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 novel as completely a satire of the Gothic genre is problematic. Irvine points out that, except in book II, the problems faced by Catherine are not caused by her reading Gothic novels, nor is Catherine's rejection of romantic love following Henry's outburst the climax, but instead is followed by Catherine being summarily expelled from Northanger Abbey after General Tilney discovers that she is not rich as he had been led to believe. Irvine observed that for Catherine her expulsion is a traumatic event that is equal in its emotional impact to the horrors that she had imagined General Tilney committing.