“Northanger Abbey”, by Jane Austen

 

222 pages, The Folio Society

Northanger Abbey begins when 17-year-old Catherine Morland accompanies family friends, the Allens, to Bath, the resort town in the west of England. She is rather naïve and has lived a thus-far sheltered life whose head is filled with tales of gothic romance and mystery, then all the rage in England and Europe. Once in Bath, she meets one Henry Tilney, a clergyman who impresses the young girl with his wit and pleasant conversation. Catherine quickly falls for Henry, although after they part they do not meet again for some time. Meanwhile, the visitors run into Mrs. Thorpe and her three daughters, amongst whom is Isabella, a girl slightly older than Catherine; the two soon become inseparable, and the gossipy and superficial Isabella conducts the impressionable Catherine around Bath and all of the balls, dances, shows, fashions and gossip that it has to offer. Thus, in a few chapters, Austen sets the stage for her latest story, while also bringing the upper-class resort of Bath, a town Austen was well-familiar with, to life.

James Morland, Catherine’s older brother, and his friend John Thorpe arrive in Bath from Oxford. Isabella begins flirting with James almost immediately, and soon enough they become a couple, although Catherine seems to be the only one in their circle who is ignorant of the affair. Taking his cue from his friend, John attempts to court Catherine; at the ball he asks to dance with her, but his constant bragging – and the sight of Henry Tilney – are all that is needed for Catherine to reject him. Soon enough, Isabella and James become as inseparable as Isabella and Catherine were, leaving Catherine to become friends with Henry’s sister, Eleanor. She quickly discerns that Catherine has feelings for her brother, but keeps the revelation to herself. Catherine makes plans to go walking with Henry and Eleanor but, when rain ruins these plans, she is pressured instead to go riding with John. Once on their way, she is seen by Henry and Eleanor as they make their way to her house. John refuses to stop, embarrassing Catherine. As in so many of Jane’s books, her heroine is wrong as is shown to be so, and so once again Austen’s heroine is that much more authentic and relatable.

When next Catherine meets Eleanor and Henry, she apologizes profusely and new plans for another walk are made; however, John, Isabella and James once again intervene and pressure her to accompany them, instead, although this time Catherine remains firm and walks to Beechen Cliff with her friends, where she discovers that Henry and Eleanor love books as much as she does. When Catherine returns home, she finds that her friend Isabella has become engaged to her brother James; meanwhile, John Thorpe leaves Bath for several weeks, albeit with the impression that Catherine loves him – to Catherine’s ignorance. Soon after, Henry’s older brother, Captain Frederick Tilney, arrives in Bath and immediately catches Isabella’s roving eye, especially after she learns that James’ income is modest, at best. When Eleanor invites Catherine to visit their family home – an invitation that is seconded by General Tilney, Henry and Eleanor’s father – Catherine, her head filled with gothic tales of haunted abbeys and such, jumps at the chance to visit one (and at the opportunity to see Henry once more).

Before Catherine leaves, Isabella tells her that her brother John is planning to propose to her, but she asks Isabella to write John and tell him not to do so. Frederick reappears and seemingly begins to court Isabella, who apparently returns his affections, despite her engagement to James. Catherine can’t help but be dismayed by all this and, in an attempt to save her brother from a broken heart, asks Henry to convince Frederick to leave her prospective sister-in-law alone. Henry, however, refuses to do so, telling Catherine that the Captain will soon tire of this game and leave Bath – and Isabella. Finally, we arrive at Northanger Abbey, the ostensible setting of the novel that bears its name, and Catherine is filled with notions about haunted gothic ruins, just like in the novels she so loves. Henry, playing on her imagination, tells an invented tale of Catherine’s imagined first night at Northanger, complete with mysterious chests, violent storms and secret passages. Catherine soaks up all of this, having had her head filled previously with just such scenarios from her gothic novels – as would many a young lass would have had, as they were all the rage then. This, this, is Austen poking fun at the genre that she evidently had no time for, utilizing her sympathetic heroine to do so (perhaps, too, Austen is having one off on her reader who, having absorbed this set up, may very well have expected a tale of an abbey dark and deep, of ghost-haunted crypts and ill-fated romances).

But…no; for all that, Northanger Abbey turns out to be rather a disappointment for Catherine (and the reader?), hardly ruined at all and with nary a ghost or romance to be found anywhere. However, due mostly to her overactive imagination, Catherine still manages to conjure up any number of gothic fantasies about the place, all to no avail; for example, in her bedroom is a grand old bureau with a locked drawer, stuffed with mysterious papers…that turn out to be nothing but old receipts. One tale that does intrigue the impressionable young girl is the death of Eleanor and Henry’s mother years earlier, and it doesn’t take long for Catherine, mind full of Gothic plots, to imagine that the General, in fact, murdered his poor wife. To discern this dastardly plot, she sneaks into the mother’s disused bedroom, but discovers nothing amiss; she is, however, caught by Henry, who quickly guesses at her motivations and shames her. Mortified at having been dressed down by the object of her affection, Catherine vows to be on her best behavior.

Soon after, Catherine receives a letter from her brother informing her that his engagement to Isabella has been called off. Catherine thinks that Frederick forced himself between them, but Henry convinces her that it was as much Isabella’s fault as Frederick’s. General Tilney drops hints about Catherine marrying Henry, to which Catherine remains noncommittal before paying a visit to Henry’s house at Woodston. Catherine then gets another letter, this time from Isabella, telling her that Frederick has left her and asking Catherine to apologize to James on her behalf. Angry at being manipulated by someone who was supposed to be her friend and who hurt her brother so, Catherine refuses.

Over the course of a previous review, I stated that one of the reasons I like Jane is because Jane is fair; she writes good and bad men, but also good and bad women, too. Isabella is a bad woman, leading James on only to dump him at the first instance without a second thought and then, when she is dumped in her turn, blithely asking forgiveness from the man that she wronged – but through the medium of that man’s sister. Nefarious Creature.

The General leaves on a business trip, and Henry goes back to Woodston for several days, but soon the General unexpectedly returns and tells Eleanor to send Catherine away the very next morning. Though she is very embarrassed, Eleanor has no choice but to send Catherine to her home in Fullerton, to everyone’s confusion as to why the General has decided to turn their guest out like this. The Morlands are, naturally, put out by the General’s rudeness, but they are nonetheless glad to have their daughter home once more. Catherine mopes around, despondent, until Henry suddenly arrives in Fullerton and proposes to her. Henry explains that his father’s behavior was due to the machinations of John Thorpe who, while in Bath – when John thought Catherine loved him – had told General Tilney that Catherine was from a very wealthy family. When the General ran into John much later (after Isabella had told John about Catherine’s true feelings towards him) John had angrily told the General that the Morlands were almost destitute; mortified, the General summarily sent Catherine away, furious that his hopes for John to make a wealthy match were to be frustrated so. Henry and Catherine decide to wait until the General gives his consent to their marriage; Eleanor, meanwhile, marries a very wealthy and important man, which puts the General in a good enough mood to give his consent to Catherine and Henry marrying – and once he is told of the true nature of the Morland’s not-too ugly financial situation. The novel ends with the marriage of Henry and Catherine.

Northanger Abbey is not just another of Jane Austen’s romantic novels; it is also a satire of the literature of the time – namely, the dark, brooding gothic novels that were all the rage during this time: think The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole from 1764, The History of the Caliph Vathek by William Thomas Beckford from 1786, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe from 1789, The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons from 1793, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (again) from 1794, to name but a few. This satire is, I think, mostly gentle, but it doesn’t end there, as when Austen comments on the tactic of authors having their characters read novels in their novels:

Yes, novels; for 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? I cannot approve of it.

One wonders what Austen thought of Northanger Abbey, seeing as it was the first of her novels to be completed for publication (in 1803) but was only published posthumously in 1817, along with Persuasion. This, perhaps, implies a certain dissatisfaction with Northanger Abbey, seeing that her first completed novel was only published after her death. But why? Did she rethink the satire angle? Did she have others ideas that she wanted to explore? Was it just not up to snuff in her eyes? We just don’t know, but it was enough that it was a Jane Austen novel for her heirs to publish it (think Yoko Ono releasing the subpar Milk and Honey after Lennon’s murder). Anyway, considering we have a mere six novels to read and enjoy and cherish, we can be thankful that they did.