Northanger Abbey (Wordsworth Hardback Library)

by Hugh Thomson (Illustrator), Jane Austen (Author), Jane Austen (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.25

• 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.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1948

  $4.71

• 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.