Northanger Abbey Mysteries of Udolpho," as it is the Gothic novel most frequently mentioned within this text"." Notably, Jane Austen sold the manuscript of Northanger Abbey to the same firm that published Radcliffe's novel in 1794. This outside text is first mentioned in Chapter Six, when Isabella and Catherine discuss the mystery "behind the black veil," and further establish their friendship based on their similar interests in novel genre, and their plans to continue reading other Gothic novels together. Austen further satirizes the novel through Catherine's stay at Northanger Abbey, believing that General Tilney has taken the role of Gothic novel villain.
Persuasion (novel) the power of books over women; namely were women more susceptible to the power of reading than men, and if so, was reading a benign or malign influence on women? Austen had first taken up this question in "Northanger Abbey" where reading Gothic books has comic effects on Catherine Morland, but also gives a more acute sense of reality and to understand people. Pinch wrote that Austen returned to this theme of the power of books on women in "Persuasion", but in a more mature and probing manner, where as the novel is concerned with "... what it feels like