Product Description

Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. Austen observes with insight and humour the interaction between Catherine and the various characters whom she meets there, and tracks her growing understanding of the world about her. In this, her first full-length novel, Austen also fixes her sharp, ironic gaze on other kinds of contemporary novel, especially the Gothic school made famous by Ann Radcliffe. Catherine's reading becomes intertwined with her social and romantic adventures, adding to the uncertainties and embarrassments she must undergo before finding happiness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7009 in Books
• Published on: 1992-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Nicholas Roe, University of St. Andrews
"...the obvious choice for Jane Austen's modern readers."

Claudia L. Johnson, Princeton University
"An exemplary edition!"

From the Publisher
The Broadview Editions series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, lesser-known literature. Newly type-set and produced on high-quality paper in trade paperback format, the Broadview Editions series is a delight to handle as well as to read.

Each volume includes a full introduction, chronology, bibliography, and explanatory notes along with a variety of documents from the period, giving readers a rich sense of the world from which the work emerged.

Customer Reviews

A well-read heroine in Bath.
Jane Austen enthusiasts (Janeites) tend to re-read "Northanger Abbey" less often than they do her other novels. It nevertheless has several merits.

One distinction is that the voice of Jane Austen the narrator is perhaps picked up more clearly here than in her other novels. Here you will find, for example, her minor dissertation in praise of the novel, "... work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of the human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language".

A second quality is the strong sense of location that emanates from its pages. Jane Austen is rarely a travel guide, but here she conducts the reader around the small English city of Bath.

A third excellence is its depiction of its "heroine" Catherine Moreland, a 17 year-old who gradually learns that reality is not the same as it's depicted in Mrs Radcliffe's novels.

And so it is great fun to read of the novel-reading heroine Catherine finding mortifications and infatuations in Bath. It is fun also to see if "something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way".

Absolutely delightful
I approached this book somewhat warily, knowing that Northanger Abbey was to some degree a satirical take on the immense popularity of Gothic romances such as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, a book I dearly love. Happily, Austen's means of poking fun at Gothic horror literature are far from mean-spirited and, as a matter of fact, can be delightfully humorous indeed. Her heroine, Catherine Morland, is by no means the type of heroine to be found in the giant tomes of Radcliffe and her indulgent imitators, as Austen tells her reading audience directly from the very start. "Almost attractive" on a good day, this unintellectual tomboy has reached her fifteenth year without inspiring a young man's fancy, nor would she be able to delight him with musical skill or even draw his profile in her secret notebooks if she had. Having encountered no strangers who would prove to be a lord or prince in disguise, her heroic ambitions seem stymied at best until fate steps in and grants her a stay of several weeks in the delightful town of Bath. Making her transition from naïve girl to equally naïve young lady, Catherine almost immediately falls quite in love with young Henry Tilney, while at the same time she becomes intimate friends with an older young lady named Isabella, whose inconstancy as both friend and intended beloved of Catherine's own brother eventually brings her much pain. To her intense delight, however, Catherine is invited by General Tilney, Henry's father, to spend some few weeks in his home, Northanger Abbey. Her joy at spending such private time in the company of her beloved and new best friend Eleanor Tilney is immense, but equally exciting to her is the chance to spend time in a mysterious former abbey of the sort she has read so much about. Such Gothic romances as Udolpho have been the source of her recent heroic training, and she is wildly desirous and fully expectant of discovering hidden passages, dark secrets, frightening circumstances, and possibly even incalcitrant perfidy in the halls of her beloved's family home. Her overactive imagination runs wild in Northanger Abbey, bringing her a fair share of embarrassment, but the very sweet and tender sensibilities that fuel her fire for Gothic mystery make her all the more endearing to me. Catherine is remarkably innocent, and as such she is absolutely delightful in my eyes.

Much of the story does fit in with your typical Gothic novel, but the frightening and dismaying things Catherine eventually discovers are of a far from supernatural sort. Ever so gradually, a true monster slowly coalesces from the pages of this remarkable novel. I, like young Catherine, was somewhat overenthusiastic concerning the Gothic qualities of this adventure I feel I shared with her, and the truly despicable thoughts and actions of the book's villain did not immediately strike me as forcefully as they should have; the afterword by Elizabeth Hardwick included in my Signet Classic copy of the book, however, served to make me fully comprehend its import. Greed, selfishness, pride-these are the horrors of Northanger Abbey, and it does deeply hurt a reader of romantic sensitivity to stand idly by, unable to aid and assist a sweet young lady such as Catherine in her time of despair and emotional suffering.

Lovers of Gothic horror or literature in general will surely find nothing but delight in the pages of Northanger Abbey. Austen's critique of Gothic literature is quite subdued, and I actually find immense pleasure in the overindulgence the author sometimes employs in her attempts to satirize it. Written by Austen at a tender age (though not published until the year following her death), Northanger Abbey features incredibly human, complex characters full of wit and charm. The hidden motives of seemingly delightful friends is brought to light, teaching young Catherine as well as the reader a painful lesson in real life, yet romance stands at the ready to right the wrongs of self-interest, deception, and greed. I absolutely adore this novel and everything about it.

pleasant and amusing...a delightful book
'Northanger Abbey' is the story of the young and naive Catherine Morland and her venture into the complexities of adult social life. It takes a tongue-in-cheek view of a girl's ideas of romance and adventure formed by reading Gothic novels, and how, with a series of very entertaining episodes that result in anti-climaxes, Catherine realises that real life is different from fiction.

In constrast with her other novels, Jane Austen's humour is rendered more in the narration than in dialogue. The strength of this novel lies in its simplicity and in its very believable characters. Catherine is not as beautiful, witty or talented as Austen's more popular heriones - Emma or Elizabeth Bennett - but she is extremely likeable. Her simplicity touches a chord and my heart went out to her whenever she was in distress, either in handling her uncouth suitor John Thorpe or being taken for a ride by her 'friend' Isabelle, or when General Tilney abruptly asks her to leave their home, Northanger Abbey.

I was so intrigued by the way the book 'The Mysteries Of Udolpho' had influenced Catherine, that I picked it up to read to know what was in it. Would recommend that book too!

'Northanger Abbey' was a very pleasant book to read; I enjoyed it immensely.