The Annotated Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

  VOLUME I, CHAPTER I

  1. By “heroine” the author means specifically the heroine of a typical novel of the day. Northanger Abbey, which is the earliest of Jane Austen’s completed novels (versions of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were written prior to it, but both were revised, probably substantially, before they were published), is the only one that is in part a literary parody. As such it harkens back to the sketches and short stories Austen composed while an adolescent, many of which ridicule contemporary novels through absurd exaggerations.

  Both there and in Northanger Abbey she directs much of her satire at the sentimental novel, the most popular type in the last few decades of the eighteenth century. Later in this work she also targets the Gothic novel, which developed out of the sentimental novel and became prominent in the 1790s (for more on that genre, see note 6). Sentimental novels involve placing main characters in situations of acute distress. This gives ample opportunity to depict a variety of extreme emotions and to arouse them in the reader. A strong capacity for such emotions, often called sensibility, was celebrated by many in Austen’s time (and this cult of sensibility forms the object of her satire in Sense and Sensibility). The principal characters in these novels are frequently heroines, for one important development of the late eighteenth century, in contrast to earlier years, was that many of the leading novelists were female—as were many of their readers.

  2. disposition: general mental character; the term had a broader meaning than it does today. Here it is paired with “person,” referring to physical character.

  3. It is usual for the distress under which the main characters in sentimental novels labor to begin in childhood. Common misfortunes could include being born into a family that had been misused, reduced to poverty, or deprived of its social respectability.

  4. Jane Austen expresses a dislike of the name “Richard” in a letter, saying that “Mr. Richard Harvey’s match is put off, till he has got a Better Christian name, of which he has great Hopes” (Sept. 15, 1796). The reasons for her dislike—she never uses the name for a speaking character in her novels—is unknown. It may have been an inside joke among her family, or at least with her sister (the recipient of the letter), though that cannot fully explain why she should include the joke in a work intended for publication. One commentator speculates that the popularity during this period of Shakespeare’s Richard III, whose title character is a monster of iniquity, may have created a general animosity toward the name (F. B. Pinion, A Jane Austen Companion).

  5. independence: sum of money providing financial independence. Here it refers to Mr. Morland’s sources of wealth separate from the income from his clerical employment.

  6. A “living” was the position as clergyman for a parish; a good one provided its holder with a comfortable income. Many clergymen held more than one living and received the salary for both; sometimes they hired an assistant to perform the duties of one, or if the parishes were close to each other, as was often the case, they performed dual duties.

  7. Another common type of fictional childhood suffering was parental tyranny. This made a particularly ripe target for parody, since in actuality the trend during the eighteenth century was for increasingly lenient parenting; Austen’s novels rarely show parents imposing strict discipline on their children, and there is never a suggestion of physical force or punishment.

  8. temper: disposition, temperament.

  9. Loss of one or more parents was another frequent hardship of heroines, though it was not such an easy target of satire, since in fact death rates were fairly high in this period, especially for women during childbirth and for infants. This would make the Morland family unusually healthy, though not an extreme rarity. Jane Austen’s mother lived to a ripe old age and had eight children, all of whom lived well into adulthood.

  10. At this time the ideal of beauty was a median between fat and thin, so thinness could be seen as a drawback to a person’s appearance. Later a vain young woman will lament, “I am grown wretchedly thin” (this page).

  11. Splendid physical beauty was a fundamental attribute of almost any heroine of the time, even in those novels admired by Jane Austen and mentioned later in this work. Austen’s novels break somewhat with this custom, though even she always makes her heroines at least pretty—as Catherine will be shown to be by the time she enters young adulthood.

  12. mind: inner character. The word then often referred to emotional as well as intellectual qualities, and, like “disposition,” could also be paired with “person” in order to provide a comprehensive description of someone.

  13. cricket: a popular outdoor game in Britain (and now throughout the British Commonwealth). It is similar to baseball in that a member of one team hits a ball with a bat and then, if the ball is not caught, runs bases to score, with play divided into innings. The principal differences are that the cricket bat is wide and held low to the ground, the batter must stand in front of and protect a set of three vertical sticks (called a wicket), the batter runs between only two bases (called creases) and can earn multiple runs, and the field extends behind as well as in front of the batter. The first written records of cricket come from the sixteenth century, though it may have been played earlier. By the eighteenth century it had emerged as the most popular team sport in England. It was played by both children and adults, and, unlike most sports, it was played by members of various social classes and by both men and women; during the mid-eighteenth century, matches between ladies’ teams became popular, though by the nineteenth century this had faded and the sport became more exclusively male.

