Northanger Abbey (Penguin Classics S.)

by Marilyn Butler (Author), Marilyn Butler (Author), Jane Austen (Author), Jane Austen (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $3.82

  Northanger Abbey is the earliest of Jane Austen's great comedies of female enlightenment and combines literary burlesque - making fun of the excesses of the Gothic novel - with larger moral, philosophical, and social issues: the folly of letting literature get in the way of life, the inexcusability of not thinking for oneself, and the painful difficulties (especially for women) involved in growing up. Lady Susan and The Watsons are early compositions that reflect many of the qualities of Northanger Abbey. The first is an epistolary novel centring on the intrigues of the villainous Lady Susan; the second is an unfinished example of Jane Austen's most characteristic form - a story where the heroine is outstanding for her sense and goodness, virtues notably lacking in the other characters, who are here part of an altogether bleaker vision. Sanditon, too, is tragically incomplete, and it signals the achievement of a new depth and breadth of comic insight on the part of its author.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.27

  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 . The novel is modeled after the day's popular romances and Gothic thrillers, which it then proceeds to ridicule. The heroine is Catherine Morland, who encounters upper-crust society at Bath, falls in love, and becomes targeted by misinformed fortune-seekers. After moving to Northanger Abbey, her imagination goes to work and dreams up mysteries that lead to various social disasters.

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  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.27

• New

  paperback
  

  $7.02

  Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent. Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. Austen observes with insight and humour the interaction between Catherine and the various characters whom she meets there, and tracks her growing understanding of the world about her. In this, her first full-length novel, Austen also fixes her sharp, ironic gaze on other kinds of contemporary novel, especially the Gothic school made famous by Ann Radcliffe. Catherine's reading becomes intertwined with her social and romantic adventures, adding to the uncertainties and embarrassments she must undergo before finding happiness.