This playful short novel is the one which most resembles Jane Austen's Juvenilia. It is the story of the unsophisticated and sincere Catherine Morland on her first trip away from home, for a stay in Bath. There she meets the entertaining Henry Tilney; later, on a visit to his family's house (the "Northanger Abbey" of the title) she learns to distinguish between the highly charged calamities of Gothic fiction and the realities of ordinary life (which can also be distressing in their way). Like Jane Austen's Love and Freindship, this book makes fun of the conventions of many late 18th century literary works, with their highly wrought and unnatural emotions; some of this humor derives from the contrast between Catherine Morland and the conventional heroines of novels of the day (for an idea of the latter, see the Plan of a Novel).
Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen
http://www.amazon.co.uk/covers/0/67/960/192/0679601929.l.gif
An early
version of the book was written under the title Susan (in 1798-99 according
to Cassandra). It was actually the first of Jane Austen's novels sold to
a publisher (a publisher named Crosby bought it in 1803 for £10).
He advertised it as forthcoming, but never issued it. Jane Austen had the
manuscript bought back more than ten years later, after several of her
other novels had been published, and apparently made some revisions, but
finally "put it on the shel[f]" (letter of March 13, 1816). It was only
after her death in 1817 that her brother Henry finally had it published
(together with Persuasion). The title "Northanger Abbey" was not chosen
by Jane Austen (she referred to the book in her letter as "Miss Catherine").
The
most famous quote from Northanger Abbey is probably Henry Tilney's pseudo-gothic
satire (see also Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland on marriage vs. dancing,
the "Defense of the Novel", the walk to Beechen Cliff (Henry and Eleanor
Tilney with Catherine Morland), and quotes on the opposition between the
"heroic" and the "natural"). (By the way, in this novel Jane Austen uses
the word "baseball" -- the first person, as far as is known, to use this
word in writing by over fifty years.) (amazon.com)
Northanger
Abbey was begun in 1795, soon after the completion of Sense and Sensibility,
and, unlike its predecessors, it does not seem to have been based on existing
MSS., but to have been written as we now have it, though the writing was
spread over a long period. It is the one of all Miss Austen's novels about
which opinions differ most. It was written avowedly as a skit on the romantic
school, whose high priestess was Mrs. Radcliffe; but, as Mr. Austin Dobson
says: "The ironical treatment is not always apparent, and there are indications
that, as often happens, the author's growing interest in the characters
diverts her from her purpose." This is true enough, and the book certainly
improves in consequence as it goes on, for at first it is sententious,
and the author talks aside to her readers and explains her characters in
a way that she does nowhere else. Archbishop Whateley remarks that it is
"decidedly inferior to her other works--yet the same kind of excellences
that characterise the other novels may be perceived in this to a degree
which would have been highly creditable to most other writers of the same
school, and which would have entitled the author to considerable praise
had she written nothing better."
The scene
of Northanger Abbey is laid in Bath, and it is easy to see how very well
acquainted not only with the topography, but with the manners of Bath,
Jane was. The chattering and running to and fro from Pump rooms to Upper
or Lower Assembly rooms, the continual meetings, and the saunterings in
the streets, with all the affected or real gaiety, and the magnifying of
trifles, are cleverly sketched in the earlier part of the book. The sincere
but foolish little heroine, with her contrast to and intense admiration
for her silly and selfish friend, Isabella Thorpe, is a life-like figure.
Her mother is one of the very few elderly ladies who are allowed to be
sensible in Jane's books, and she comes in so little as to be a very minor
figure.
The
account of Bath society is one of the Principal features of the book, another
is that it abounds, perhaps more than any of the rest, in those three or
four line summaries which express so admirably reflections, situations,
and characters. Mrs. Thorpe's "eldest daughter has great personal beauty;
and the younger ones by pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating
her air, and dressing in the same style, did very well." "Mrs. Allen was
now quite happy, quite satisfied with Bath. She had found some acquaintance--and
as the completion of good fortune, had found these friends by no means
so expensively dressed as herself." "Her [Catherine's] whole family were
plain matter of fact people, who seldom aimed at wit of any kind; her father
at the utmost being contented with a pun, and her mother with a proverb."
"The
advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth
by the capital pen of a sister author, and to her treatment of the subject
I will only add, in justice to men, that though, to the larger and more
trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement
of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable, and
too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance."
The rattle-pate
Miss Thorpe is sketched with particular care, and if we may judge from
other contemporary novels, including Cecilia, this was by no means an uncommon
type at that day. Her conversation with Catherine on the novels she had
read is worth giving at length. She asks: "'Have you gone on with Udolpho?'
"'Yes,
I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the black veil.'
"'Are
you indeed? How delightful! Oh, I would not tell you what is behind the
black veil for the world! Are not you wild to know?'
"'Oh yes, quite! what can it be? But do not tell me, I would not be told on any account. I know it must be a skeleton, I am sure it is Laurentina's skeleton! Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it, I assure you; if it had not been to meet you I would not have come away from it for all the world.'
