The first written of Austen’s novels, Northanger Abbey was not published until after her death. It is a parody of Gothic fiction—a wildly popular genre in Austen’s day, and one with which Catherine Morland, the novel’s teenage protagonist, is unhealthily obsessed. She can hardly contain her excitement when Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor invite her to stay at the titular home. For Catherine, an “abbey” must have been the site of all sorts of Gothic excesses; she even fools herself into thinking that Henry’s father, the General, has killed his wife. Soon Gothic fantasies give way to actual struggles, and Catherine learns that real life is not a fiction.
Jane Austen has clearly read all of the Gothic fiction for which she appears to be chastising her young heroine, so you know there is something of herself in Catherine.
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