Austen, J. Northanger Abbey

th e c a m b r i d g e e d i ti o n
o f th e w o r k s o f
JA N E AU S T EN
no rth a ng e r a b bey
Cambridge University Press and the General Editor
Janet Todd wish to express their gratitude to the
University of Glasgow and the University of Aberdeen for
providing funding towards the creation of this edition.
Their generosity made possible the employment of
Antje Blank as research assistant throughout the project.
th e c a m b r i d g e e d i ti o n
o f th e w o r k s o f
JA N E AU S T EN
g e n e ra l e d i t o r : Janet Todd, University of Aberdeen
e d i t o r i a l bo a r d
Marilyn Butler, University of Oxford
Alistair Duckworth, University of Florida
Isobel Grundy, University of Alberta
Claudia Johnson, Princeton University
Jerome McGann, University of Virginia
Deirdre Le Faye, independent scholar
Linda Bree, Cambridge University Press
v o l u m e s i n th i s s e r i e s :
Juvenilia edited by Peter Sabor
Northanger Abbey edited by Barbara M. Benedict and Deirdre Le Faye
Sense and Sensibility edited by Edward Copeland
Pride and Prejudice edited by Pat Rogers
Mansfield Park edited by John Wiltshire
Emma edited by Richard Cronin and Dorothy McMillan
Persuasion edited by Janet Todd and Antje Blank
Later Manuscripts edited by Brian Southam
Jane Austen in Context edited by Janet Todd
The Circulating Library (pen and ink and watercolour and wash on
wove paper) by Isaac Cruikshank (1764–c.1811) C Yale Center for
British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA.

Photograph C Bridgeman Art Library.
JA N E AU S T EN
N O R T H A N G ER A B B E Y
Edited by
Barbara M. Benedict and Deirdre Le Faye
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C O N T EN T S
General Editor’s preface ix

Acknowledgements xiii
Chronology xv
Introduction xxiii
Note on the text lxiii
Northanger Abbey 1
Corrections and emendations to 1818 text 263

Appendix: summaries and extracts from
Ann Radcliffe’s novels 265
List of abbreviations 289
Explanatory notes 291
vii
G EN ER A L ED I T O R ’ S P R EFAC E
Jane Austen wrote to be read and reread. ‘[A]n artist cannot do

anything slovenly,’ she remarked to her sister Cassandra. Her subtle,
crafted novels repay close and repeated attention to vocabulary,
syntax and punctuation as much as to irony and allusion; yet the
reader can take immediate and intense delight in their plots and
characters. As a result Austen has a unique status among early
English novelists – appreciated by the academy and the general
public alike. What Henry Crawford remarks about Shakespeare in
Mansfield Park has become equally true of its author: she ‘is a part of
an Englishman’s constitution. [Her] thoughts and beauties are so
spread abroad that one touches them every where, one is intimate
with [her] by instinct.’ This edition of the complete oeuvre of the
published novels and manuscript works is testament to Austen’s
exceptional cultural and literary position. As well as attempting
to establish an accurate and authoritative text, it provides a full
contextual placing of the novels.
The editing of any canonical writer is a practice which has been
guided by many conflicting ideologies. In the early twentieth cen-
tury, editors, often working alone, largely agreed that they were
producing definitive editions, although they used eclectic methods
and often revised the text at will. Later in the century, fidelity to
the author’s creative intentions was paramount, and the emphasis
switched to devising an edition that would as far as possible repre-
sent the final authorial wishes. By the 1980s, however, the pursuit
of the single perfected text had given way to the recording of multi-
ple intentions of equal interest. Authors were seen to have changed,
revised or recanted, or indeed to have directed various versions of
their work towards different audiences. Consequently all states had
ix
General Editor’s preface
validity and the text became a process rather than a fixed entity.
With this approach came emphasis on the print culture in which
the text appeared as well as on the social implications of author-
ship. Rather than being stages in the evolution of a single work, the
various versions existed in their own right, all having something to
tell.
The Cambridge edition describes fully Austen’s early publish-
ing history and provides details of composition, publication and
publishers as well as printers and compositors where known. It
accepts that many of the decisions concerning spelling, punctua-
tion, capitalising, italicising and paragraphing may well have been
the compositors’ rather than Austen’s but that others may repre-
sent the author’s own chosen style. For the novels published in Jane
Austen’s lifetime the edition takes as its copytext the latest edition
to which she might plausibly have made some contribution: that is,
the first editions of Pride and Prejudice and Emma and the second
editions of Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. Where a second
edition is used, all substantive and accidental changes between edi-
tions are shown on the page so that the reader can reconstruct the
first edition, and the dominance of either first or second editions
is avoided. For the two novels published posthumously together,
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, the copytext is the first published
edition.
Our texts as printed here remain as close to the copytexts as
possible: spelling and punctuation have not been modernised and
inconsistencies in presentation have not been regularised. The few
corrections and emendations made to the texts – beyond replac-
ing dropped or missing letters – occur only when an error is very
obvious indeed, and/or where retention might interrupt reading or
understanding: for example, missing quotation marks have been
supplied, run-on words have been separated and repeated words
excised. All changes to the texts, substantive and accidental, have
been noted in the final apparatus. Four of the six novels appeared
individually in three volumes; we have kept the volume divisions
and numbering. In the case of Persuasion, which was first published
x
as volumes 3 and 4 of a four-volume set including Northanger Abbey,

