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Northanger Abbey

(Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)

By Jane Austen, Alfred Mac Adam (Preface)

(394)

| Hardcover | 9781593083809

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Book Description

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen’s “Gothic parody.” Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story’s unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry’s mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen’s novels, yet at its core this delightful novel is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.

Alfred Mac Adam teaches literature at Barnard College–Columbia University. He is a translator and art critic.

8 Reviews

1 person find this helpful

"Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own ... (continue)

"Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?"

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sepia officinalis said on Sep 13, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Baseball spoken here

The highlight of the novel, for me, was the mention of baseball in the first chapter! I didn't know the game existed in England in Austen's time, let alone imagine one of her heroines playing it.
I did some searching, and apparently this may be the first written mention of the game ever.
http://www ... (continue)

The highlight of the novel, for me, was the mention of baseball in the first chapter! I didn't know the game existed in England in Austen's time, let alone imagine one of her heroines playing it.
I did some searching, and apparently this may be the first written mention of the game ever.
http://www.aolnews.com/2008/11/06/apparently-jane-auste…
PS: I picked a random edition of the novel, actually I downloaded the free audiobook from the librivox.org catalogue.

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ary29 said on Nov 19, 2011 | Add your feedback

A delightful satire on gothic romance, full of of wit and love for the genre - for only a connoisseur would know its tropes, merits and flaws so well as to construct such a tale. I know some will not agree, but I would venture to say that Northanger Abbey did for gothic what The Hitchhiker's Guide t ... (continue)

A delightful satire on gothic romance, full of of wit and love for the genre - for only a connoisseur would know its tropes, merits and flaws so well as to construct such a tale. I know some will not agree, but I would venture to say that Northanger Abbey did for gothic what The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy did for sci-fi, or Young Frankenstein for the horror/Hammer movie.

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Ian Atrus said on Aug 26, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

:)

The first novel by Jane Austen I read! I loved it! :)

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Elisa said on Jul 29, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

"From politics, it was an easy step to silence."
Tsk tsk, I would have expected more from Austen...

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La Ganda said on Apr 5, 2011 about the School & Library Binding edition | Add your feedback

'Northanger Abbey' is the story of the young and naive Catherine Morland and her venture into the complexities of adult social life. It takes a tongue-in-cheek view of a girl's ideas of romance and adventure formed by reading Gothic novels, and how, with a series of very entertaining episodes that r ... (continue)

'Northanger Abbey' is the story of the young and naive Catherine Morland and her venture into the complexities of adult social life. It takes a tongue-in-cheek view of a girl's ideas of romance and adventure formed by reading Gothic novels, and how, with a series of very entertaining episodes that result in anti-climaxes, Catherine realises that real life is different from fiction. Not my favourite Jane Austen's book, but quite entertaining anyway.

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Lunarossa said on Sep 3, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback