Northanger Abbey novels at the time. According to Austen biographer Claire Tomalin "there is very little trace of personal allusion in the book, although it is written more in the style of a family entertainment than any of the others". Joan Aiken writes: "We can guess that "Susan" [the original title of "Northanger Abbey"], in its first outline, was written very much for family entertainment, addressed to a family audience, like all Jane Austen's juvenile works, with their asides to the reader, and absurd dedications; some of the juvenilia, we know, were specifically addressed to her brothers Charles and Frank; all were
Northanger Abbey way that Henry disapproves of, she is warned: "The word 'nicest', as you use it, did not suit him; and you had better change it as soon as you can, or you shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way". The popular 18th century arbiters of style and taste such as Johnson, Richardson, Blair and Addison are presented as a cannon of masculine power, which the novel is competition with at least as much as the Gothic novels, that were so popular with young women at the time. Irvine wrote that the way in which