  14. The English dormouse (now technically called the hazel dormouse) is a small tree-dwelling nocturnal rodent, one that was sometimes kept as a pet. Kindness to animals was praised in many sentimental stories of this period, especially those intended for children. In the very popular The History of Sandford and Merton by Thomas Day, which contrasts the good boy Sandford with the bad boy Merton, the former engages in charitable actions toward animals, especially small ones. Such writings reflected a general growth in the eighteenth century of humanitarian feeling regarding animals, which included an increased belief in their commonality with humankind and a revulsion toward cruel treatment. This attitude was reinforced by a trend toward celebrating the beauty and goodness of the natural world, something promoted strongly by much sentimental literature.

  All this would make nursing a dormouse (nursing could refer to raising an infant creature as well as tending a sick one) a proper activity for a young heroine, though the selection of such an insignificant creature as the object of this heroism, along with the trivial nature of the next two tasks in the list, is probably intended to underline the absurdity of these “heroic” standards.

  15. Canaries had first appeared in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and soon became desirable pets, especially among the wealthy. They were carefully bred, which resulted in birds with the familiar yellow color starting in the seventeenth century. During the eighteenth century, pet birds of various types grew in popularity in England.

  16. An appreciation of natural beauty could be a mark of a sentimental hero or heroine, for it would demonstrate refined sensitivity. Love of flowers would be especially appropriate for a heroine, since cultivating flower gardens, beautifying the home with flowers, or painting pictures of them were all common feminine occupations.

  17. Catherine is contrasted here with the many heroines who display almost superhuman abilities as they grow and become educated. The author may be aiming particularly at Emmeline (1788), by Charlotte Smith, a very popular novel discussed in the last and longest of Jane Austen’s youthful stories, “Catharine, or the Bower.” Emmeline, having lost both parents when young, is raised by people too ignorant to provide more than a rudimentary education. This proves no deterrent, however, for “Emmeline had a kind of intuitive knowledge; and comprehended everything with a facility that soon left her instructors behind her.” Thanks to that superhuman
ability, and equally superhuman labors, she becomes a prodigy of learning while still an adolescent.

  Jane Austen mocks the same idea in her early satire of sentimental fiction, the novella Love and Friendship, whose heroine, boasting of her many perfections, declares, “Of every accomplishment accustomary to my sex, I was Mistress. . . . My progress had always exceeded my instructions; my Acquirements had been wonderful for my Age, and I had shortly surpassed my Masters.”

  18. “The Beggar’s Petition,” or “The Beggar,” is a poem by Thomas Moss first published in 1769. It begins, “Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,” and continues in the same strain as the old man details and laments the harshness of his lot. Memorizing poetry was an important part of education, and works that encouraged sympathy for the poor and distressed were often taught to children. This poem appears in various literary anthologies of the period, especially ones intended for children and schools. Anthologies, usually consisting of both shorter works like poems and extracts from longer ones, were very popular; a typical one, Elegant Extracts, some of whose editions included this poem, is mentioned in Emma.

  19. “The Hare and Many Friends” appears in the Fables of the poet John Gay. It tells the story of a hare who attempts to please everyone but, never having formed any deep attachment, is abandoned by all her superficial friends when she is in danger. Well known at the time, the poem is also cited or alluded to by two different characters in Emma. Catherine’s ease in memorizing “The Hare and Many Friends” indicates her character, for, in addition to being shorter than “The Beggar’s Petition,” it tells a more engaging story and is less openly didactic.

  20. should: would.

  21. A spinet is a keyboard instrument. Like the larger harpsichord, it had long been in use in England and continental Europe, but it was being superseded in this period by the pianoforte, or piano. The principal innovation of the piano is that the strings are struck when a key is pressed, which allows a player to vary the strength of the notes—“pianoforte,” which means “soft-loud” in Italian, refers to this ability. This gave it much greater flexibility than older instruments, which contain mechanically operated strings that are plucked when a key is pressed, always producing notes of equal strength. This is why a spinet owned at this time would likely be old. Possession of one rather than a piano, when the latter was becoming a standard feature of middle- and upper-class homes and was not terribly expensive, would also indicate that a family was not musical, which is why the spinet is described as forlorn. That Catherine’s only attempts at music occur on such a humble instrument reinforces her prosaic nature.

  22. The main goal of female education was to make girls “accomplished,” which could include academic learning and artistic attainments such as music, as well as more purely decorative talents like dancing and personal deportment.

  23. Masters were professional teachers hired by families to educate their children in a specific subject.

  24. Besides music, drawing was the principal artistic accomplishment taught to girls. In Jane Austen’s family, she learned to play the piano and her sister Cassandra learned to draw. Many books existed for the purpose of teaching girls how to draw.

  25. Letters were closed and sealed by folding the outside piece of paper; there were no envelopes as we know them. The outside page would contain blank spaces. The high cost of paper encouraged relying on such scraps if one wished for something to draw upon.

