Northanger Abbey (Modern Library Classics)
by Jane Austen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jane AustenIntroduction: Robert Kiely
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2002-01-08
ISBN: 0375759174
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Modern Library
Book Reviews of Northanger Abbey (Modern Library Classics)
Book Review: Northanger Abbey (Penguin Classics)
Summary: 4 Stars
I watched the recent BBC version of the Northanger Abbey story first and loved it. I'm a Jane Austen fan who hasn't read all the novels but I'm working on it. So I got the novel to see how it compared. It was great! I love her humor - tongue in cheek and so witty. But the thing I really want to comment favorably about is the Penguin Classics edition. I get so much background and insight and explanatory information from these editions. I've read 3 of them now and they are marvelous. I've read quite a few novels from this era and it is really helpful to have notes to refer to in the back that explain things.
Summary of Northanger Abbey (Modern Library Classics)
Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber
Jane Austen’s first novel, Northanger Abbey—published posthumously in 1818—tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen’s fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into scrapes while vacationing at Bath and during her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey, Catherine eventually triumphs, blossoming into a discerning woman who learns truths about love, life, and the heady power of literature. The satirical Northanger Abbey pokes fun at the gothic novel while earnestly emphasizing caution to the female sex.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the first edition of 1818.
Catherine Morland, a "passably pretty" 17-year-old girl, is invited to Northanger Abbey, the estate of a family friend who lives in Bath. Catherine is a typically uncultivated girl tho dislikes being restricted, experiences difficulty with cleanliness, and would rather play cricket with her brothers. She lives with her father who is a clergyman and her mother who is a competent, unemotional wife. When Catherine arrives at Northanger Abbey she meets General Tilney, master of the estate, and his son Henry. Henry almost immediately begins to tease her and question her, but he is charming with an imperturbable common sense which is more welcome than any pretensions of a Gothic hero. Catherine who reads Gothic romance novels feels a sense of drama when shown around the palatial residence. There are padlocked doors, mysterious passageways, cryptic messages, unfinished stories that excite her adolescent sense of alienation. But Henry notices her willingness to be titillated by such occurrences and reminds her that civility makes it possible for people to live together and be happy with a prospect for social consensus. Theatricality gives way to wonderful realism, and Catherine is introduced to this new authentic world. She is shown the difference between helpful arrangements which permit individuals to think and feel for themselves and unhelpful ones which advocate a lifestyle that avoids thinking and feeling. She also sees how people can make a mockery of distinction and value the visible signs of social success: fine clothing, carriages, and fashionable marriages. Catherine refuses to interfere with everyone's business and admits when she is at fault. Her unselfish spirit makes her thankful for this great education and the teachers that have made her evolution into womanhood possible.
Austen, Jane Books
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