complying. As a young, educated man who has ‘entered the world’ through his university studies, his naiveté and easy manipulation by the Thorpes are

Reviews for Northanger Abbey

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It helps to know that this was probably Austen's first book, so if I didn't like it that doesn't mean I'm not an Austen fan. It also helps to know that the plight of upper class women at that time was that they were entirely dependent on men for financial security. Still, I really can't get past the vapid characters and their pointless existence. Okay, our heroine was 17 years old and learned a lot along the way, possibly becoming less vapid over the course of the story. But geez!

[castlelass · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Protagonist Catherine Morland is invited by her wealthy neighbors to accompany them to the city of Bath, where she participates in the social season. Catherine develops friendships and a romantic interest. Her brother arrives from Oxford and become engaged to one of her friends. Catherine is young and naïve. She takes people at face value. She learns through painful experience that some people cannot be trusted.

The book is separated into two parts. The first, in Bath, introduces the characters and sets them in motion. The second, at Northanger Abbey, provides the majority of the conflicts and resolution. The writing is emotive, and either I am getting used to circuitous sentences or this book is told in a more straight-forward manner than, say, Sense and Sensibility, which I recently read.

Austen was obviously a fan of how reading can broaden horizons. She pokes gentle fun at the gothic novel. Published in 1818, during the Regency era, Austen comments on the issues of her day – morality, character, social mores, and limits on a woman’s agency. I had somehow missed reading this classic before now. I found it delightful.

[greeniezona · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've read this book before, ages ago as a part of a Gothic Literature course I took in college. This most recent read was for family bedtime story tie. There are some very funny moments and biting satire here (mostly of gothic and popular literature), especially early on. Towards the end it starts to feel like her more famous novels, with everyone more or less getting their just desserts, but perhaps a little less deftly.

[murderbydeath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Enjoyed it more than Emma but less than Mansfield Park. Critics argue that Northanger Abbey would be better placed among Jane Austen's juvenilia, and while I'm hardly qualified to disagree, I found it to be overall a well-written book save for the character development. In this area, the book proclaims itself loudly to be a very early effort. With the exception of the Thorpe siblings, I thought most of the characters rather bland; I never felt any sense of them as fully fleshed-out people. Indeed, I didn't even really like either Catherine or Henry. The exception, as I said, being the Thorpe siblings. Jane Austen shows herself something of a prodigy in creating villains. Isabelle feels like a Lucy Steele prototype, whereas Mr. Thorpe - well, I just wanted to be able to pull out his parts of the book and throw them across the room at the wall. I found him more asinine and odious than any other Austen villain I've read yet. Willoughby and Wickham were sly, weak and manipulative, but Thorpe is an ass. As I write this, it occurs to me too that Northanger Abbey lacks the understated drama her later works seem to excel at; Lady Catherine's arrival at the Bennet house comes to mind, as does the moment Lucy Steele shocks everyone and turns everything upside down. There are never any turning points in this book; Isabella's letter failed to make any real impression on me and I found myself strangely unresponsive to Catherine's departure from the Abbey. What I wasn't expecting – but was highly entertained by – was the level of satire and parody in Northanger Abbey; Miss Austen takes a good whack at gothic romances, while staunchly defending novels against critics who disparaged them and their readers as being low. Also, Jane Austen's own voice, as narrator, is clear as a bell throughout the book, commenting directly to the reader on more than one occasion. I rated Northanger Abbey four stars because in spite of how it might have compared to her later works, I didn't want to put the book down; I wanted to just stay lost in Regency Bath and the Abbey until the very last (somewhat unsatisfying) page.

[jamiem12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a classic!!

[et.carole · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved this one. Got it in a small green volume from our local library. My first Jane Austen read.

[hobbitprincess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I realize I've read this twice before, but I enjoyed it more this time than in the past. This is lighter and more amusing than some of Austen's books. Catherine's over-active imagination, fueled by the novels she reads, leads to some interesting situations and misunderstandings. As always, I enjoy reading about this time in English history.

[belana-990668 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love Pride and Prejudice, but Northanger Abbey has always been one of my favourite Jane Austen books. What's not to love? A young girl with her head full of Gothic novels, falling in love with the youngest son of a noble man. A spooky mansion, a secret, angst, etc. I think it's brilliant, but then I guess I'm a Jane Austen fan. ;)

[jessicareadsthings · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I know people don't typically enjoy this novel because it doesn't "sound like Austen." But I really loved it. I can see so much of myself in Catherine Moreland. Aside from assuming that I'm living in a Gothic novel, of course.