the volume division has been retained but volumes 3 and 4 have
been relabelled volumes 1 and 2.
For all these novels the copytext has been set against two other
copies of the same edition. Where there have been any substan-
tive differences, further copies have been examined; details of these
copies are given in the initial textual notes within each volume,
along with information about the printing and publishing context
of this particular work. The two volumes of the edition devoted
to manuscript writings divide the works between the three juve-
nile notebooks on the one hand and all the remaining manuscript
writings on the other. The juvenile notebooks and Lady Susan
have some resemblance to the published works, being fair copies
and following some of the conventions of publishing. The other
manuscript writings consist in part of fictional works in early drafts,
burlesques and autograph and allograph copies of occasional verses
and prayers. The possible dating of the manuscript work, as well as
the method of editing, is considered in the introductions to the rel-
evant volumes. The cancelled chapters of Persuasion are included
in an appendix to the volume Persuasion; they appear both in a
transliteration and in facsimile. For all the manuscript works, their
features as manuscripts have been respected and all changes and
erasures either reproduced or noted.
In all the volumes superscript numbers in the texts indicate end-
notes. Throughout the edition we have provided full annotations
to give clear and informative historical and cultural information to
the modern reader while largely avoiding critical speculation; we
have also indicated words which no longer have currency or have
altered in meaning in some way. The introductions give informa-
tion concerning the genesis and immediate public reception of the
text; they also indicate the most significant stylistic and generic
features. A chronology of Austen’s life appears in each volume.
More information about the life, Austen’s reading, her relation-
ship to publication, the print history of the novels and their critical
reception through the centuries, as well as the historical, political,
xi
intellectual and religious context in which she wrote is available in

the final volume of the edition: Jane Austen in Context.
I would like to thank Cambridge University Library for supply-
ing the copytexts for the six novels. I am most grateful to Linda
Bree at Cambridge University Press for her constant support and
unflagging enthusiasm for the edition and to Maartje Scheltens
and Alison Powell for their help at every stage of production. I
owe the greatest debt to my research assistant Antje Blank for her
rare combination of scholarly dedication, editorial skills and critical
discernment.
Janet Todd
University of Aberdeen
xii
AC K N O W LED G EM EN T S
This edition is deeply indebted to the extraordinary work of gen-

erations of critics of Jane Austen’s opus, foremost the pioneering
bibliographical scholarship of R. W. Chapman, B. C. Southam,
David Gilson, Jan Fergus, and previous editors of Northanger Abbey,
especially Clare Grogan, Robert Kiely, John Davies, Claudia L.
Johnson and Marilyn Butler. For key information, essential advice
and genial support, I would also like particularly to thank Janet
Todd, Linda Bree, Antje Blank, Todd Gilman, Claudia L. John-
son, Edward Copeland, Pat Rogers, Peter Sabor, John Wiltshire,
Curt DiCamillo, Pat Bunker and the librarians at Trinity College,
Connecticut, and my spouse Mark Miller.
Barbara M. Benedict
My thanks as always are due to the Impey family, senior descendants

of James Edward Austen-Leigh, who were kind enough to allow
me unrivalled access to their Austen-Leigh archive over a number
of years, before it was deposited in the Hampshire Record Office
in 1993; I thank also the staff at the Record Office who contin-
ued to provide me thereafter with answers to my further enquiries
in this and other Hampshire family archives. For specific matters
in the notes which accompany this text, I thank Tony Corley of
Reading University for information on eighteenth-century bank-
ing practices, and also Judy Rudoe and Aileen Dawson of the British
Museum for information respectively on jewellery and ceramics of
the period. The General Editor of the series, Janet Todd, and her
xiii
Acknowledgements
research assistant, Antje Blank, as well as Linda Bree and Maartje