"'Dear
creature How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho
we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or
twelve more of the same kind for you.'
"'Have
you indeed? How glad I am! Where are they all?'
"'I
will read you their names directly, here they are in my pocket-book. Castle
of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black
Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those
will last us some time.'
"Yes,
pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?'
"'Yes,
quite sure; for a particular friend of mine-- a Miss Andrews--a sweet girl,
one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read every one of them.
I wish you knew Miss Andrews, you would be delighted with her. She is netting
herself the sweetest cloak you can conceive. I think her as beautiful as
an angel, and I am so vexed with the men for not admiring her! I scold
them all amazingly for it.'
"Scold
them! Do you scold them for not admiring her ?' "Yes, that I do. There
is nothing I would not do for those who really are my friends. I have no
notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. My attachments
are always excessively strong. I told Captain Hunt at one of our assemblies
this winter, that if he was to tease me all night, I would not dance with
him unless he would allow Miss Andrews to be as beautiful as an angel.
The men think us incapable of real friendship you know, and I am determined
to show them the difference.'"
And shortly after she exclaims, "For Heaven's sake! let us move away from this end of the room. Do you know there are two odious young men who have been staring at me this half hour. They really put me quite out of countenance! Let us go and look at the arrivals, they will hardly follow us there.'
"In a few moments Catherine with unaffected pleasure assured her that she need not be any longer uneasy, as the gentlemen had just left the Pump room.
"'And
which way are they gone?' said Isabella, turning hastily round. 'One was
a very good-looking young man.'
"'They
went towards the churchyard.'
"Well,
I am amazingly glad I have got rid of them! And now, what say you to going
to Edgar's Buildings with me and looking at my new hat? You said you should
like to see it.'
"Catherine
readily agreed. 'Only,' she added, 'perhaps we may overtake the two young
men.'
"Oh!
never mind that! If we make haste we shall pass by them presently, and
I am dying to show you my hat.
"'But
if we only wait a few minutes there will be no danger of our seeing them
at all.'
"'I shall
not pay them ally such compliment, I assure you. I have no notion of treating
men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.'
"Catherine
had nothing to oppose against such reasoning, and therefore to show the
independence of Miss Thorpe and her resolution of humbling the sex, they
set off immediately as fast as they could walk in pursuit of the two young
men."
Perhaps
Northanger Abbey may be described as the book which real Austenites appreciate
most, but which the casual reader does not admire. The story is not interesting,
the simplicity of Catherine rather irritating than attractive, and it is
the form and the flashes of insight in the book that make it so enjoyable.
The writing, though begun in 1798, spread over a long period, for the book was not finished until 1803, by which time Jane herself was settled in Bath. It was then offered to a Bath bookseller, the equivalent of a publisher in our day. He gave ten pounds for it, probably because of the local colour, but evidently after reading it he found it lacked that melodramatic flavour to which he was accustomed; and it is also highly probable that he did not at all comprehend the delightful flavour of irony. The book remained with him, luckily in safety, until thirteen years had passed, when it was bought back by Henry Austen on his sister's account for the same sum that had been given for it. When the transaction had been completed he told the bookseller that it was by the author of Sense and Sensibility, which had attracted much attention, whereat the man must have experienced the regret he deserved to feel, as he had missed the honour of introducing Jane to the public, a, honour that would have linked genius.
The book did not appear until 1818, when the author was in her grave, and it was the first to bear her name on the title-page. It was published in one volume with the last of her writings, Persuasion.In a preface written before her death, she says of Northanger Abbey--Thirteen years have made it "comparatively obsolete, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable changes." It is evident, therefore, she did not attempt to bring it up to date. This preface is prefixed to the first edition, as is also the biographical Memoir by her brother which has already been referred to.
The few closing years of the eighteenth century, the last spent at Steventon, while these three works were in hand, must have been bright ones to Jane; she had found an outlet for all the vivacious humour that was in her, and must have lived in the world of fancy with her characters, which were all very real to her, quite as much as in the material world.
At this
time her eldest brother James was living not far off, and on November 8,
1796, his wife had become the mother of a boy, named Edward. It was he
who afterwards took the additional name to that of Austen, and who published
the Memoir of Jane Austen from which we have already drawn so much interesting
detail. How little could Jane have dreamt that night when her brother sent
over a note to tell her of the child's safe arrival in the world, that
more than a hundred years later the work of that boy, describing her as
one of the world's famous authoresses, would be read eagerly. It was only
the preceding month that she had begun to work on the first of her delightful
books. When she went to see the new baby she was allowed a glimpse of him
while he was asleep, and was told that his eyes were "large, dark, and
handsome."
What
a subject for a picture! She in her girlishness, quaintly dressed, bending
over the cot of the infant, quite as unconscious of all that was to come
as even the baby itself!
http://home.earthlink.net/~lfdean/austen
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