Northanger Abbey - by Jane Austen

This is my 100th blog, so I am celebrating with Jane Austen.  

Northanger Abbey was Jane Austen’s first and last novel. (US Edition)  (UK Edition) How is that possible you ask?  She wrote it and sold it to a publisher who never published it.  She later bought the book back, revised it, and it was published posthumously in 1817.

This is not my favorite novel of hers, but all of Jane Austen’s work is worth reading. 

"There," cried Isabella, "you hear what your sister says, and yet you will not mind her. Well, remember that it is not my fault, if we set all the old ladies in Bath in a bustle. Come along, my dearest Catherine, for heaven's sake, and stand by me." And off they went, to regain their former place. John Thorpe, in the meanwhile, had walked away; and Catherine, ever willing to give Mr. Tilney an opportunity of repeating the agreeable request which had already flattered her once, made her way to Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe as fast as she could, in the hope of finding him still with them -- a hope which, when it proved to be fruitless, she felt to have been highly unreasonable. "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Thorpe, impatient for praise of her son, "I hope you have had an agreeable partner."

Not every work can be equal, but the least Austen bests many, many other authors.

The book is supposed to be a satire of a Gothic novel.  That is not particularly successful. It makes it mannered in part. But I really think this book is lesser than her other books because it somehow lacks the universal application that her other books have to present day.  It seems dated in a way that “Pride & Prejudice” is not.

But still:

Mrs. Allen was now quite happy -- quite satisfied with Bath. She had found some acquaintance, had been so lucky too as to find in them the family of a most worthy old friend; and, as the completion of good fortune, had found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself. Her daily expressions were no longer, "I wish we had some acquaintance in Bath!" They were changed into, "How glad I am we have met with Mrs. Thorpe!" and she was as eager in promoting the intercourse of the two families, as her young charge and Isabella themselves could be; never satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.

How can you not enjoy that?  Whatever else might be said, there are not enough Jane Austen novels, and we must enjoy those we are so fortunate to have -even if they are not perfect.

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