Scheltens of Cambridge University Press, have all made themselves
available for helpful discussions as the work progressed, and I am
most grateful to them in consequence.
Deirdre Le Faye
xiv
CHRONOLOGY
deirdre le faye
1764
26 April Marriage of Revd George Austen, rector of
Steventon, and Cassandra Leigh; they go to live at
Deane, Hampshire, and their first three children –
James (1765), George (1766) and Edward (1767) –
are born here.
1768
Summer The Austen family move to Steventon, Hampshire.
Five more children – Henry (1771), Cassandra
(1773), Francis (1774), Jane (1775), Charles (1779) –
are born here.
1773
23 March Mr Austen becomes Rector of Deane as well as
Steventon, and takes pupils at Steventon from now
until 1796.
1775
16 December Jane Austen born at Steventon.
1781
Winter JA’s cousin, Eliza Hancock, marries Jean-François
Capot de Feuillide, in France.
1782
First mention of JA in family tradition, and the first
of the family’s amateur theatrical productions takes
place.
1783
JA’s third brother, Edward, is adopted by Mr and
Mrs Thomas Knight II, and starts to spend time with
them at Godmersham in Kent.
JA, with her sister Cassandra and cousin Jane Cooper,
stays for some months in Oxford and then
Southampton, with kinswoman Mrs Cawley.
xv
Chronology
1785
Spring JA and Cassandra go to the Abbey House School in
Reading.
1786
Edward sets off for his Grand Tour of Europe, and
does not return until autumn 1790.
April JA’s fifth brother, Francis, enters the Royal Naval
Academy in Portsmouth.
December JA and Cassandra have left school and are at home
again in Steventon. Between now and 1793 JA writes
her three volumes of Juvenilia.
1788
Summer Mr and Mrs Austen take JA and Cassandra on a trip
to Kent and London.
December Francis leaves the RN Academy and sails to East
Indies; does not return until winter 1793.
1791
July JA’s sixth and youngest brother, Charles, enters the
Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth.
27 December Edward Austen marries Elizabeth Bridges, and they
live at Rowling in Kent.
1792
27 March JA’s eldest brother, James, marries Anne Mathew;
they live at Deane.
?Winter Cassandra becomes engaged to Revd Tom Fowle.
1793
23 January Edward Austen’s first child, Fanny, is born at
Rowling.
1 February Republican France declares war on Great Britain and
Holland.
8 April JA’s fourth brother, Henry, becomes a lieutenant in
the Oxfordshire Militia.
15 April James Austen’s first child, Anna, born at Deane.
3 June JA writes the last item of her J.
1794
22 February M de Feuillide guillotined in Paris.
September Charles leaves the RN Academy and goes to sea.
?Autumn JA possibly writes the novella Lady Susan this
year.
xvi
Chronology
1795
JA probably writes ‘Elinor and Marianne’ this year.
3 May James’s wife Anne dies, and infant Anna is sent to
live at Steventon.
Autumn Revd Tom Fowle joins Lord Craven as his private
chaplain for the West Indian campaign.
December Tom Lefroy visits Ashe Rectory – he and JA have a
flirtation over the Christmas holiday period.
1796
October JA starts writing ‘First Impressions’.
1797
17 January James Austen marries Mary Lloyd, and infant Anna
returns to live at Deane.
February Revd Tom Fowle dies of fever at San Domingo and is
buried at sea.
August JA finishes ‘First Impressions’ and Mr Austen offers
it for publication to Thomas Cadell – rejected sight
unseen.
November JA starts converting ‘Elinor and Marianne’ into Sense
and Sensibility. Mrs Austen takes her daughters for a
visit to Bath. Edward Austen and his young family
move from Rowling to Godmersham.
31 December Henry Austen marries his cousin, the widowed Eliza
de Feuillide, in London.
1798
JA probably starts writing ‘Susan’ (later to become
Northanger Abbey).
17 November James Austen’s son James Edward born at Deane.
1799
Summer JA probably finishes ‘Susan’ (NA) about now.
1800
Mr Austen decides to retire and move to Bath.
1801
24 January Henry Austen resigns his commission in the
Oxfordshire Militia and sets up as a banker and army
agent in London.
May The Austen family leave Steventon for Bath, and
then go for a seaside holiday in the West Country.
JA’s traditionary West Country romance presumably
occurs between now and the autumn of 1804.
xvii
Chronology
1802
25 March Peace of Amiens appears to bring the war with
France to a close.
Summer Charles Austen joins his family for a seaside holiday
in Wales and the West Country.
December JA and Cassandra visit James and Mary at Steventon;
while there, Harris Bigg-Wither proposes to JA and
she accepts him, only to withdraw her consent the
following day.
Winter JA revises ‘Susan’ (NA ).
1803
Spring JA sells ‘Susan’ (NA ) to Benjamin Crosby; he
promises to publish it by 1804, but does not do so.
18 May Napoleon breaks the Peace of Amiens, and war with
France recommences.
Summer The Austens visit Ramsgate in Kent, and possibly
also go to the West Country again.
November The Austens visit Lyme Regis.
1804
JA probably starts writing The Watsons this year, but
leaves it unfinished.
Summer The Austens visit Lyme Regis again.
1805
21 January Mr Austen dies and is buried in Bath.
Summer Martha Lloyd joins forces with Mrs Austen and her
daughters.
18 June James Austen’s younger daughter, Caroline, born at
Steventon.
21 October Battle of Trafalgar.
1806
2 July Mrs Austen and her daughters finally leave Bath;
they visit Clifton, Adlestrop, Stoneleigh and
Hamstall Ridware, before settling in Southampton in
the autumn.
24 July Francis Austen marries Mary Gibson.
1807
19 May Charles Austen marries Fanny Palmer, in Bermuda.
1808
10 October Edward Austen’s wife Elizabeth dies at
Godmersham.
xviii
Chronology
1809
5 April JA makes an unsuccessful attempt to secure the
publication of ‘Susan’ (NA).
7 July Mrs Austen and her daughters, and Martha Lloyd,
move to Chawton, Hants.
1810
Winter S&S is accepted for publication by Thomas Egerton.
1811
February JA starts planning Mansfield Park.
30 October S&S published.
?Winter JA starts revising ‘First Impressions’ into Pride and
Prejudice.
1812
17 June America declares war on Great Britain.
14 October Mrs Thomas Knight II dies, and Edward Austen
now officially takes surname of Knight.
Autumn JA sells copyright of P&P to Egerton.
1813
28 January P&P published; JA half-way through MP.
?July JA finishes MP.
?November MP accepted for publication by Egerton about now.
1814
21 January JA commences Emma.
5 April Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba.
9 May MP published.
24 December Treaty of Ghent officially ends war with America.
1815
March Napoleon escapes and resumes power in France;
hostilities recommence.
29 March E finished.
18 June Battle of Waterloo finally ends war with France.
8 August JA starts Persuasion.
4 October Henry Austen takes JA to London; he falls ill, and
she stays longer than anticipated.
13 November JA visits Carlton House, and receives an invitation to
dedicate a future work to the Prince Regent.
December E published by John Murray, dedicated to the Prince
Regent (title page 1816).
1816
19 February 2nd edition of MP published.
xix
Chronology
Spring JA’s health starts to fail. Henry Austen buys back

