Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen, 1818

Northanger Abbey, a satire of the gothic novel, has been to me, one of the most enjoyable of Jane Austen’s novels. It tells of “our heroine”, Catherine Morland and her trip away from her humble clergy family to Bath and, like many of Austen’s characters, thrown into the path of rich and desirable men. However, as well as the comical conversations between gold digger young ladies and fashion obsessed married women often found in Austen, Northanger Abbey’s humour is derived from the ability to laugh at itself and the other fiction of the time. Catherine’s experiences are remarked upon in a patronising and tongue-in-cheek manner and her many references to the sensational novels that she has discovered are extremely funny. The sections of the story set in Northanger Abbey itself feel less-Austen than those in the standard environment of balls in Bath, but are equally humorous and enjoyable, and Henry Tilney’s enthusiastic pastiche on a gothic story effortly amuses.