Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey
Author	Jane Austen
Published	1818 (written 1798/99)

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

Northanger Abbey is the first work written by Austen, although the final published. The story follows Catherine Morland, a young woman newly out in society on vacation to Bath, a city renowned at the time for social events and its marriage market. Throughout the novel Catherine attempts to come into her imagined role as a heroine, her expectations made fanciful by her voracious reading of Gothic novels. Catherine navigates the social setting she does not understand and struggles to reconcile reality with her grand imagination, blinded to truths by the deception of others and herself. The novel is a romance and comedy, satirising elements of the Gothic genre popular during the period of romanticism/sentimental novels. Austen explores themes of truth and deception, Gothic literature and the heroine, wealth and status, innocence/ignorance, and society.

Plot

Catherine Morland, eldest daughter of a respectable clergyman, is seventeen and absorbed in novels and the Gothic genre. Her happy but all together unremarkable life is interrupted when her wealthy neighbours, the Allens, offer to have her accompany them to Bath where Mr Allen plans to seek treatment for his poor health. There, Catherine finds herself swept up in new acquaintances and Gothic plots as she enters society and attempts to fulfil her would be role as a sentimental heroine.

Characters

Main Characters

• Catherine Morland
• Henry Tilney
• Isabella Thorpe
• James Morland
• John Thorpe

Supporting Characters

• General Tilney
• Captain Tilney
• Eleanor Tilney
• Mr. Allen
• Mrs. Allen

Publication History

Jane Austen sold Northanger Abbey (then titled Susan) to Crosby & Co for £10 in 1803. They decided against publishing the book, however, which confused and angered her, and they did not allow her to reclaim the manuscript. Her brother Henry bought back the rights from Crosby & Co in 1816. Following Jane's death in July 1817, he supervised its publication. The novel was published posthumously in December 1817.

Allusions

The novel makes reference to real life locations, such as the Upper and Lower Rooms in Bath and Blaise Castle. Additionally Austen references many real eighteen and nineteenth works of literature, including:

• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749) by Henry Fielding
• The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753) by Samuel Richardson
• Cecilia: Memoirs of an Heiress (1782) by Fanny Burney
• Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) by Eliza Parsons
• The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe
• The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (1794) by Karl Friedrich Kahlert
• The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale (1796) by Eliza Parsons
• Horrid Mysteries (1796), an abridged translation of Carl Grosse's The Genius
• The Monk: A Romance (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis
• The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1796) by Ann Radcliffe
• Camilla: A Picture of Youth (1796) by Fanny Burney
• Clermont (1798) by Regina Maria Roche
• The Midnight Bell (1798) by Francis Lathom
• The Orphan of the Rhine (1798) by Eleanor Sleath
• Belinda (1801) by Maria Edgeworth

Adaptations

Film & TV

• La Abadía de Northanger (1968)
• Northanger Abbey (1986)
• Northanger Abbey (2007)

Web series

• Northbound (2015)
• The Cate Morland Chronicles (2016)

Endnotes

All references here