Northanger Abbey Northanger Abbey Northanger Abbey () was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, in 1803. However, it was not published until after her death in 1817, along with another novel of hers, "Persuasion." "Northanger Abbey" is a satire of Gothic novels, which were quite popular at the time, in 1798–99. This coming-of-age story revolves around Catherine Morland, a young and naïve "heroine," who entertains the reader on her journey to a better understanding of the world and those around her. In the course of the novel, she discovers that she differs from those other women who
Reception history of Jane Austen around him". Modern Austen scholar William Galperin has noted that "unlike some of Austen's lay readers, who recognized her divergence from realistic practice as it had been prescribed and defined at the time, Walter Scott may well have been the first to install Austen as the realist par excellence". Scott wrote in his private journal in 1826, in what later became a widely quoted comparison: "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion", published together posthumously in December 1817, were reviewed in the "British Critic" in March 1818 and in the "Edinburgh Review and Literary Miscellany" in May 1818. The reviewer for the "British