Northanger Abbey: Jane Austen (Penguin Classics)

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

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $4.38

  A witty exploration of the perils of mistaking fiction for reality, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is edited with an introduction and notes by Marylin Butler in Penguin Classics . During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: rude, boorish John Thorpe, his flirtatious sister Isabella, who shares Catherine's love of sensational novels and intrigue, and sophisticated Eleanor and Henry Tilney, who invite her to their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination, influenced by Gothic romances, such as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho , Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible, impressionable heroine, this is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's works. The Penguin Classics edition of Northanger Abbey is based on the first edition of 1818, and includes a chronology and additional suggestions for further reading. Jane Austen (1775-1817) was extremely modest about her own genius but has become one of English literature's most famous women writers. Austen began writing at a young age, embarking on what is possibly her best-known work, Pride and Prejudice , at the age of 22. She was the author of Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice , Emma , Persuasion , Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey . If you enjoyed Northanger Abbey , you may like Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho , also available in Penguin Classics . The most perfect artist among women, the writer whose books are immortal . (Virginia Woolf). These modern editions are to be strongly recommended for their scrupulous texts, informative notes and helpful introductions . (Brian Southam, The Jane Austen Society).

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.48

  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

  Hardcover
  1948

  $8.13

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $15.77

  Catherine Morland is taken to Bath by her aunt. There she encounters the social whirl denied her at home. She meets and befriends Isabella Thorpe and her boorish brother John. She meets the charming but eccentric Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor. And all the time her head is full of the gothic fantasies of Mrs Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, scenes from which will keep intruding into the daily life of Bath society. In the second act, Catherine accepts an invitation to the Tilney's country seat at Northanger Abbey. Once again, lurid images of Udolpho keep superimposing themselves on the perfectly pleasant house at Northanger. Until she finally gets her man...This spirited adaptation for a cast of eight (plus umpteen extras if desired) is by the widely experienced theatre director, Tim Luscombe. It was first seen at York Theatre Royal in May 2004.