Collage of Elizabeth Bennet, film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, quote by Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey
Critical History of Northanger Abbey
Review of “Northanger Abbey and Persuasion”
from The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany; A new series of the Scots Magazine
May, 1818 | Edinburgh, Scotland
from The Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany; A new series of the Scots Magazine
May, 1818 | Edinburgh, Scotland
Quote: “The delightful writer of the works now before us, will be one of the most popular of English novelists, and if, indeed, we could point out the individual whom within a certain limited range, has attained the highest perfection of the art of novel writing we should have little scruple in fixing” (454).
“On Some Points of Usage in English”
by Fitzedward Hall from The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 3, No. 12
November, 1882 | Baltimore, MD
Description: This article includes a line from Austen’s Northanger Abbey and discusses the similarities between Austen’s language and modern day English.
Quote: "My own disappointmeint and loss in her is very great." Miss Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (5)
“Some Comments on Correggio in Connection with His Pictures in Dresden”
by Bernhard Berenson from The Errant King, Vol. 1, No. 3
October, 1892 | JSTOR
Description: This article deals with Romanticism and compares works of Austen to German literature.
Quote from article: “The heroine of Miss Austen’s “Northanger Abbey” is a much better representative of English romanticism than the somewhat hectic Marianne of “Sense and Sensibility.” (4)
Description: Best mid-summer reads according to New England Magazine. Includes descriptions of houses Austen has used in “Northanger Abbey”. (4 The Decorator and Furnisher)
“New Historical Romances”
from The North American Review Vol. 171, No. 529
December, 1990 | Cedar Falls, IA
Description: W.D. Howells writes intensely about how the characters live. Howells also discusses how women pretend to be interested in sports, when they aren’t. He uses this example of how women are becoming more interested in adventure novels.
“Northanger Abbey”
by John Louis Haney from Modern Language Notes Vol. 16, No. 7
November, 1901 | Baltimore, MD
Description: Haney discusses how Austen’s Northanger Abbey compares to Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho.
Description: Hopkins writes about Austen’s passion for fiction and her belief in the novel as a great form of art that inspired well-known and spirited Northanger Abbey.
“Jane Austen the Reader: A Study of Northanger Abbey”
by Kondo Ineko from Studies in English Literature Vol. 26, No. 2
1949 | Japan
Description: [What the author] proposes to do here is only a study of Northanger Abbey, for, of all Jane Austen’s finished novels, the book provides the most interesting materials for examining her both as a novel-reader and a novel-writer at the very beginning of her career.
“Northanger Abbey and Jane Austen's Conception of the Value of Fiction”
by John K. Mathison from ELH Vol. 24, No. 2
June, 1957 | Baltimore, MD
Quote: “Although the explicit passages on the value of novels in Northanger Abbey have been frequently commented on, opinion differs concerning how seriously one is to take them.”
“Critical Realism in Northanger Abbey”
by Alan D. McKillop from The Rice Institute
1958 | Minneapolis, MN
Quote: "[Austen] interposed herself as in no other of her works. The scope of her satire apps in a mere listing of the conventions and formulas glanced at in the first few chapters...."
“Comedy in Northanger Abbey"
by D. N. Gallon from The Modern Language Review Vol. 63, No. 4
October, 1968 | Cambridge, UK
Description: Gallon argues that Northanger Abbey is more than just a social satire but also a ‘human’ comedy.
“The Composition of Northanger Abbey”
by Cecil S. Emden from The Review of English Studies Vol. 19, No. 75
August, 1968 | Oxford, UK
Description: Cecil argues that Northanger Abbey is not a cohesive work written over an uninterrupted period of time. Rather it is the subject of a major revision, as well as several smaller revisions over a number of years.
Quote: “Attempts to establish the dates of the first version and of the major revision can be facilitated by noting variations in the author’s tone and manner, which are often attributed to changing attitudes of mind” (Emden 279).
“Translating the Monstrous: Northanger Abbey”
by George Levine from Nineteenth-Century Fiction Vol. 30, No. 3
December, 1975 | Oakland, CA
Quote: “Romance, energy, aspiration beyond the limits that ordinary life allows are impossible and dangerous. But they constitute an important element even in Jane Austen, the ironist and spokeswoman for useful plain sense and the social order, quite monstrous” (350).
“Catherine Morland's Gothic Delusions: A Defense of "Northanger Abbey"
by Waldo S. Glock from Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature Vol. 32, No. 1
Winter, 1978 | Greeley, CO
Description: Although “numerous critics have insisted that the burlesque is imperfectly joined to the main narrative” (Glock 33), Glock argues that it is actually one of the least revised of Austen’s novels.
“Enclosed in Openness: Northanger Abbey and the Domestic Carceral”
by Paul Morrison from Texas Studies in Literature and Language Vol. 33, No. 1
Spring, 1991| Austin, TX
Quote: “In enjoining Catherine to observe the world around her, he unwittingly provides an argument not for the irrelevance of the gothic carceral but for its reinscription in the mode of panoptic visibility or legibility: horror, like charity, beings at home” (21)
“What Ideas have you Been Admitting?”
by Peter J. Leithart from Miniatures and Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
2004 | Moscow, ID
Description: In his book, Minatures and Morals, Leithart from “theological and literary angles,” Leithart analyzes “character and theme while summarizing each of Austen's major works-Pride & Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. Including helpful review and thought questions for each section, this book is an excellent introduction to Austen for students and for all who desire a richer appreciation of her enduring genius.” In doing so, he argues that “in both their moral content and their focused, highly detailed, "miniaturist" execution, they reveal Austen's mastery of the art of fiction and her concern for Christian virtues exercised within communities.”
Description: This Norton Critical Edition is the most extensively annotated student edition available of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. "Backgrounds" features material carefully chosen to enhance readers' appreciation of the novel, including biographical commentary, early works and correspondence related to Northanger Abbey, and excerpts by Ann Radcliffe, Frances Burney, and William Wordsworth, among others, tracing Austen's connection to her Romantic contemporaries. "Criticism" collects thirteen assessments of Northanger Abbey from a wide range of voices and periods, including essays by Margaret Oliphant and Rebecca West and critics Patricia Meyer Spacks, Claudia L. Johnson, Lee Erickson, and Joseph Litvak.