Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon (World's Classics) [Paperback]

Jane Austen (Author), John Davie (Editor), Terry Castle (Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0192833685 | ISBN-13: 978-0192833686 | Publication Date: June 25, 1998

Terry Castle's new introduction reveals the development of Jane Austen's art from the early compositions, "Lady Susan" and "The Watsons", through the mock Gothic "Northanger Abbey", to the incompleted "Sanditon".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.

Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Austen is the hot property of the entertainment world with new feature film versions of Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility on the silver screen and Pride and Prejudice hitting the TV airwaves on PBS. Such high visibility will inevitably draw renewed interest in the original source materials. These new Modern Library editions offer quality hardcovers at affordable prices.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192833685
• ISBN-13: 978-0192833686
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #503,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Quite Doat on Northanger Abbey!, July 14, 2000

By 

mp - See all my reviews

This review is from: Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon (World's Classics) (Paperback)

Every time I read another Jane Austen novel, I get the insanely anachronistic urge to write her a letter, and tell her how I adore her work. I quite doat on Jane Austen!

On a winter holiday in the fashionable resort town of Bath, 17-year old Catherine Morland welcomes everyone she meets into her impressionable, if somewhat dense heart. The refreshingly honest Tilneys (Henry and Eleanor) and the unapologetically vain Thorpes (John and Isabella) form her central acquaintances. "Northanger Abbey" is a charming metafiction in which Catherine, living in a prototypical small village, goes innocently into the world, and cannot help but have her perceptions altered.

Catherine's obsession with gothic fiction and Austen's 'cliff notes' narrative technique work together to achieve a briskly-paced, and highly amusing story, unlike anything else of hers that I am familiar with. She does indeed satirize gothic fiction, but also uses this forum to poke gentle fun at the very people who read her own novels, and others like them.

To that end, the novel is split between two different ways of reading and understanding - that of Catherine and that of her accidental lover, Henry Tilney. Catherine is the all-believing, undiscerning method, willing to equate the superficial with the real. Henry is the more sophisticated intellect, with a view to the underlying realities of situation and personality. One notable result of these competing epistemologies, is Austen's insistence on acknowledging and legitimizing the literary merit of female authors, and the earnest call for female scholastic and social education beyond knitting, dancing, and romance.

To have the fullest understanding of "Northanger Abbey," it is advisable to take some time to first read Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho," then compare Catherine to Radcliffe's Emily St. Aubert. Those who dislike "Northanger Abbey" because it is not like "Pride and Prejudice" or "Emma" would place too severe of a limit on the range and depth of Austen's authorial skill. This novel purposely stands on its own as a challenge to the comfort of traditional romance, and is a welcome change of pace.

4.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting read ., January 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon (World's Classics) (Paperback)

I thought that Northanger Abbey was a capturing read and yet, if you have not read any of her other novels you would find the language hard to grasp at first. I think that she describes Catherine Moreland's naivity very well and there is a very pleasing ending.