Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen (1817)
“A young woman raised on Gothic novels arrives at a real abbey and discovers that real life is far more dangerous — and far more ordinary — than fiction.”
EraRomantic / Regency
Pages260
Difficulty★★☆☆☆ Moderate
AP Appearances7
Character Analysis
Austen's most deliberately ordinary heroine — and therefore her most radical. Catherine is not beautiful, witty, or accomplished in the conventional sense. She is honest, curious, kind, and good at learning from her mistakes. Her imagination runs ahead of her judgment, which is the precise flaw the novel is designed to correct. By the end, she has not become worldly — she has become wiser, which is better.