15/12/2025
Jane Austen at 250 – and the ‘perils’ of reading: Novelist Jane Austen’s 250th birthday is 16 December. As an homage to Austen, I have just read her first completed novel Northanger Abbey (1817), which I failed to finish in seventh form English (sorry Mr McKay), as well as browsing Special Collections for relevant background reading to this coming-of-age satire.
'Northanger Abbey' follows the evolution of 17-year-old ingénue and avid reader Catherine Morland during her stay in the fashionable town of Bath, and her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey in Gloucestershire.
Austen began writing 'Northanger Abbey' in the 1790s, when Bath was a trendy health resort and a mecca for matrimonial matches. 'A new guide through Bath and its environs' (1811) by Richard Warner, in the de Beer collection, is an example of the tourist guides published for the thousands who flocked to the spa town in the Regency period.
The book’s title is the clue to Austen's meta-fictional preoccupation: gothic novels and their reception – and the perils of novel-reading generally. Conventionally, gothic novels were set in spooky derelict castles or gloomy ruined abbeys (which ironically is not true of the book’s titular setting). Horace Walpole’s 'The castle of Otranto' (1764) is said to be the first example of this genre; a copy of the third edition (1769) is in the de Beer collection.
The impact of Ann Radcliffe’s 'The mysteries of Udolpho' from 1794 (a first edition is in the de Beer collection), on the impressionable Catherine is central to 'Northanger Abbey'. Catherine’s naivety and her uncritical reading of 'Udolpho' and other gothic novels shapes her friendships with two pairs of siblings: the social-climbing Isabella and John Thorpe and the cultured Eleanor and Henry Tilney (whose family owns Northanger Abbey).
Of course, love and sense prevail in the end, with the engagement of Catherine and Henry culminating the novel’s marriage plot.
Illustrations
Warner, R. (1811). 'A new guide through Bath and its environs'. R. Cruttwell.
Walpole, H. (1769). 'The castle of Otranto, : a Gothic story'. (The 3rd ed.). Printed for John Murray, ...
Radcliffe, A., & Radcliffe, A. W. (1794). 'The mysteries of Udolpho : a romance, interspersed with some pieces of poetry' ([1st ed.].). Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson.