manuscript of ‘Susan’ (NA), which JA revises and
intends to offer again for publication.
18 July First draft of P finished.
6 August P finally completed.
1817
27 January JA starts Sanditon.
18 March JA now too ill to work, and has to leave S
unfinished.
24 May Cassandra takes JA to Winchester for medical
attention.
18 July JA dies in the early morning.
24 July JA buried in Winchester Cathedral.
December NA and P published together, by Murray, with a
‘Biographical Notice’ added by Henry Austen (title
page 1818).
1869
16 December JA’s nephew, the Revd James Edward Austen-Leigh
(JEAL), publishes his Memoir of Jane Austen, from
which all subsequent biographies have stemmed (title
page 1870).
1871
JEAL publishes a second and enlarged edition of his
Memoir, including in this the novella LS, the
cancelled chapters of P, the unfinished W, a précis of
S, and ‘The Mystery’ from the J.
1884
JA’s great-nephew, Lord Brabourne, publishes Letters
of Jane Austen, the first attempt to collect her
surviving correspondence.
1922
Volume the Second of the J published.
1925
The manuscript of the unfinished S edited by R. W.
Chapman and published as Fragment of a Novel by
Jane Austen.
1932
R. W. Chapman publishes Jane Austen’s Letters to her
sister Cassandra and others, giving letters unknown to
Lord Brabourne.
xx
Chronology
1933
Volume the First of the J published.
1951
Volume the Third of the J published.
1952
Second edition of R. W. Chapman’s Jane Austen’s
Letters published, with additional items.
1954
R. W. Chapman publishes Jane Austen’s Minor Works,
which includes the three volumes of the J and other
smaller items.
1980
B. C. Southam publishes Jane Austen’s ‘Sir Charles
Grandison’, a small manuscript discovered in 1977.
1995
Deirdre Le Faye publishes the third (new) edition of
Jane Austen’s Letters, containing further additions to
the Chapman collections.
xxi
INTRODUCTION
c o m p o s i ti o n
Unlike some of Jane Austen’s other works, where the geographical
settings are only vaguely indicated, the greater part of this novel
is very specifically located in Bath, the elegant inland spa patron-
ised for holidays by the wealthy and leisured since the seventeenth
century; out of thirty-one chapters, four are set at the heroine’s
home in fictitious Fullerton, nine at the eponymous and equally
fictitious Northanger Abbey and eighteen in the genuine city of
Bath. This emphasis is not surprising, since Bath was a constant
backdrop to the life of the Austen family. Jane’s mother, Cassandra
Leigh (1739–1827), lived there for some years in her youth, and
married the Revd George Austen (1731–1805) at Walcot church
in 1764; Cassandra’s elder sister, Jane Leigh, and her husband,
Revd Dr Edward Cooper, lived in Royal Crescent and Bennett
Street from 1771 to 1783; and Mrs Austen’s brother, James Leigh-
Perrot (1735–1812), and his wife, Jane Cholmeley (1744–1836) –
a wealthy and childless couple, who are always referred to in Jane
Austen’s letters as ‘my uncle’ and ‘my aunt’ – soon developed the
habit of spending half the year on their estate in Berkshire and the
other half in Bath, at No. 1 Paragon Buildings.
It is not known when Austen herself first became personally
acquainted with Bath, but it was probably in the spring/summer
of 1794, when she and her elder sister, Cassandra, visited Leigh
cousins in Gloucestershire; in travelling to and from Hampshire
it would be very surprising if they did not pass through both
Bath and Gloucester en route. It must have been this Gloucester-
shire trip which gave Austen the local knowledge that she used
afterwards for her novel, and no doubt she too stopped off at
xxiii
Introduction
Petty France to change horses when taking the main road north-
wards out of Bath. As we subsequently learn that Catherine Mor-
land’s return to Fullerton involved a journey of seventy miles (vol. 2,
ch. 13), this means that Austen must have envisaged Northanger
Abbey as being somewhere in the Vale of Berkeley, lying on the
flood-plain of the river Severn and tucked under the steep west-
ern edge of the Cotswold limestone escarpment. Such a location
accounts for its name: in Old English hangra, now modernised to
‘hanger’, means ‘a wood on the side of a steeply sloping hill’,1 and
Austen unobtrusively but carefully mentions the house as ‘standing
low in a valley, sheltered from the north and east by rising woods of
oak’ (vol. 2, ch. 2). When Catherine drives up, she finds that ‘so low
did the building stand’, it could not be seen from the road (vol. 2,
ch. 5); and later, when she walks out with the family to admire the
house and grounds, she sees it has ‘steep woody hills rising behind
to give it shelter’ (vol. 2, ch. 7) – that is, a hanger to the north. Henry
Tilney’s parish of Woodston is also on the Severn flood-plain, as
‘the General seemed to think an apology necessary for the flatness
of the country’ (vol. 2, ch. 11). There was no country house in this
part of Gloucestershire which in any way resembled Northanger
Abbey as described by Austen, hence she could feel safe in plac-
ing it there, without being afraid that some local landowner might
take offence in the belief he was being pilloried in the character of
General Tilney.
Austen’s first recorded visit to Bath was in November/December
1797, when she and her mother and sister stayed with the Leigh-
Perrots in Paragon Buildings. Her next visit was in May/June 1799,
when her brother, Edward Knight, brought a family party to lodg-
ings in Queen Square; and finally, she and her family lived in Bath
from 1801 to 1806. It is an interesting possibility that during the
1797 visit she may have met the Revd Sydney Smith, then only a
country cleric and tutor to the squire’s son, but soon to become well
known as a wit, essayist, moral philosopher and joint founder of the
1
Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, fourth edition
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960).
xxiv
Introduction
Edinburgh Review in 1802; it was pointed out by John Sparrow2