[spiralsheep · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

113/2020. This was a set text at school when I was 11. As you can probably imagine, I had far more in common with the protagonist in the first few paragraphs, when she was keeping pets and rolling down hills, than for the entire remainder of the novel. I had no interest in romance novels and probably the only gothic fiction I'd encountered was Scooby Doo cartoons. And so I, like so many other schoolchildren, was unnecessarily put off a classic text and author for no perceivable reason. Fortunately, unlike many other ex-schoolchildren, I had the inclination to re-assay a few of the classics that education had ruined for me by forcing them on me when I was far too young to connect with them. Needless to say that as an adult I have much more empathy for the teenage heroine than I did as a child.Northanger Abbey isn't as funny as Pride and Prejudice, or as emotive as Sense and Sensibility, and it shares the mild tendency to longueurs with Persuasion, but the protagonist is adorable and the author witty.My only annoyance with the novel is the hero, Henry Tilney, who is one of those ghastly entitled sons of the gentry who claims a position in the Church of England for the tied house and tithed income and then takes the money and runs, leaving the pastoral care of his parishioners to an underpaid curate. Jane Austen did care enough about the situation to show Henry attending at least one parish meeting, which would've been in his financial interests after all, and filling in at one Sunday service because his curate was otherwise occupied, so that's more of a damn than most of this author's peers gave, but even as someone who couldn't give two hoots about religion I still can't like or approve of Henry the greedy hypocrite. I can only hope teen bride Catherine Morland's early family training stays with her into marriage and she doesn't begin to imitate her Tilney in-laws too much.Quote"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

[philsyphe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While I admire Jane Austen’s eloquent language, gripping plots are not her strong point. That said, “Northanger Abbey” engaged me more than all but one (“Emma”) of her other books. More happens in this novel than in, say, “Pride & Prejudice”, and I liked most of the characters, especially Catherine.

[thetruebookaddict · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not my favorite Austen, but definitely worth a read for any Austen fan. Austen had a knack for writing duplicitous characters. Isabella Thorpe, I'm looking at you. I loved all the references to the Gothic novels of the time.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I was younger, I didn't think that this book by Austen measured up to her other books. Now I find it so amusing! Perhaps I was too close to the teenage mentality that she pokes fun at in this book to see the humor back then.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved the way she mocked the tropes of this type of book

[nog_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This early Austen skewers the Gothic novel, or at least how seriously impressionable young ladies were affected by them. I was reminded of how often Poe used the word "gloomy", but here it is used for comic effect. What's interesting is how you can see the prototypes of future Austen characters; here they are definitely more cartoonish, especially a particular cad. Right out of the gate, she pulls out her favorite plot device: the unfortunate misunderstanding that won't get resolved until the final pages. Once again, we get to that ending with the happy wedding. Obviously, these marriages were destined to work out, since the novels stop here.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really solid for her first work. Enjoyable characters. Not TOO predictable plot. The ending was a little abrupt, but overall a quick, fun read that shows how Austen developed her craft.

[steller0707 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So says Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey - I can almost hear her voice:

“And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.”

Is this a foreshadowing of more ominous events that will intrude on our heroine's new society life? Of course it is! Catherine is young and naive when she travels to Bath and begins to make friends, to go to balls and to learn what manners are expected of a lady. She loves gothic novels, popular at the time. So when she finds herself a guest at Northanger Abbey, her imagination runs wild.

The annotated version I read was peppered with prints of Bath, the countryside and the fashions of the times, which added to the enjoyment of Jane Austen's prose. Although not one of her better known novels, it is just as good.

[haloedrain · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I see what she was trying to do here, but it comes off more frustrated and catty than satirical. It does make me glad that I live in the 21st century, though, and not the 18th.

[darthdeverell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey was the first she completed for publication, in 1803, though it was not published until after her death in 1817. The work satirizes gothic novels though the heroine, Catherine Morland, who “is in training for a heroine.” She is fond of gothic novels, particularly the work of Ann Radcliffe’s work, and this allows Austen to comment on the novel as a literary form, defending it against critics who derided it for its supposed lack of serious content. Discussing her reading habits, Catherine describes the follies then current in historical writing, saying, “The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all – it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes’ mouths, their thoughts and designs – the chief of all this must be invention, and invention is what delights me in other books” (pg. 102). As modern academic history was relatively recent, first appearing with Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776, Austen comments on the earlier fashion of historical writing and how authors would simply repackage classical texts with some of their own inventions to spice up the narrative. The power of reading runs through Austen’s work, driving many of Catherine’s choices and informing her conversations. This Barnes & Noble edition includes an introduction and notes from Alfred Mac Adam that the Austen scholar may find interesting, though his habit of putting definitions for all the early-nineteenth century terms in the footnotes becomes distracting, especially as the meaning of most can be gleaned from context.

[ainjel-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not my favourite Austen novel, but still a lovely read and a very intriguing story. Northanger Abbey concerns itself with appearance, style, and fashion. This is established immediately with the author's advertisement, and with the repetition in the first few chapters that Catherine is the "heroine" and must appear "heroic." Of course, Austen breaks down the rules of appearances, demonstrating throughout the length of the novel that nothing is as it appears. Even the lovely abbey that Catherine longs for, she soon remarks that it is the place where she has been most miserable, and received the most terrible news, as opposed to its exterior joys. All in all, it's a snarky Austen, and a witty Austen, but it lacks the mastery of some of Austen's other works.

