The Annotated Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

  42. These particularly famous lines come from a scene in Twelfth Night, in which the heroine Viola, unable to avow her own love to her listener because she is disguised as a boy, speaks of it in analogy by relating the supposed story of a sister who concealed her love and pined hopelessly.

  43. A prelude is a short piece of music, and the pianoforte was the most popular instrument of the time (see note 21). Musical performances, usually by young women, were a frequent feature of social gatherings, for people had almost no other means of hearing music outside of church (unless they lived in large towns that could support public concerts).

  44. Although many ladies would learn to play music, almost none composed their own pieces. Such an achievement, like that of composing one’s own sonnets, was rarely found beyond the exalted ranks of novel heroines.

  45. This could refer either to the pencil we know or to a paintbrush. A person skilled at drawing or sketching would probably use both.

  46. The detection of a secret love, often with disastrous consequences, was a common convention of novels at the time. Catherine is contrasted again with the aforementioned heroine of Emmeline, who shows an extraordinary innate ability in drawing, for after a simple explanation of the rules of drawing she is able to produce a faultless portrait of her beloved.

  47. amiable: benevolent; lovable or worthy of being loved. The term, a frequent one of praise in Austen’s novels, had a broader meaning than it does now.

  48. sensibility: capacity for feeling. The term, a common one then, could refer particularly to a capacity for highly refined feeling, and many writers in the late eighteenth century celebrated such sensibility, especially when it led to strong appreciation of art and natural beauty and acute sympathy for human suffering. For more on this concept, and its application to this novel, see note 1 and the introduction.

  49. A lord was a member of the peerage or nobility, those who had formal titles and the right to sit in the House of Lords, one of the two houses of the British Parliament. Lords were at the pinnacle of English society and therefore made ideal lovers for heroines who were fated to experience extraordinary events, whether good or bad (the latter might include having a romance blocked by family opposition or being tempted by a lord who ultimately proved unworthy). A baronet was the next highest rank. The holder of a baronetcy would be called “Sir” (as opposed to “Lord”), and could pass on this title to his eldest son, but he enjoyed none of the political or legal privileges of a member of the peerage.

  50. A child accidentally found at someone’s door, or generally of unknown origin, was a frequent feature of novels, most notably in the title character of what was probably the most renowned of all eighteenth-century novels, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, whose subtitle is “A Foundling.” Foundlings did occur in real life then—for widespread poverty and the absence of any significant safety net caused some women to abandon their infants at others’ doors to give them a better chance of survival—but not as often as in literature, where it could provide an excellent opportunity for dramatic developments as the true identity of the foundling was revealed. In many fictional cases, unlike in reality, the child turns out to be the son or daughter of wealthy and high-ranking parents. A youthful satirical sketch by Jane Austen, “Henry and Eliza,” begins with the discovery of the infant heroine in this fashion.

  A family of the period with a pianoforte (picture by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres).

  [From Max von Boehn, Modes & Manners of the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I (London, 1909), p. 59]

  [List of Illustrations]

  51. A ward was not unusual in this time, for the high death rate meant that many children were orphans, and they were sometimes raised and supported by a distant relation or someone with another connection to them. Wards were a useful device for novelists, since an unrelated young person raised within a family provided an excellent opportunity for romantic entanglements with the family’s actual children.

  52. In the countryside, the parish was the basic unit of both local government and church organization, and “parish” could be used more loosely to refer to a rural neighborhood. A squire is an untitled wealthy landowner. The word derives from the medieval term for the attendant of a knight, the lowest-ranking of all titled positions. The squire at issue here is the Mr. Allen identified below.

  53. chief: greater part.

  54. Wiltshire is a county in southern England (see this map). It is to the immediate west of Hampshire, the county where Jane Austen grew up and lived most of her life, but there is no indication that this is why she chose it. The obvious reason is that it is close to Bath. Austen always selects the location of her stories according to such considerations, in particular the way a place’s proximity, or lack of proximity, to important towns proves useful for the plot. She never gives regional mannerisms to her characters, a reflection of the fact that during the eighteenth century such mannerisms had mostly faded among the genteel classes that are the focus of her novels.

  55. Bath is a town in western England (see this map), which, thanks to several warm springs beneath it, had become by the eighteenth century the leading spa in England. People came to bathe in or drink its waters, hoping to cure their ailments. The influx of spa-goers stimulated the development of entertainments for these visitors, who tended to be affluent, since travel and residence cost a considerable sum by the standards of the time, and to stay a long time, since the waters were believed to take a while to work their effects. These entertainments in turn drew visitors who came solely or mostly for pleasure, which turned Bath into the leading social center in eighteenth-century England after London, frequented by many members of elite society as well as by artistic and literary figures. Bath also figures prominently in a number of novels and plays of the period.