that Sydney’s conversational style sounds remarkably like that of
Henry Tilney, and there is documentary evidence that he paid sev-
eral short visits to Bath between October 1797 and January 1798.3
Furthermore, Sydney’s pupil, Michael Hicks Beach, was connected
to the Bramston family at Deane, near neighbours of the Austens
at Steventon; hence Mrs Austen may have been encouraged by the
Bramstons to make contact with Sydney following her arrival with
her daughters in Bath.
In the autumn of 1817 Cassandra Austen scribbled a brief mem-
orandum of the dates of composition of her sister’s novels, so far
as she could recall them, finishing with: ‘North-hanger Abby [sic]
was written about the years 98 & 99’,4 which suggests that Austen
started it in early 1798 after her winter visit, and finished it in
1799, perhaps after refreshing her imagination and checking her
facts during her summer visit. Having decided upon the geograph-
ical setting, she planned the action as a parody, or rather, a double
parody, of the popular fiction of the period – the conduct novels or
novels of manners on the one hand, and the gothic romances on
the other. The former, epistolary in style and supposed to be letters
to an intimate friend, are set in contemporary English society and
follow a courtship plot. The heroine enters the world, encounters
fortune-hunters, rakes, and false friends, masters the unstated rules
of etiquette and wins the heart of a noble suitor through her natu-
ral superiority, exhibited and refined through a series of social and
moral tests. The eighteen chapters set in Bath chronicle, in a delib-
erately wry and prosaic style, the problems that beset the naive and
trusting Catherine as she makes her debut; they may indeed reflect
something of what Austen herself experienced in 1794 and 1797.
Gothic romances were exceedingly popular from about 1790 to
1820. They were highly imaginative escapist literature – ‘gothic’ in
2
Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 1954, p. 429.
3
Peter Virgin, Sydney Smith (London: Harper Collins, 1994), pp. 41–2.
4
Jane Austen, Minor Works, ed. R. W. Chapman (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1954), plate facing p. 242; Brian Southam, Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 52–4.
xxv
Introduction
this context being taken to mean any historical period before 1700
and for preference as far back as medieval times, which by defi-
nition could provide more scope for wild and barbaric behaviour
than could the civilised eighteenth century. They were usually set
in European locations, and specialised in plots involving mystery,
crime and horror, with a strong element of the supernatural to
add terror to the mix. So far from entering high society, the hero-
ines in these romances invariably find themselves imprisoned in
ruined castles or abbeys in the Alps or Pyrenees, and threatened by
libertines, brigands and – apparently – ghosts. The nine chapters
covering Catherine’s visit to Northanger Abbey parody her over-
heated romantic imaginings of the potential mystery she expects to
find there, by setting them against the realities of life in a wealthy,
modernised country house in Gloucestershire. A final twist in the
tale, however, is that, although Catherine’s initial imaginings are
erroneous, there is indeed a mystery at Northanger Abbey, and she
herself is at the centre of it.
pu b l i c a ti o n
When Austen finished her text in 1799, she called it simply ‘Susan’,
and it seems she had then no thought of attempting to publish it –
the manuscript must have remained in the cupboard or on the
bookshelf, no doubt being read with amusement by her family, who
would recognise the parodies and also the genuine background to
the story. In 1801 the Revd George Austen suddenly decided to
leave Hampshire and retire to Bath, and it was probably the fact
of finding herself now actually living in the city which inspired
Jane to look afresh at ‘Susan’, perhaps in the autumn of 1802, and
to accept her family’s advice that it should be offered for publica-
tion. By this time her brother Henry was a London banker, and it
was his lawyer/agent, William Seymour, who sold the manuscript
in the spring of 1803 to the firm of Benjamin Crosby & Co., of
Stationers’ Hall Court, London, for £10, with a verbal agreement
for early publication. Crosby advertised it – Susan; a Novel, in 2
vols. – in their Flowers of Literature for 1801 & 1802 (1803), as
xxvi
Introduction
being ‘In the Press’; it was No. 15 in their list of ‘New and Useful
Books’.
In the event, however, Crosby never did publish ‘Susan’. There is
nothing to indicate how long it was before Jane Austen realised that
he did not intend to fulfil his bargain, and nothing to indicate the
reason for the firm’s change of mind. In her preface to a new edition
of Northanger Abbey in 1932, Rebecca West drew an amusing pen-
picture of what might have happened: Benjamin Crosby glanced
casually at the manuscript, and thought it ‘a pleasant tale about
pleasant people, written in simple English; and it had the further
advantage, from the point of view of the circulating libraries, that
it was plainly written by a lady who wrote from her own knowledge
of life as it was lived in country seats and at Bath’,5 hence he was
agreeable to paying £10 for it. However, when he looked at it for a
second time, more closely – perhaps when on the verge of sending it
actually to the printing press – he found it disconcerting and full of
mockery, quite unlike the novels that were the stock in trade of the
circulating libraries. The author seemed to be laughing at her char-
acters, possibly laughing at her potential readers, or even laughing
at himself for accepting such an unromantic, unsentimental tale.
For whatever combination of reasons, Crosby put the manuscript
aside and mentally wrote off his £10.
The early 1800s were an unsettled period in the Austen family’s
life, with much time spent travelling on seaside holidays and visits
in Kent and Hampshire, until Mr Austen died in January 1805 and
such journeyings came to an end. Mrs Austen and her daughters
eventually left Bath in 1806 and moved to Southampton, where
they stayed until the spring of 1809, before moving to their final
home at Chawton. It must have been exasperating for Austen to
see that another anonymous two-volume novel called Susan was
published in London early in 1809 by the firm of John Booth;6
and it may have been the knowledge of this rival production, plus a
5
Northanger Abbey, ed. Rebecca West (London: Jonathan Cape, 1932).
6
Peter Garside, James Raven and Rainer Schöwerling, eds., The English Novel 1770–1829
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), vol. 2, p. 292.
xxvii
Introduction
wish to tidy up the loose ends of her literary hopes, which led her
to write to Crosby & Co. on 5 April 1809 using the pseudonym
of ‘Mrs Ashton Dennis’, c/o the Post Office, Southampton.7 She
reminded them of the circumstances of the sale six years ago, and
stated that if they were no longer interested, she would send a sec-
ond copy of the manuscript to another publisher. Richard Crosby
replied on his father’s behalf by return of post (8 April 1809, Let-
ters, p. 175), denying that there had been any promise of early pub-
lication, threatening legal action if she published elsewhere, and
offering to return the manuscript for the £10 the firm had paid for
it. This sum was presumably beyond Austen’s means, so there the
matter rested for the time being.
Once settled in Chawton, Austen devoted herself to literary
composition, revising and publishing her two early works, Sense
and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813), and going
straight on to write Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (late 1815)
without a pause. Now with the confidence of a published author,
she thought of recovering ‘Susan’, and early in 1816 her brother
Henry ‘undertook the negotiation. He found the purchaser very
willing to receive back his money, and to resign all claim to the
copyright. When the bargain was concluded and the money paid,
but not till then, the negotiator had the satisfaction of informing
him that the work which had been so lightly esteemed was by the
author of “Pride and Prejudice”.’8
In view of the publication of the other novel called Susan in
1809, Austen changed the heroine’s name to ‘Catherine’ Morland,
and wrote an ‘Advertisement’, or preface, explaining that the story
had been intended to appear in 1803, and apologising therefore
to readers in 1816 for those parts which might now appear ‘com-
paratively obsolete’. However, it seems that even as she wrote this
7
Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. Deirdre Le Faye, third edition (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1995), p. 174; referred to as Letters hereafter.
8
James Edward Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections,
ed. Kathryn Sutherland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 106; referred to
as Memoir hereafter.
xxviii
Introduction
‘Advertisement’, she discouraged herself thereby, for she made no