[danielstj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A quite surprising novel in its frankness and how it treats the subject matter. Austen proves her worth by crafting characters whose journeys inward parallel the motion of the plot-line occurring around them. While the prose might seem a little dated by today's standards, there is still much to be admired here. This is, I believe, one of Austen's finer novels.

3.35-- worth the read.

[eraderneely · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After being so-so about Pride and Prejudice, which everyone seems to love, I was suprised at how much I liked Northanger Abbey. It is genuinely funny.

[cassandrat-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

actually very exciting and intriguing. early references to baseball and literature. it has a lot of character. Austen still can't write dialogue for confessions of love.

[jamiebh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm on a mission to read (and in some cases re-read) all of Jane Austen's novels this year. I had never read Northanger Abbey and a good friend suggested I start here because the book is entertaining and on the shorter side.

I really enjoyed the story and the amazing amount undertone of sarcasm in regards to the lack of respect for novel writing/novel reading during this time.

I kept having to remind myself that Catherine is only 17 however, regardless of age she has absolutely no self awareness or confidence. Honestly, there were quite a few times where she annoyed me to the point of having to put the book down. I hated how naive she was in recognizing Isabella as the awful man hunter that she is and I hated that she allowed both the Thorpes (and even her own brother) to manipulate her continuously.

I loved how Henry tried to act as Catherine's voice of reason and teach her what things in life are truly important or how to see people for what they really are. His patience in her daftness is sweet and makes him the perfect hero and love interest.

This novel was entertaining and scarily reminiscent of certain young girls even in this modern age.

[seriesousbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think Pride and Prejudice is still my fave Austen novel but this is a close second. I love the satire of it all and wish more of her books were like this. highly entertaining!

[frenzie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At first glance a simple parody of gothic novels turned parody of manners, Austen's irony manages to surpass the limitations that might seem inherent in such an approach. Perhaps the parody is not of the fiction as of the society that inspired it, that reveled in keeping women ignorant.

[ecataldi-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not nearly as strong as Jane Austen's other novels, this one is a little lacking but makes up for it with beautiful prose and well developed characters. This novel attempts to be gothic in points and I don't believe that is Austen's strong suit; I'm more about deception, societal roles, and romance. This story centers on Catherine, a smart sensible girl of 18 who gets to spend several weeks in Bath with her childless neighbors. While there she becomes best friends with Isabelle and finds herself always going on double dates with Isabelle, her older brother, John, and James, Catherine's older brother. John quite fancies Catherine but she has her eye on Mr. Tinley and she's determined to make his and his younger sister's acquaintance. What's a girl to do (hint, get a husband... but which man to choose?!?!?) Good ol' fashioned regency era romance.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen contains several elements that make one believe this is a Gothic novel, it is really more of a satire on Gothic novels, especially the ones that were popular during Jane Austen’s time. This is a coming of age story about seventeen year old Catherine Morland, who is thrilled to be taken to Bath, a resort community for wealthy members of the British society, by family friends.While at Bath, she meets a young clergyman, Henry Tilney and is very impressed by him. She also befriends his sister, Eleanor. She is invited to accompany the Tilney family to their home of Northanger Abbey. Catherine who pictures herself as a Gothic novel heroine is thrilled to be visiting the Abbey and gives her imagination free rein which leads her into some embarrassing difficulties. Also a rejected suitor spreads some lies about her family’s finances which causes Mr. Tilney to order his son, Henry, to stay away from her. Eventually the truth comes out and Henry and Catherine are free to declare their love for each other. I listened to an audio version of Northanger Abbey as read by Juliet Stevenson who did an excellent job with the story and the many characters. Through Catherine’s adventures she matures and comes to a greater understanding of herself. Although Catherine and Henry didn’t have the spark of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, or the quiet intensity of Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth from Persuasion, they grew on me over the course of the book and I found myself rooting for them. Northanger Abbey is an excellent vehicle for showing Jane Austen’s comedic side and I enjoyed this playful love story a great deal.

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

17-year old Catherine has gone to visit friends, Mr. and Mrs. Allen, in Bath. While there, she meets Isabelle and Miss Tilney, who will also become friends,. Miss Tilney has a handsome borther, who catches Catherine's eye, though Isabelle's brother is also interested in Catherine. I really liked this one. I liked Catherine and Mr. Tilney, in particular, and I loved their banter! I thought it got even more interesting in the last 1/3 of the book, when Catherine came to Northanger Abbey, the Tilney's home. I especially enjoyed Mr. Tilney's description of the house and Catherine's first couple of nights there. So far, this is one of my favourites by Austen.

[krazy4katz · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Although Jane Austen has a wonderful sense of humor, which weaves its way through her stories, I found the plot rather dull. I knew (or suspected) the ending quite early in the book and thought more could have been written about it. Instead it was just tacked onto the end of the book. Not much happens but the dialogue is very good.