On the whole, though interesting enough, Sense and Sensibility does not take very high rank among the novels. Northanger Abbey was begun in 1798, soon after the completion of Sense and Sensibility, and, unlike its predecessors, it does not seem to have been based on existing MSS., but to have been written as we now have it, though the writing was spread over a long period. It is the one of all Miss Austen’s novels about which opinions differ most. It was written avowedly as a skit on the romantic school, whose high priestess was Mrs. Radcliffe; but, as Mr. Austin Dobson says: “The ironical treatment is not always apparent, and there are indications that, as often happens, the author’s growing interest in the characters diverts her from her purpose.” This is true enough, and the book certainly improves in consequence as it goes on, for at first it is sententious, and the author talks aside to her readers and explains her characters in a way that she does nowhere else. Archbishop Whateley remarks that it is “decidedly inferior to her other works—yet the same kind of excellences that characterise the other novels may be perceived in this to a degree which would have been highly creditable to most other writers of the same school, and which would have entitled the author to considerable praise had she written nothing better.”
The scene of Northanger Abbey is laid in Bath, and it is easy to see how very well acquainted not only with the topography, but with the manners of Bath, Jane was. The chattering and running to and fro from Pump rooms to Upper or Lower Assembly rooms, the continual meetings, and the saunterings in the streets, with all the affected or real gaiety, and the magnifying of trifles, are cleverly sketched in the earlier part of the book. The sincere but foolish little heroine, with her contrast to and intense admiration for her silly and selfish friend, Isabella Thorpe, is a life-like figure. Her mother is one of the very few elderly ladies who are allowed to be sensible in Jane’s books, and she comes in so little as to be a very minor figure.
The account of Bath society is one of the principal features of the book, another is that it abounds, perhaps more than any of the rest, in those three or four line summaries which express so admirably reflections, situations, and characters. Mrs. Thorpe’s “eldest daughter has great personal beauty; and the younger ones by pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and dressing in the same style, did very well.” “Mrs. Allen was now quite happy, quite satisfied with Bath. She had found some acquaintance—and as the completion of good fortune, had found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself.” “Her [Catherine’s] whole family were plain matter of fact people, who seldom aimed at wit of any kind; her father at the utmost being contented with a pun, and her mother with a proverb.”
“The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author, and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though, to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable, and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance.”
The rattle-pate Miss Thorpe is sketched with particular care, and if we may judge from other contemporary novels, including Cecilia, this was by no means an uncommon type at that day. Her conversation with Catherine on the novels she had read is worth giving at length. She asks: “‘Have you gone on with Udolpho?’
“‘Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the black veil.’
“‘Are you indeed? How delightful! Oh, I would not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world! Are not you wild to know?’
“‘Oh yes, quite! what can it be? But do not tell me, I would not be told on any account. I know it must be a skeleton, I am sure it is Laurentina’s skeleton! Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it, I assure you; if it had not been to meet you I would not have come away from it for all the world.’
“‘Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.’
“‘Have you indeed? How glad I am! Where are they all?’