further attempt to offer it to another publisher. It may be, too, that
Henry Austen’s sudden bankruptcy in March 1816, which obliged
him to leave London, further disheartened her, since he would no
longer be on the spot to negotiate with publishers on her behalf.
Her health started to fail this year, and she felt her current work
on Persuasion was not going well – yet another reason for putting
‘Susan’/‘Catherine’ aside once again. On 13 March 1817 Austen
wrote to her niece Fanny Knight: ‘Miss Catherine is put upon the
Shelve for the present, and I do not know that she will ever come
out’ (Letters, p. 333), and there is no further mention of the work
in her letters before her death in July 1817.
At some time in the second half of 1817, Henry and
Cassandra – the latter being Austen’s heiress for both real and
literary property – negotiated with John Murray for the publica-
tion of Northanger Abbey (evidently their choice of title, presumably
because they considered it more attractive to readers than a sim-
ple Catherine) together with Persuasion. Murray was quite happy
to accept the manuscripts, and in December 1817 wrote to Lady
Abercorn: ‘I am printing two short but very clever novels by poor
Miss Austen, the author of “Pride and Prejudice”.’9 Henry pro-
vided a ‘Biographical Notice of the Author’, dated 13 December
1817, which appeared as a preface to the four-volume edition (two
volumes for each of the novels); and in his ‘Notice’ (reproduced in
the Persuasion volume of the Cambridge edition) Austen’s name
appeared in print for the first time as acknowledged author of the
six novels.
The two works were first advertised in The Courier of 17 Decem-
ber 1817 for publication on 20 December, Northanger Abbey being
described as a ‘Romance’ and Persuasion as a ‘Novel’, though this
distinction does not appear on the title pages. Possibly the adver-
tising copywriter had read the novelist Clara Reeve’s definition of
the difference:
9
Samuel Smiles, A Publisher and His Friends (London: John Murray, 1891), vol. 2,
pp. 64–5.
xxix
Introduction
The Romance is an heroic fable, which treats of fabulous persons and