  26. chickens: chicks. The usual name for the species as a whole, except possibly when referring to its meat, was “common domestic fowl.” Catherine would almost certainly have selected these creatures as a frequent subject of her efforts because her family kept their own fowl; most families, including those of clergy such as Jane Austen’s own, engaged in home agricultural activities to supplement their income. Poultry was generally the particular care of the woman of a family, and it would usually be kept close to the house, the main focus of a woman’s labor. Catherine would draw hens and chicks particularly because most adult males of the species would be killed for meat; the females were kept alive for their eggs.

  27. “Writing” would normally include good penmanship, which was highly valued at the time; there were both books and masters for teaching the subject and enabling students to attain superb hands. “Accounts” meant basic arithmetic; this would also be a standard part of girls’ education, though higher mathematics were usually reserved for male students.

  28. Modern languages, particularly French and Italian, were a leading academic subject for girls. (Latin and Greek, central to boys’ education, were rarely taught to girls.) In being instructed primarily by her parents, Catherine is following a common, though not universal, practice of the time.

  29. Women’s hairstyles at the time usually involved curled hair. For an example, see the this illustration.

  30. plumpness: fullness.

  31. consequence: importance, distinction.

  32. lying-in: giving birth. The period of lying-in or “confinement” lasted from the birth of a baby until the mother’s recovery. The standard time was a month or a little longer, for medical opinion considered an extended rest necessary to ward off the postnatal dangers threatening both mother and child. Initially the mother was confined to her bed, and then in gradual stages she would be allowed to move about more and to receive more visitors.

  33. wonderful: astonishing, amazing—i.e., full of wonder.

  34. This is one of the earliest known written examples of the term “baseball.” Games that involved hitting a ball with various objects existed in England as early as the Middle Ages, and starting in the fifteenth century there are written references to games in which players, after hitting a ball, circle around a set of bases or stools in order to score. The first known uses of “baseball” date from the 1740s, and their wording suggests the game was already long established at that time. Among the differences from current baseball, however, were that the ball was often hit with the hand (and when a bat was used, it was fairly small) and that the fielding team, if they failed to catch the ball, could get the runner out by hitting him or her when between bases. The dimensions of the field were also much smaller, in part because baseball was almost exclusively a game for children, as in this case.

  Soon after this, in the early nineteenth century, the name in England was changed to “rounders,” and it continues to be a popular game there for school-age children, especially girls. Meanwhile, in the United States, where English settlers had brought the game, it grew steadily in popularity from the late eighteenth century and became a common pursuit of adult men, until by the late nineteenth century it had become the national pastime, with numerous professional teams playing the same basic version that exists today.

  35. The vicissitudes would be the woeful mishaps frequently suffered by heroines, at which time the moral reflections provided by poetry could furnish invaluable solace and fortitude. Poetry was widely read at the time, sometimes outselling novels, and was held in very high esteem, so that most educated people were familiar with leading poets. Love of poetry would be highly suitable to a sentimental heroine, both because it would signify her artistic taste, an important quality, and because poetry’s frequent appeal to the emotions would suit someone who was distinguished by emotional sensitivity.

  36. Alexander Pope was the most renowned poet of the eighteenth century. By this point his classicism and rationalism had begun to fall from favor, but he would still be known well by any lover of poetry. The romantic and emotional Marianne of Sense and Sensibility prefers that others feel only limited admiration for Pope, without condemning him altogether. This line comes, appropriately for a heroine, from Pope’s “Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady” (1717), a piece more sentimental than most of his. It laments a betrayed woman who killed herself in foreign lands and now rests in the ground unknown and unmourned.

  37. These lines are from Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751), one of the most popul
ar and celebrated poems of the century. In it the poet muses sympathetically on the lives and virtues of ordinary country people who never achieve fame or distinction; such sympathy for humble folk also figures strongly in many sentimental novels. These famous lines are also quoted by a character in Emma; in both cases Jane Austen, presumably drawing from memory, substitutes “fragrance” for the correct “sweetness.”

  38. These lines are from “Spring” (1728), one of four parts of the long poem The Seasons, by James Thomson. This poem is significant for its celebration of the beauties and glories of nature, a theme that would attain greater prominence as the century progressed. “Spring” concludes with an evocation of the virtuous and harmonious existence of a couple living close to nature. The actual lines alluded to here are, “Delightful task! to rear the tender thought / To teach the young idea how to shoot,” referring to the rearing and education of children.

  39. Shakespeare, after a period of partial neglect and disfavor from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, experienced a resurgence in popularity after 1750 and was widely extolled as the great English national poet and playwright. A continuous stream of editions of his work appeared, while extracts from them formed a staple of literary anthologies.

  40. This line is spoken by Iago in Othello, as he reflects on how to inflame the title character’s jealousy by planting his wife’s handkerchief in another man’s lodging.

  41. These lines are from Measure for Measure (though the first line actually begins “And the,” while the second line has “finds” instead of “feels”). They are spoken by Isabella to her brother Claudio, as she, to justify her refusal to sacrifice her honor for his life, argues that the reality of death is far less painful than the apprehension of it.