Austen, Jane

16 December 1775 - 18 July 1817

One of the most important novelists of the Romantic Period, with a significance and a following that continue strong to this day, Austen was uninterested in the Gothic except as an object of parody. Her early novel Northanger Abbey is a wonderful Gothic satire—one which demonstrates a real knowledge of the genre, and its excesses. Northanger Abbey specifically mentions a number of genuine Gothics, often referred to as the Northanger novels.

Sites:
Jane Austen InfoPage
One of the richer Austen sites in existence: biography, bibliographies, etexts galore, Jane's letters, articles and discussions of all sorts, including historical and social context. If it's Austen, it's here. [Henry Churchyard]
Jane Austen Society of North America
Includes an online journal, Persuasions, devoted to Austen studies
Jane Austen Centre in Bath
Self-billed as "a new permanent exhibition which tells the story of Jane's Bath experience - the effect that living here had on her and her writing." You can find out more, I suppose, by subscribing to their magazine, Jane Austen's Regency World, or can have your picture taken, while visiting the Centre, dressed as an Austen character. Jane Lives!
Jane Austen
Biographical essay, etexts, and more. [Literature Post]
Jane Austen Society of Australia
Includes a biography, chronology, and a useful links page.
Biographical note
Includes links to contextual info. [BBC History]
Brief biographical note
[Peter Landry, Biographies]
Biographical note
[The Authors Calendar]
Brief biographical note
Part of the PBS website for the 2002 production of Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters.
Brief biographical note
[Columbia Encyclopedia, Bartleby]
Brief biographical note
[Internet Book List]
Brief biographical note
[Gothic Labyrinth]
Brief biographical note a LitGothic etext
[John W. Cousins, A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910]
Austen Hyper-Concordance
Part of the The Victorian Literary Studies Archive, this concordance allows you to search etexts of Austen's novels, including Northanger Abbey.
Jane Austen
Etexts (only) at the U of Maryland.
Portraits
 [National Portrait Gallery, London]
Jane Austen
The Noel Collection



click for info from amazon.com
click the cover image for more info from Amazon.com


Etexts:
Northanger Abbey
Written in 1798-99, the heyday of the Gothic novel, Austen's masterful and genuinely comic parody of the Gothic's excesses of sentimentality and imagination wasn't published until 1818, a year after her death.
- at Jane Austen InfoPage, where you can also find this image showing an attempt to market NA as a genuine horror Gothic! [Henry Churchyard]
- at Classic Reader.com this link opens a new window
- at Project Gutenberg (460K) or zipped version (184K)
-- brief discussion and extract   [W. W. Norton]
-- Calendar for Northanger Abbey [Ellen Moody]
-- Title page for the first edition of Northanger Abbey. [Corvey Women Writers on the Web, Sheffield Hallam U]
click for more info from amazon.com
click the cover image for more info from amazon.com


Essays:
"Revising the Radcliffean Model: Regina Maria Roche’s Clermont and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey"
by Anthony Mandal [Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text 3: Sept. 1999]
"Irony and Political Education in Northanger Abbey"
by Melissa Schaub [Persuasions]
"Of Course You Can Trust Me!": Jane Austen's Narrator in Northanger Abbey"
by Henry N. Rogers III [Persuasions]
"Reading by the Book in Northanger Abbey"
by Barbara Benedict [Persuasions]
"Willy-Nilly" and Other Tales of Male-Tails: Rightful and Wrongful Laws of Landed Property in Northanger Abbey and Beyond"
by Deirdre E. Gilbert [Persuasions]
"The Invention of Civility in Northanger Abbey"
by Joseph Wiesenfarth [Persuasions]
"Northanger Abbey; or Nature and Probability"
by Mark Loveridge (abstract)  [C19 Lit]


Reviews:
Jane Austen: A Life by David Nokes (UC Press, 1997). Reviewer: Catherine Judd [New Books in 19th-Century British Studies, USC] Gothic Feminism: The Professionalization of Gender from Charlotte Smith to the Brontës
by Diane Long Hoeveler (Penn State University P, 1998).  buy this book at amazon.com
Reviewer: Deborah Kennedy [Romantic Circles]
The same title is also reviewed at Romanticism on the Net. Reviewer: Lauren Fitzgerald
· One chapter of this book is partly devoted to Northanger Abbey.
Northanger Abbey buy this book at amazon.com
Ed. Claire Grogan (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 1996). Reviewer: Julia Paulman Kielstra  [Romanticism on the Net]


Discussion:
AUSTEN-L.
Discussion list for Jane Austen: listserv@vm1.mcgill.ca

Janeites
More Austen discussion. Info at Yahoo! Groups' Janeites page
"Jane Austen."