The Female Quixote The Female Quixote The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella is a novel written by Charlotte Lennox imitating and parodying the ideas of Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote". Published in 1752, two years after she wrote her first novel, "The Life of Harriot Stuart", it was her best-known and most-celebrated work. It was approved by both Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson, applauded by Samuel Johnson, and used as a model by Jane Austen for "Northanger Abbey". It has been called a burlesque, "satirical harlequinade", and a depiction of the real power of females. While some dismissed Arabella as a
Northanger Abbey very near it", it is implied to be not quite entirely manly owing to his love of literature and fabrics, and is explicitly shown to be dominated by his father. It is General Tilney rather than his son who openly admires the attractions of Catherine's body, praising her for the "elasticity of her walking, which in turn causing her to with great elasticity, though she had never thought of it before". However, Brownstein wrote that Henry is the hero of the book as he constantly ridicules cliché language, is able to understand the type of books read by women because