20 Dec 2024
Jane Austen, On This Day
20 December 2024 Cheryl

20 December 1817: Northanger Abbey is published

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

After Jane’s death in 1817, Henry and Cassandra Austen negotiated with John Murray to publish her remaining manuscripts, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, as a four-volume set on commission. Advertisements in the Morning Chronicle and other newspapers show that the books were published on 20 December 1817, although the title page is dated 1818. Volume 1 included a “Biographical Notice of the Author” written by Henry Austen, which revealed for the first time in print that Jane Austen was the author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. [1]

Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey was published at the same time as Persuasion in a four-volume set on 20 December 1817. It is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of the popular Gothic novels of her day.

Although the novel spans about ten years, the main action takes place when Catherine Morland is 17, in 1798. Catherine, a naïve young woman with a vivid imagination, is addicted to reading these ‘horrid novels’ and thinks real life is similar to what she reads. She leaves her rural home for the bustling social world of Bath, where she befriends the charming but deceptive Isabella Thorpe and meets the witty and kind Henry Tilney, whom she begins to admire. Invited to his family estate, Northanger Abbey, Catherine’s love of Gothic novels leads her to suspect dark secrets within its walls. Ultimately, her misconceptions are gently corrected, and she matures, finding love and happiness with Henry. The novel follows her progress from innocence to a more clear-sighted maturity.

Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey between 1798–99, with the original title of Susan. In 1802, she sold it to London publisher Benjamin Crosby & Co. for £10, but Crosby failed to publish it. When Austen sought to reclaim the manuscript in 1809, Crosby demanded repayment of the £10, a sum she couldn’t afford. By 1815 or 1816, with her success as an author, her brother Henry repurchased the manuscript, revealing afterwards that it was written by the author of Pride and Prejudice. Austen revised the novel, renaming her heroine Catherine, and wrote an explanatory preface, but ultimately set the book aside.

This novel is considered to be more juvenile than her others.

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