Book Review | Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen is about… a nice, normal girl called Catherine cursed with an overactive imagination.

My Book Review Rating – 3 stars: A classic novel with a modern feel

I picked up Northanger Abbey as part of the Classics challenge (which I failed miserably to complete). I wanted to challenge myself to read a Jane Austen novel as my only encounter with her previously had been in the first couple of chapters of Pride & Prejudice.

I have to admit that I was dreading reading this novel — but I was pleasantly surprised! It’s in no way old and stuffy and full of hard to read language as some classics are, in fact if you didn’t know the author you could quite easily mistake it for a modern day story (in an olden day setting obviously!).

The novel revolves around Catherine Morland, a young lady of seventeen who goes to spend the season in Bath with some family friends. For my American readers, Bath is a beautiful spa town not too many miles from where I live in the South West of England. If you’re ever in the area it’s well worth a visit.

Anyway – I digress – so Catherine goes to Bath, where she makes friends with the flirtatious Isabella. The two become fast friends and spend many an hour walking around the Pump Rooms. I always find it strange that characters in such classics seem to have nothing to do other than socialise. What a life that would be to live! I admit that I had no clue what a Pump Room actually was but thanks to the fabulous Jane Austen’s World blog I now know that it was a room at the Spa where people spent hours promenading up and down and drinking the waters.

Before to long Catherine is introduced to her love interest in the form of  the dashing Henry Tilney whereupon she is thrown into a state of confusion as to whether he notices her or not.

Despite the name of the novel, the reader is not introduced to Northanger Abbey until half way through the book. The home of the Tilney family, the Abbey is not quite the grandoise structure Catherine anticipated but thanks to a story told by Henry on their jouney is still gothic enough to fuel her overactive imagination. The recounting of Henry’s story and the ensuing hilarity bought on by Catherine’s imaginings were by far my favourite part of the book.

Northanger Abbey is about friendship and love triangles and is well written by Austen with enough humour to keep it light and entertaining. If you too have been put off by Austen in the past I recommend you give this one a try. I’m off to investigate the movie/television adaptations.

Northanger Abbey (Vintage Classics)