  Jane Austen was familiar with the town. She visited there with her family in 1797, when she was twenty-two, and again in 1799. In 1801 her father retired and moved himself, his wife, and his two daughters to Bath; the latter three remained until 1806, following Mr. Austen’s death in 1805. It was some time after her first visit that Jane Austen commenced work on this novel, and she finished a revised version during her later residence. She sets approximately half of this work and of her last completed novel, Persuasion, in Bath, and it is the only town aside from London that is mentioned in all of her novels.

  Mr. Allen would have been ordered to Bath by his doctor. Limited means of medical treatment meant that a more healthful place was often the recommendation for ailments, at least for those who could afford it. Gout was one of the leading ailments that sent people to Bath, to the degree that the city was frequently associated with the disease. Gout is usually caused by excessive consumption of alcohol and of foods rich in purines, which include certain types of meat and fish; this made it a disease primarily of the wealthy, whose diet was heavily based on meat, in contrast to the very limited meat consumption of poorer people. It is characterized by painful inflammation of the joints, particularly those of the big toe. In a letter, Jane Austen suggests that her elder brother may visit Bath for a possible case of gout (June 19, 1799). Gout afflicted men far more than women and tended to strike those who were older; hence a mature, wealthy man like Mr. Allen would be likely to suffer from it.

  56. abroad: away from home.

  57. Catherine’s delight could flow not simply from the many amusements offered by Bath, but also from its far greater opportunities for social life and romance. Those of genteel social status could socialize only with those of the same status (for more on this status, see note 10). In the countryside, the genteel class consisted of wealthy landowners and local clergy, possibly supplemented by retired military officers and their families. Any given neighborhood would contain only a few such families, and the slowness and difficulty of travel, especially over rural dirt roads, precluded regular visiting with those farther afield. This situation created a very limited choice of mates for young unmarried people, and was particularly hard on young women, who were
under great social and economic pressure to marry while being handicapped by social rules that prevented them from traveling on their own. In Austen’s other novels, much of the plot arises from the arrival in a rural area of one or more eligible young men. In this case the main character’s lack of local romantic options—due to the childlessness of the apparently only other genteel family in the vicinity—makes a venture to Bath, a town brimming with wealthy visitors and social events, a tremendous opportunity. In Emma a man goes to Bath to find a mate and quickly succeeds.

  VOLUME I, CHAPTER II

  1. Such a lengthy visit was standard, and not only for those traveling to Bath. Jane Austen usually stayed this long or longer during most of her visits to her brothers. One reason was the considerable time, cost, and discomfort involved in travel, which made people wish to make maximum use of any journey. Another was the ample leisure time of most wealthy people. Wealthy women did not work and the men either did not have regular jobs or frequently held ones that made limited demands. As a large landowner Mr. Allen would need to supervise the management of his estate, but he would have a steward or agent who could handle the daily details and correspond with Mr. Allen on any important matters.

  2. manners: outward conduct and demeanor. The word was a popular one then and referred to general behavior, not just to matters of etiquette. It is often paired with “mind” in Austen’s novels, since together the two would denote both inner and outer character. Here those words are joined by “person” (physical appearance) in order to provide an even more complete picture of the heroine. Such a series of parallel descriptions is a common feature of eighteenth-century literature, used most notably by one of its leading figures, Samuel Johnson, who exercised a significant influence on Jane Austen.

  3. Girls’ education at this time was usually not academically rigorous, though it would frequently include rudimentary study of certain subjects such as history and geography. Women also had limited opportunities for seeing other places.

  4. terrific: dreadful.

  5. oppress: overwhelm.

  6. Such anguished forebodings appear in many novels of the time, a result of their authors’ wishes to alarm the reader, to hint at the many acute dangers and distresses ahead, and to highlight the extreme emotional sensitivity of the characters.

  7. closet: private room; often a small room adjoining a larger room, such as a bedroom. Warnings to the heroine from a parent or guardian, whether before a journey or simply before her entrance into adult life, were another standard feature of fiction, with many writers using them to express moral lessons. Jane Austen mocks this convention in two of her youthful works. In Love and Friendship the heroine recalls the earlier counsel of a friend, based in fact on very limited experience; “Beware my Laura (she would often say) Beware of the insipid Vanities and idle Dissipations of the Metropolis of England; Beware of the unmeaning Luxuries of Bath and of the Stinking fish of Southampton.” In “Letter the First” from “A Collection of Letters,” a mother, just before launching her daughters into adult society, says, “Yet let me warn you against suffering the Follies and Vices of others, for believe me my beloved Children that if you do—I shall be very sorry for it.”

  8. Kidnappings of young women by greedy or sexually rapacious men were a frequent feature of novels, with high-ranking men, due to the power they derived from their wealth and social standing, being especially suitable candidates for this menacing role. In one of Jane Austen’s favorite novels, Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson (see also this page and note 22), the heroine is kidnapped and imprisoned by the villainous Sir Hargrave Pollexfen, before being rescued by the hero.

