Will I love Northanger Abbey?

This was the year of Jane Austen, and I dutifully read and re-read all her books for her big 250th birthday. I started the project like a task, but oh-so-quickly got pulled into obsession. As in personal hygiene omitting level of obsession.

Of course I loved Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma... but my favorite of these ended up being her quietest novel, the gothic Northanger Abbey. I felt Austen's wry humor here more than her other books, her biting personality creeping in between the words. By the end, I felt I knew the author as well as… show more.

This book parodies the gothic novels popular in Jane Austen’s time. Ann Radcliffe, whose novel Udolpho features prominently, was the queen of this genre. Her stories boast chilling elements like murder plots, the Spanish Inquisition, skeletons, evil nuns, and more.

The heroine of this book, Catherine Morland, enjoys this kind of writing a bit too much; mistaking real life for fiction leads her to see murder and intrigue where there is none. It’s a good warning for us imaginative types not to let fantasy run away with us. (There’s no harm in enjoying a spooky tale within reason, though; Henry… show more.

Is there anything better to read by a fireplace than Jane Austen herself? Northanger Abbey isn’t one of her most widely-read books, but I’m making a case for you to pick it up today.

It’s a delightful and at times hilarious spoof of the gothic novels that were popular at the time, but true to Austen, the romance at the center of it – between naïve and caring Catherine Morland and the original golden retriever love interest, Henry Tilney – is the beating heart of the story. (Even though Catherine probably thinks that there are actual beating hearts under the… show more.