Northanger Abbey (The Penguin English Library)

by JaneAusten (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.25

  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.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $19.73

  First accepted by a publisher in 1803, Northanger Abbey was eventually published posthumously in 1818. In it Austen weaves a romance full of suspense and comedy around the heroine Catherine Morland's first foray into society. The style of the novel is a unique hybrid; along the way Austen parodies the eighteenth-century novel of manners, the Gothic novel, and even the educational treatises of the time.
  
  The second Broadview edition includes a revised introduction, notes, bibliography, and expanded appendices of background contextual materials.

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  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.25

• New

  paperback
  

  $6.73

  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.