Review: Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’

★★★★☆

Northanger Abbey is Jane Austen’s shortest novel, and though she first drafted it in her mid-twenties, this was her final completed work. The text was published posthumously.

It is my third Austen, and here I’ll blaspheme by saying that my feelings on this author’s work up until this point have been a bit take-it-or-leave-it. I enjoyed both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, but neither of them really excited me. I appreciated them more as the precursors which paved the way for Georgette Heyer (whose comedic Regency romances I can’t get enough of) than as fantastic reads in their own right.

Northanger Abbey has some noticeable differences when compared to the aforementioned works, however. It is just as much a romance, but it has several Gothic elements, which it is designed to satirise. I agree with the general opinion that this the funniest Austen novel – at least of those I have read – and this has cemented it as my favourite so far.

When a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

Catherine Morland is seventeen, and experiencing her first venture into fashionable society. Lovely, but very naïve and impressionable, she is introduced to all the enjoyments of Bath, including balls, eligible bachelors, and Gothic novels – which were at the time of Austen’s writing very much en vogue.

To get the best possible reading experience from Northanger Abbey, I do think it is beneficial to have read the texts which this one makes reference to, especially The Mysteries of Udolpho, and A Sicilian Romance. However, I have read neither, nor any of Ann Radcliffe’s other works, and I was able to muddle through with only a few references to the notes in the appendix.

Northanger Abbey is split into two 100 page volumes, which are in a way separate stories. The first chronicles Catherine’s experiences in Bath, and the friends she meets there. The second removes our over-imaginative protagonist to the Tilney family estate – the eponymous abbey – and makes much ridicule of her scatter-brained innocence. The two threads of the tale eventually wind together in a somewhat predictable, but tidy and sweet close.

‘But you never read novels, I dare say?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they are not clever enough for you – gentlemen read better books.’

‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.’

The chief strengths of this text are its willingness to make fun of its heroine (and hero), and the supreme characterisation of its supporting cast. The insufferable Isabella Thorpe and her odious brother are fantastic creations, and I think Catherine is a realistic seventeen-year-old. This is perhaps not quite so literary a text as some of Austen’s other works, but the lightness of it was more to my taste in terms of readerly enjoyment.

Taken as a coming-of-age/romance, there is a charm to this novel which is hard to beat. The best comedic lines are born more from Austen’s witty dialogue and gentle mocking of her characters than from the Gothic satire elements, but this second aspect of the novel does give it unique character which I think serves to distinguish the text.

Basically, this book is lovely. Though not the most intellectually stimulating of the classics, it makes for an enjoyable read. For me, this is a sickbed type of book. An easy but engaging page-turner for those days when you just want something to make you smile.