Northanger Abbey  

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Northanger Abbey (1817) is a "gothic novel" by Jane Austen.

Allusions to other works

Several Gothic novels and authors are mentioned in the book, including Fanny Burney and The Monk. Isabella Thorpe gives Catherine a list of seven books that are commonly referred to as the "Northanger 'horrid' novels". These works were later thought to be of Austen's own invention until the British writers Montague Summers and Michael Sadleir re-discovered in the 1920s that the novels actually did exist. The list is as follows:

1. Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) by Eliza Parsons. London: Minerva Press.
2. Clermont (1798) by Regina Maria Roche. London: Minerva Press.
3. The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale (1796) by Eliza Parsons. London: Minerva Press.
4. The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (1794) by "Lawrence Flammenberg" (pseudonym for Karl Friedrich Kahlert; translated by "Peter Teuthold," pseudonym for Peter Will). London: Minerva Press.
5. The Midnight Bell (1798) by Francis Lathom. London: H. D. Symonds.
6. The Orphan of the Rhine (1798) by Eleanor Sleath. London: Minerva Press. Tenille Nowak has noted that critics and editors of Northanger Abbey often suggest that the names Laurentina and St Aubin appearing in the text are misrememberings of character names from Udolpho; Nowak observes that due to there being very few copies of The Orphan of the Rhine available these critics did not realise that the names actually appear in their exact form in Sleath's novel. Nowak observes other instances where Sleath's novel is echoed by Austen, particularly in her descriptions of place.<ref name="Gothic" />
7. Horrid Mysteries (1796), which is an abridged translation by Peter Will of Carl Grosse's The Genius. London: Minerva Press. (Marquis de Grosse's The Genius or the Mysterious Adventures of Don Carlos de Grandez was later translated by Joseph Trapp in 2 volumes. London: Allen and West, No. 15 Paternoster Row.)

All seven of these were republished by the Folio Society in London in the 1960s, and since 2005 Valancourt Books has released new editions of the "horrids", the seventh and final being released in 2015.

The Mysteries of Udolpho

The most significant allusion, however, is to Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, as it is the Gothic novel most frequently mentioned within this text. Notably, Jane Austen sold the manuscript of Northanger Abbey to the same firm that published Radcliffe's novel in 1794.

This outside text is first mentioned in Chapter Six, when Isabella and Catherine discuss the mystery "behind the black veil", and further establish their friendship based on their similar interests in novel genre, and their plans to continue reading other Gothic novels together. Austen further satirizes the novel through Catherine's stay at Northanger Abbey, believing that General Tilney has taken the role of Gothic novel villain.

Austen's discussion of Udolpho is also used to clearly separate Catherine from John Thorpe, as when Catherine talks about the novel with him, he crudely responds that he "never reads novels", but qualifies his statement by arguing he would only read a novel by Ann Radcliffe, who, as Catherine then points out, is the author of Udolpho. Here, Austen humorously categorizes Northanger Abbey’s characters into two spheres: those who read novels, and those who do not. When Catherine and Henry Tilney later discuss reading novels, and Henry earnestly responds that he enjoys reading novels, and was especially titillated by Udolpho, the match between Catherine and Henry is implied as both smart and fitting.

Major themes

• The Intricacies and tedium of high society, particularly partner selection
• The conflicts of marriage for love, and marriage for property
• Life lived as if in a Gothic novel, one filled with danger and intrigue.
• The dangers of believing life is the same as fiction
• The maturation of the young into sceptical adulthood, the loss of imagination, innocence and good faith
• Things are not what they seem at first

In addition, Catherine Morland realises she is not to rely upon others, such as Isabella, who are negatively influential on her, but to be single minded and independent. It is only through bad experiences that Catherine really begins to properly mature individually and grow up.

Literary significance & criticism

Northanger Abbey is fundamentally a parody of the gothic novel. Austen turns the conventions of eighteenth-century novels on their head, by making her heroine a plain and undistinguished girl from a middle-class family, allowing the heroine to fall in love with the hero before he has a serious thought of her, and exposing the heroine's romantic fears and curiosities as groundless.

Northanger Abbey exposes the difference between reality and fantasy and questions who can be trusted as a true companion and who might actually be a shallow, false friend. It is considered to be the most light-hearted of her novels.

Publishing history

Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan (as it was first called) was written about the years 1798-1799.

Northanger Abbey was written by Austen in 1798, revised for the press in 1803, and sold in the same year for £10 to a Bath bookseller, Crosbie & Co., who after allowing it to remain for many years on his shelves, was content to sell it back to the novelist's brother, Henry Austen, for the exact sum that he had paid for it at the beginning, not knowing that the writer was already the author of four popular novels. The novel was further revised before being brought out posthumously in late December 1817 (1818 given on the title-page), as the first two volumes of a four-volume set with Persuasion.