things.—The Novel is a picture of real life and manners, and of the
times in which it is written. The Romance in lofty and elevated lan-
guage, describes what never happened nor is likely to happen.—The
Novel gives a familiar relation of such things, as pass every day before
our eyes, such as may happen to our friends, or to ourselves; and the per-
fection of it, is to represent every scene, in so easy and natural a manner,
and to make them appear so probable, as to deceive us into a persuasion
(at least while we are reading) that all is real, until we are affected by the
joys or distresses, of the persons in the story, as if they were our own.10
But perhaps Henry and Cassandra made a mistake in calling it

Northanger Abbey – between 1784 and 1818 no fewer than thirty-
two novels had been published containing ‘Abbey’ in the title, not
to mention many others using such related nouns as ‘Convent’,
‘Monastery’ or ‘Priory’, ‘Abbot’, ‘Friar’ or ‘Nun’. The readers in
1818 may well have thought that such a title betokened a pre-
dictable rehash of a foolish and hackneyed plot, along the lines of
the ‘romances’ as categorised by Reeve.
The four-volume set was priced at £1.4s.0d., and the official
publication date was 1818. Murray had printed 1750 copies, and
most of these sold during 1818–19, with the last few being remain-
dered in 1820, but there was no second edition. A French trans-
lation, L’abbaye de Northanger, appeared in 1824; Carey & Lea of
Philadelphia published the first American edition in January 1833
(Northanger Abbey and Persuasion separately, each in two volumes);
but the next English edition was not until May 1833, when Richard
Bentley issued it in his Standard Novels series. During the nine-
teenth century Austen’s works were several times reprinted as multi-
volume sets, and the individual novels also appeared separately, but
Northanger Abbey has never been as popular as the others. From
1818 up to 1976 the number of individual reprints (disregarding
foreign, abridged or school editions) is respectively as follows: Pride
10
Clara Reeve, The Progress of Romance, Through Times, Countries and Manners with
Remarks on the Good and Bad Effects of it, on them Respectively (Colchester: W. Keymer,
1785), vol. 1, p. 111.
xxx
Introduction
and Prejudice 54; Sense and Sensibility 40; Mansfield Park 32; Emma
28; Northanger Abbey alone 23; Persuasion alone 18; Northanger
Abbey and Persuasion together 12.
The long intervals between the novel’s completion in 1799, its
acceptance by Crosby in 1803, and Austen’s further check in 1816,
have led some critics to wonder if in fact she made any consider-
able revisions to the text before writing her ‘Advertisement’. One
passage that indicates later interpolation is the narrator’s defence of
novels, in the fifth chapter of the first volume. With high rhetoric,
the narrator calls for solidarity amongst novelists, reproaches those
who make their heroines denigrate the fictions of which they are
themselves a part, and urges readers not to affect to despise novels,
since in them can be found ‘genius, wit and taste’. In this pas-
sage Austen refers to Frances Burney’s Cecilia (1782) and Camilla
(1796), but also to Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801), and there-
fore probably added it in 1803, when Edgeworth’s text would still
be fresh in people’s minds.
Another addition which must date to 1803 is Austen’s own foot-
note at the end of chapter three of the first volume: ‘Vide a letter
from Mr. Richardson, No. 97, vol. II, Rambler.’ This refers to
Samuel Richardson’s essay published in 1751 in the twice-weekly
periodical The Rambler (20 March 1750 –14 March 1752), edited
and written mainly by Samuel Johnson, which asserts: ‘That a young
lady should be in love, and the love of the young gentleman unde-
clared, is an heterodoxy which prudence, and even policy, must
not allow.’ This essay was first publicly attributed to Richardson in
Alexander Chalmers’ edition of The British Essayists (1803).
Apart from these two additions, it is clear from the tone of the
text that it still dates to the turn of the century. By 1816 ladies had
ceased to pile their hair up into huge powdered ‘heads’, muslins
were no longer a novelty fabric worthy of discussion, and the Bath
assembly rooms were no longer quite so smart – the city had become
less of a fashionable holiday resort and marriage-mart, and more
of a residential retreat for invalids, elderly spinsters and widows,
bachelors and widowers, the atmosphere which Austen creates in
xxxi
Introduction
Persuasion. James King had retired as Master of Ceremonies in

