The Mysteries of Udolpho novel "The Romance of the Forest", plays a prominent role in Jane Austen's novel "Northanger Abbey", in which an impressionable young woman, after reading Radcliffe's novel, comes to see her friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims with amusing results. "The Mysteries of Udolpho" is a quintessential Gothic romance, replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror; remote, crumbling castles; seemingly supernatural events; a brooding, scheming villain; and a persecuted heroine. Modern editors point out that only about one-third of the novel is set in the eponymous Gothic castle, and that the tone and style vary markedly between sections
Northanger Abbey Austen's discussion of "Udolpho" is also used to clearly separate Catherine from John Thorpe, as when Catherine talks about the novel with him, he crudely responds that he "never reads novels," but qualifies his statement by arguing he would only read a novel by Anne Radcliffe, who, as Catherine then points out, is the author of "Udolpho". Here, Austen humorously categorizes "Northanger Abbey's" characters into two spheres: those who read novels, and those who do not. When Catherine and Henry Tilney later discuss reading novels, and Henry earnestly responds that he enjoys reading novels, and was especially titillated by "Udolpho,"