Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

Wanda McCaddon (Narrator)

12-01-98

7hrs 35min

Abridgement

Unabridged

Genre

Fiction/Classics

As low as $0.00
Play Audio Sample

12-01-98

7hrs 35min

Abridgement

Unabridged

Genre

Fiction/Classics

Description

“About an imaginative young woman who reads too many Gothic novels, the story is Austen’s most lighthearted.” Boston Globe

Jane Austen's first major novel, a parody of the popular literature of the time, is an ironic tale of the romantic folly of men and women in pursuit of love, marriage, and money. The humorous adventures of young Catherine as she encounters "the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath" lead to some of Austen's most brilliant social satire. There is Catherine's hilarious liaison with a paragon of bad manners and boastfulness, her disastrous friendship with an unforgettably crass coquette, and a whirl of cotillion dances with their timeless mortifications. A visit to ancient Northanger Abbey, the ancestral home of the novel's handsome hero, excites the irrepressible Catherine's hopes of romance amid gothic horrors. But what awaits her there is a drama of a different kind. This novel is the most youthfully exuberant and broadly comic of Jane Austen's works.

Praise

“About an imaginative young woman who reads too many Gothic novels, the story is Austen’s most lighthearted.” Boston Globe

“Northanger Abbey, her most youthful and in many ways her most brillant novel…at times dares us to pay close attention to the artistic positions and processes her other novels tend to relegate to the background.” Claudia L. Johnson, Murray Professor of English Literature at Princeton University

“[Austen] uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of ‘horrid’ novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society…In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen’s novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, nineteenth-century British style.” Amazon.com, editorial review

“Combines a satire on conventional novels of polite society with one on gothic tales of terror.” Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature

Details
More Information
Language English
Release Day Nov 30, 1998
Release Date December 1, 1998
Release Date Machine 912470400
Imprint Blackstone Publishing
Provider Blackstone Publishing
Categories Literature & Fiction, Classics, Classics, Evergreen Classics, Evergreen Classics, Classics, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult
Author Bio
Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775–1817) is considered by many scholars to be the first great woman novelist. Born in Steventon, England, she later moved to Bath and began to write for her own and her family’s amusement. Her novels, set in her own English countryside, depict the daily lives of provincial middle-class families with wry observation, a delicate irony, and a good-humored wit.

Narrator Bio
Wanda McCaddon

Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.

Overview

Jane Austen's first major novel, a parody of the popular literature of the time, is an ironic tale of the romantic folly of men and women in pursuit of love, marriage, and money. The humorous adventures of young Catherine as she encounters "the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath" lead to some of Austen's most brilliant social satire. There is Catherine's hilarious liaison with a paragon of bad manners and boastfulness, her disastrous friendship with an unforgettably crass coquette, and a whirl of cotillion dances with their timeless mortifications. A visit to ancient Northanger Abbey, the ancestral home of the novel's handsome hero, excites the irrepressible Catherine's hopes of romance amid gothic horrors. But what awaits her there is a drama of a different kind. This novel is the most youthfully exuberant and broadly comic of Jane Austen's works.

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