Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen

Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on Thursday September 4, we will be discussing Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1817).

The novel is a playful exploration of how young women dealt with the social expectations of England at the time. The main character, Catherine, is bookish 17-year-old whose obsession with Gothic novels leads her to see the world through the eyes of such novels. Sometimes, she gets a bit carried away with her imagination. One novel in particular, The Mysteries of Udolpho, leads her to misunderstand the world around her. As Catherine navigates the polite society of the city of Bath (in England) and the shadowy halls of Northanger Abbey, Austen satirises gender and class relations.

Bonus reading!

It's possible to read Northanger Abbey as a stand-alone novel of about 260 pages because we all get the basic idea of what a Gothic story is: think crumbling castles, the virtuous young woman in peril, the tyrannical villain, locked rooms, veiled objects, dark passageways, secret doors, underground spaces. All followed by a final, rational, explanation. Just imagine the old cartoon series, Scooby-Doo.

This Gothic genre, however, was established by an earlier novel, that Austen was satrirising. That earlier novel was The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe. That novel is much longer (about 600 pages) and is now known as the birth of 'Gothic literature.'

In short, we will discuss Northanger Abbey. But if you have the time, The Mysteries of Udolpho is great fun. As classics, there are numerous library and free online copies, from sites such as https://www.gutenberg.org/