Reading Order
Northanger AbbeyNorthanger Abbey Reading Order
Northanger Abbey (written c.1798–1803; revised c.1816; published posthumously 1817) by Jane Austen is simultaneously a Gothic parody, a novel of education, and a defence of the novel as a genre — one of the funniest and most formally self-conscious books Austen ever wrote. The novel follows Catherine Morland, the thoroughly un-Gothic heroine of a provincial clergyman's family, on her first visit to Bath and then to the eponymous abbey as the guest of the Tilney family. Catherine's imagination, inflamed by reading Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, leads her to suspect the autocratic General Tilney of having murdered or imprisoned his wife in the Gothic chambers of Northanger Abbey — a suspicion that Henry Tilney gently deflates with a famous speech contrasting the relatively benign legal order of England with the continental settings of Radcliffe's fiction ('Remember that we are English, that we are Christians'). The novel is Austen's most explicit engagement with literary culture: she defends the novel as a genre against the period's critical condescension, parodies the Gothic mode while taking it seriously enough to understand what it offers its readers, and develops Catherine's realism about human nature as her education in distinguishing the fictional and the actual. The famous chapter 5 defence of novel-reading ('Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body') is the most spirited defence of fiction in Austen's work.
Where to start
Northanger Abbey (1817) — the Oxford World's Classics edition edited by John Davie and James Kinsley is excellent; the Cambridge edition edited by Barbara Benedict and Deirdre Le Faye (2006) is the scholarly standard. Read The Mysteries of Udolpho first, or at least the summary — the parody is much richer when you know what Austen is deflating.
Complete Northanger Abbey Book List
- 1Buy
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Ann Radcliffe·1794·The Gothic novel that Catherine Morland has been reading and that inflames her imagination — reading Udolpho before Northanger Abbey gives the parody its full satirical point; Austen expects her readers to know the novel and names it explicitly in the text. - 2Buy
Persuasion
Jane Austen·1817·Published in the same volume as Northanger Abbey in 1817 — Austen's final completed novel and the most emotionally profound; the two novels together show the full range of Austen's work from comic apprentice piece to elegiac masterpiece; reading them together is the closest thing to a complete Austen reading experience in two novels. - 3Buy
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen·1813·The Austen novel that most develops the comedy of manners mode that Northanger Abbey initiates — Elizabeth Bennet's education in distinguishing the truly gentlemanlike from the socially polished is the full development of Catherine Morland's education in Gothic vs. reality; the essential next Austen after Northanger Abbey. - 4Buy
The Castle of Otranto
Horace Walpole·1764·The founding Gothic text that Radcliffe developed and Austen parodied — reading Otranto alongside Northanger Abbey shows the entire Gothic tradition Austen is engaging with, from its invention through its biggest bestseller to its most intelligent comic deflation. - 5Buy
Emma
Jane Austen·1815·The Austen novel most similar to Northanger Abbey in its concern with a heroine whose imagination distorts her perception of reality — where Catherine imagines Gothic terrors, Emma imagines romantic plots; both novels trace the education of an imaginative woman in the difference between her projections and actual human nature.
Northanger Abbey — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Northanger Abbey about?
Northanger Abbey (published 1817) by Jane Austen follows Catherine Morland, a clergyman's daughter whose imagination has been inflamed by reading Gothic novels (especially Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho), on her first visit to Bath and then to Northanger Abbey as a guest of the Tilney family. Catherine's Gothic-inflamed imagination leads her to suspect General Tilney of having murdered or imprisoned his wife, a suspicion gently deflated by Henry Tilney. The novel is simultaneously a Gothic parody, a comedy of manners, a love story, and a defence of novel-reading as a serious cultural activity.
Is Northanger Abbey Austen's first novel?
Northanger Abbey was among Jane Austen's earliest compositions — it was written around 1798–1803 as 'Susan' and sold to a Bath publisher, Crosby & Co., in 1803 for £10, but the publisher never published it. Austen bought the manuscript back in 1816 (under a pseudonym — the publisher did not know the author of Pride and Prejudice was buying it back) and revised it. It was published posthumously in December 1817, four months after her death, in the same four-volume set as Persuasion. As published, it was revised by a mature Austen, not an early one — the famous defence of novel-reading in Chapter 5 shows a sophisticated awareness of her own position as a novelist.
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