By Bill Gaither
Members met on August 16, 2026, for an enlightening lecture and a lively discussion of Jane Austen’s first novel-length work, Northanger Abbey (1817). Co-regional coordinator Linda Darden ably presided. Member and professor Mary Jane Curry provided supplementary information in advance of the meeting, lectured on key elements of the novel, with slides, and led the discussion. This was a Virtual Book Club meeting.
(In the following text, unattributed quotations are drawn from comments that Mary Jane made during the discussions.)
Jane Austen finished the novel in 1798 or 1799 and gave it the title Susan. In 1803 brother Henry Austen sold the novel on Jane’s behalf to Crosby & Co., London, for £10, with the understanding that Crosby would publish it. He never did, and in 1816 Henry purchased the book back from Crosby for the same amount. Jane then reworked the book to some unknown extent in 1816-1817, and in 1817 she added a short “Advertisement” before Chapter 1. After Jane’s death on July 18, 1817, Henry named the novel Northanger Abbey and had it published in 1817 (the title page reads 1818) by John Murray, London, in a four-volume set that included Persuasion and Henry’s biographical note on his sister Jane.
In the Advertisement that appears immediately before Chapter 1 of Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen describes the reasons for the delay in publication and “entreat[s] [the reading public] to bear in mind that thirteen years [have] passed since it was finished . . . and that during that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable change.”
A COMBINATION OF GENRES
In Northanger Abbey Austen creates a realistic plot on which she “grafts a happy ending, a very Shakespearean comic ending” that includes marriage, wealth, stability, and harmony, or as the narrator says, “perfect happiness” (Ch. 31). Jane Austen was an inveterate “genre bender,” and in Northanger Abbey she included elements from the three genres of realistic fiction, satire, and Gothic romance. In her slides Mary Jane provided an instructive table that lists some key elements of Setting, Character, Plot, and Purpose for the three genres.
AUTHORIAL INTRUSIONS
In her authorial intrusions, Jane Austen the narrator deliberately breaks out of the fictional world of the novel, speaks directly to readers and even to other novel-writers, and talks about her fictional characters as if they were real people. In the intrusion in defense of novels in Chapter 5, Austen asserts:
I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?
In the intrusion of the final sentence of the book (Ch. 31), Austen offers the reader two possible and conflicting negative morals for the tale, each based on the actions and feelings of characters whom she herself has created and controlled!
. . . professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their [Catherine and Henry’s] felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.
SOURCES OF COMEDY
“I think it’s one of Jane Austen’s funniest novels. Maybe, at least as funny, maybe funnier, than Pride and Prejudice.” Much of the humor of the novel flows from the lofty and ironic effusions that Henry Tilney directs toward Catherine Morland, toward his sister Eleanor, and even toward Mrs. Allen. The verbal duels between the intellectualizing Henry and the frank but naive Catherine give rise to some of the finest humor of the book, as well as displaying the characters of the two lovers-to-be and the progress of their relationship. Henry is the person in the book who most resembles Jane Austen. “He just cannot stop teasing, and neither can [Jane Austen], if you read her letters.”
Mrs. Allen and John Thorpe are recognizable satirical types, but they also retain their humanity, which makes them funnier than mere caricatures would have been.
As always, Jane Austen creates a distinct idiolect and mannerisms for each of her characters.
In discussing the sources of comedy in the novel, members commented on Henry’s intriguing conversations with Catherine, Isabella’s constant prattling and incompetent scheming, Austen’s Gothic effects in describing the depredations by the Thorpes on Catherine’s social life, and the comic relief that is provided by the Thorpes.
CONVERSATIONS
In the extended conversations between Henry and Catherine, Austen is not only entertaining the reader but is also showing the characters of the two lovers-to-be. In the debate about marriage and dancing (Ch. 10), Henry and Catherine “are really talking about their own values.” When Henry and Eleanor condemn the view of Bath from Beechen Cliff as not being picturesque, Catherine shows herself to be “a more independent thinker” than Henry:
It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from the top of an high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no longer a proof of a fine day. (Ch. 14)
Henry’s assertion that nature has given women so much understanding “that they never find it necessary to use more than half” (Ch. 14) may well indicate that Henry is a feminist rather than a sexist. “To me, it has always seemed that Henry’s teasing has a very significant purpose, and that is to get women to think and to use their minds. I think he has got an awful lot of respect for women’s intelligence when they show it.”
In discussing Henry’s conversations with Catherine, members commented on Henry’s preoccupation with amusing himself, his lack of prejudices, his being “more nice than wise” as Eleanor says (Ch. 14), his superiority to Catherine in age, experience, and education, his intentional probing of Catherine’s character and opinions, and his pleasure at finding that Catherine is not intimidated by his nonsense.
POTENTIAL TRAGEDIES
In every Austen novel there is a backstory that includes a tragedy. Northanger Abbey contains only one such backstory, the tragic death of Mrs. Tilney when Eleanor was thirteen years old.
But there are a number of potential tragedies in the novel, and chance plays or will play an important part in determining the outcome of each incident: the excursion in John Thorpe’s open carriage without injury (Ch. 9); Catherine’s undoing of John Thorpe’s lie (Ch. 13); James Morland’s escape from Isabella Thorpe (Ch. 25); Isabella Thorpe’s uncertain marriage prospects after Captain Tilney abandons her (Ch. 27); Eleanor’s safe though unaccompanied journey from Northanger Abbey to Fullerton (Ch. 29); the unexpected accession of Eleanor Tilney’s swain to a viscounty (Ch. 31); Henry Tilney’s independence from his father because of his mother’s marriage settlement (Ch. 31); and possibly the miserable married life with General Tilney that Mrs. Tilney might have endured (Ch. 31).
Despite Henry Tilney’s claim (Ch. 24) that English matrons were safe from domestic abuse, in fact English law was not very protective of wives and daughters, and in some cases wives were in fact imprisoned in their homes by their husbands.