Northanger Abbey

Composition & Plot

Overview:

Published posthumously in 1818 (begun in 1798, accepted by publisher in 1803) Austen's shortest major work, the novel makes fun of the prevailing fashion for the Gothic novel, particularly the work of Ann Radcliff.

CATHERINE MORLAND goes to Bath for the season as the guest of MR and MRS ALLEN, and there she meets the eccentric GENERAL TILNEY, his son HENRY TILNEY and his daughter ELANOR TILNEY. Catherine is invited to the Tilney's home, the Northanger Abbey of the title, where she imagines numerous gruesome secrets surrounding the General and his house. Henry proves that her suspicions have no substance by, while she is still recovering from the humiliation, she finds herself ordered out of the house by the General. She returns home and is followed by Henry. He explains that the General, mistakenly believing her to be penniless, had been anxious to keep her away from his son. Restored to a sensible humour by the truth, the General finally gives his blessing to Henry's marriage to Catherine.

Detail:

Northanger Abbey was written in the later 1790s but not published until 1817. Begun as a satire on the improbable plots and characters of the typical gothic novel, such as Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Northanger Abbey developed into a treatment of Jane Austen's favorite theme, the initiation of a young woman into the complexities of adult social life. CATHERINE MORLAND, who comes from the comfortable family of a village clergyman, is invited to Bath for the season by her wealthy friends, Mr. and Mrs. Allen. In Bath she meets ISABELLA THORPE, a sophisticated young woman whose brother John is a friend of Catherine's brother, JAMES MORLAND. Isabella encourages Catherine's interest in romantic fantasies and "horrid" fictions. After Isabella becomes engaged to James Morland, she tries to promote a romance between Catherine and her irresponsible brother, JOHN THORPE, but Catherine is more interested in a young clergyman she has met, HENRY TILNEY, the son of General Tilney of Northanger Abbey. Under the illusion (fostered by John Thorpe) that Catherine is wealthy, GENERAL TILNEY invites her to stay at Northanger Abbey. There Catherine's imagination runs wild: she becomes convinced that Northanger Abbey is like the setting of a gothic novel and that General Tilney had murdered his late wife. She is humiliated when General Tilney returns suddenly from London and orders her to leave the abbey. This action is based on another false report from John Thorpe, who claims that Catherine is totally without wealth and has deceived the general.

Meanwhile, Henry Tilney's wordly brother, Captain Tilney, has flirted with Isabella Thorpe and caused her to break off her engagement to James Morland. But Captain Tilney is too shrewd to be taken in by the scheming Isabella, and she is left without a husband. Elanor Tilney's fortunate marriage to a viscount and the discovery that Catherine will have a substantial income allay the general's anger, and after Henry has explained the misunderstanding to Catherine's family, the marriage both have desired finally takes place.

Although Northanger Abbey was drafted in 1798-99, after the first versions of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice had been written, it received less radical revision than those works and consequently represents an early phase of Jane Austen's art, when high-spirited social and literary satire was mixed with a growing sense of more mature themes. Jane Austen sold the manuscript to a publisher in 1803, but it was never printed, perhaps because the fashion for gothic fiction was already declining. When Jane Austen prepared an "Advertisement" for the novel in 1816, shortly before her death, she asked the public "to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable changes" (NA, p. 10). Time has proved this apology unnecessary. Although the books that she mocks and the manners she satirizes now seem remote and quaint, her basic themes--the constant desire to substitute illusion for reality, the interdependence of spiritual and material values--remain fresh and compelling. It is one of the deeper ironies of Northanger Abbey that the gothic violence that Catherine imagines is dispelled, only to be replaced by a more rational view of the world that is almost as dark.

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