  9. The “Rooms” would be the Assembly Rooms, the main venues for dancing and social life in Bath.

  10. “Gentility,” along with its corollaries “genteel” and “gentleman” (or “gentlewoman”), represents one of the most important categories in this society (“common” here simply means ordinary or normal). The terms referred first and foremost to those of the highest social rank, which meant specifically those men who possessed enough land or wealth to enable them not to work or who pursued one of the genteel professions—being a military officer, clergyman, or higher-ranking lawyer—along with the wives and children of these men. The social distinction between those of gentility and everyone else, including middle-class people as well as the poor, is fundamental to Austen’s novels. The great majority of her characters are genteel, and the few who are not, or have less than genteel backgrounds, are marked strongly by this inferiority. The terms could also be used in a moral sense, to refer to the superior virtues those of genteel rank were supposed to possess (though not all actually did).

  11. every post: the daily mail. Fast and reliable mail service existed in most of England at this time; the short distance between Bath and Catherine’s home means that a letter would arrive the next day. Daily correspondence would be rather extravagant, for postage was expensive. The government used the post office as a source of revenue, and Britain’s ongoing war with France made its need for revenue great.

  12. Many of the novels of the time were written in epistolary form, meaning the entire story is told through such detailed, and often daily, letters. Several of Jane Austen’s early efforts are in this form, though she eventually abandoned it. One of its difficulties is the inherent improbability of characters who spend the enormous amount of time required to compose a continual stream of lengthy letters.

  13. Bank-bills, or bank notes, were the principal form of large currency in England. Ordinary banks throughout the country had the right to issue their own notes, which were backed by the bank’s own reserves. The overall system was upheld by the government-sponsored Bank of England. Since one hundred pounds was a very large sum of money, a gift of that amount would be an act of extravagant generosity. It would thus flow naturally from the extreme familial tenderness that was just mentioned, and that was exalted by so many authors. A large sum of cash could also create many opportunities for distress in the event of the heroine’s losing it. In one of the most popular novels of the 1790s, Camilla (see this page and note 25), the heroine suffers acutely from squandering a great deal of money while on a visit to Tunbridge Wells, a spa and resort town similar to Bath.

  14. A guinea was worth 11⁄20 pounds; hence this would be far less than a hundred pounds. For more on the system of money, see note 22.

  15. wanted: needed.

  16. Robbers along the main roads, called highwaymen, were one of the most notorious types of criminals in eighteenth-century England (the term “highway robbery” derives from this). Court statistics from the period show that people convicted of this crime represented a sizable percentage of all those executed. Such severity on the part of the law was accompanied by a frequent fascination and even sympathy for highwaymen on the part of the public. The thieves were often called “gentlemen of the road”—some did come from better social backgrounds, unlike most criminals—and were sometimes praised for their daring as well as the gallantry that some showed toward their victims. The main character in John Gay’s extremely popular eighteenth-century play The Beggar’s Opera is a highwayman whom the audience is encouraged to sympathize with. A highway robber’s appearance would thus be an ideal of high drama for a novel heroine, though also one that could form an example of fictional extravagance, for in the last years of the eighteenth century the numbers of highway robberies declined significantly, in part due to improved methods of suppressing the crime. For a contemporary picture of a highway robbery, see this illustration.

  17. If the carriage were overturned in an accident, a potential hero would have the opportunity to rescue the heroine.

  18. Clogs were leather overshoes designed to protect regular shoes from dirt or damp, and were often worn in carriages. The travelers would have stopped to change horses every ten miles, usually at an inn (for the system of road travel, see note 14). Their home of Fullerton is shortly described as nine miles from Salisbury (this page), w
hich would make the distance to Bath forty-six miles, a journey requiring approximately six hours of travel time by the speeds of the day. They would naturally wish to get out at least once at an inn in order to procure some refreshment.

  19. Bath, then as well as now, presents a striking sight upon approach. It lies within a steep bowl, with many buildings lacing up its hillsides. The city went through a rapid surge of development in the eighteenth century, and classically influenced Palladian and Georgian architecture, fashioned from a local light-yellow stone, dominates its streets. Since the travelers are described immediately below as settling into lodgings, which would mean an apartment or rented house, they have probably stopped at the hotel to eat or drink, perhaps even to have dinner (which occurred late in the day then). Hotels were a recent development in England. The term, derived from a French word for large building (usually applied to a nobleman’s residence or important civic structure), was imported into English around the 1760s and was soon used particularly for places accommodating guests. By the end of the century hotels were a common feature of important resort towns like Bath, distinguished from inns (which had long existed) by their grand scale, their focus on the highest ranks of society, and their furnishing of special rooms for entertainment.

  20. Visitors to Bath could easily procure lodgings almost as soon as they arrived, due to the constant flow of departures and arrivals. This could be done simply by walking around, or by consulting lists of available places kept at certain locations. Pulteney Street (today Great Pulteney Street) is a main thoroughfare in eastern Bath, an area that had recently been developed and that was one of the wealthiest and most desirable areas to live (see this map). Jane Austen’s family lived in the same area during part of her time there, though they could not afford Pulteney Street itself.

  21. Novels, like many other books, were normally published in multiple volumes, with climactic scenes naturally occurring in the final volume.