Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Literary Gothic in Special Collections
Brontë family manuscripts in Special Collections
Oscar Wilde in Special Collections
Twentieth century gothic: Dennis Wheatley & Sophie Hannah
Dr Richard De Ritter, Lecturer in the Long Eigteenth Century introduces Northanger Abbey:
Although it was published after Jane Austen’s death in 1817, the majority of Northanger Abbey was written decades earlier, in the late 1790s.Its heroine is the young and naïve Catherine Morland – an avid reader of Gothic novels (particularly those by Ann Radcliffe).
The first half of Northanger Abbey follows Catherine as she visits the fashionable town of Bath. There, she meets a variety of characters including the charming, but initially disconcerting, Henry Tilney.
The second half of the novel engages more directly with the idea of the Gothic. Catherine visits Henry and his sister at their family home of Northanger Abbey: a name that conjures visions of the ‘ancient edifices’ Catherine has read about in Gothic fiction.
When she arrives at the abbey, Catherine is disappointed to find a modern, distinctly un-Gothic building. Her expectations are dashed again when, during a stormy night at the abbey, she dramatically discovers a roll of paper in a cabinet (recalling a similar scene in Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest). The next day, the morning light dispels her excitement by revealing that the apparently mysterious manuscript was in fact a laundry list, left in the chest by a servant.
Critics have disagreed about the significance of the novel’s playful engagement with the conventions of the Gothic mode. Some have suggested that Austen is offering a dismissive parody of the genre: ultimately, Catherine’s overactive imagination is tamed when Henry sternly reminds her that she lives in modern England, rather than within the pages of a Gothic novel.
Nevertheless, with its witty and self-conscious allusions to authors such as Ann Radcliffe, and its defence of the ‘extensive and unaffected pleasure’ of novel-reading, Northanger Abbey offers a clear demonstration of Austen’s affection and esteem for the Gothic genre.