the Lower Rooms in 1805, and it would have been easy enough
for Austen to change this name if she were attempting to update
the story. Likewise, she mentions ‘Union-passage’ in the centre of
Bath, but does not mention the larger Union Street, which opened
in 1807. In any case, the novel’s structure could not easily have
accommodated any large-scale revisions; Austen pins both her plot
and her characters so tightly to parodies of the conduct novel and the
gothic romance that to change any of this would require substantial
rewriting. It can therefore be assumed that the text as we now have
it is substantially as it was in 1803.
l i t e ra r y c o nt e x t
As the location of Northanger Abbey is a true reflection of Austen’s
own knowledge of Gloucestershire, so the parodic aspect of her
text is likewise a true reflection of her readings in contemporary
fiction. Clerics such as the Revd James Fordyce might include in
his Sermons to Young Women (1766) the warning that:
We consider the general run of Novels as utterly unfit for you. Instruc-
tion they convey none. They paint scenes of pleasure and passion alto-
gether improper for you to behold, even with the mind’s eye. Their
descriptions are often loose and luscious in a high degree; their repre-
sentations of love between the sexes are almost universally overstrained.
All is dotage, or despair; or else ranting swelled into burlesque. In short,
the majority of their lovers are either mere lunatics, or mock-heroes11
and the youthful Frances Burney might priggishly suggest, in her

preface to Evelina, or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World (1778),
that ‘our young ladies in general, and boarding-school damsels in
particular’ might profit by the annihilation and ‘total extirpation of
novels’ (her own of course excepted). However, it is evident that
the eminently sensible Austen parents did not share such puritan-
ical views, and saw no harm in allowing their children, sons and
daughters alike, to read all the latest fiction.
11
James Fordyce, Sermons to Young Women, twelfth edition (London: Lackington, Allen
and Co., 1800), Sermon IV.
xxxii
Introduction
From the references in her juvenilia, it is clear that by the age of

fifteen Austen had read not only Burney’s Evelina and equally virtu-
ous Cecilia, or, Memoirs of an Heiress (1782), but also several of such
novels as would have elicited Fordyce’s disapproval: Sophia Lee’s
The Recess, or, A Tale of Other Times (1783–5), Charlotte Smith’s
Emmeline, or, the Orphan of the Castle (1788), and her Ethelinde, or,
the Recluse of the Lake (1789). She had also read Richardson’s The
History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753–4) over and over again, so
that ‘Every circumstance narrated . . . all that was ever said or done
in the cedar parlour, was familiar to her; and the wedding days of
Lady L. and Lady G. were as well remembered as if they had been
living friends.’12 Later on she came to Henry Fielding’s The His-
tory of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), which Johnson had angrily
condemned as ‘so vicious a book . . . I scarcely know a more cor-
rupt work’, but which Jane nevertheless discussed with her admirer
Tom Lefroy during the Christmas holidays of 1795–6 (9–10 Jan-
uary 1796, Letters, p. 2); and in the same year she subscribed for her
own copy of Burney’s Camilla, or, A Picture of Youth (1796), which
remained a lifelong favourite. Many years later she told her nephew
James Edward Austen-Leigh, her first biographer, that Burney was
‘the very best of English novelists; & she used to praise the character
of Sir Hugh Tyrold in Camilla as extremely well drawn’.13
Northanger Abbey belongs squarely in the tradition of the English
novel established in the middle of the eighteenth century by
Richardson and Fielding. Richardson’s epistolary novels record
the thoughts and feelings of young women in great detail as
they confront moral and emotional decisions; his final novel, Sir
Charles Grandison (which, according to Austen, Mrs Morland ‘very
often reads’), portrays the heroine’s relationship with an exemplary
Christian gentleman. Richardson’s blend of sentimental characters,
psychological realism and courtship plots with the sensational ele-
ments of abduction, betrayal and sexual assault made his novels
12
Memoir, p. 71.
13
David Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen, revised edition (Winchester: St Paul’s
Bibliographies, 1997), p. 89.
xxxiii
Introduction
highly popular, and his heroines, in particular, became models

for subsequent writers. Whereas Richardson was considered a
moral writer, Fielding was not. His sexual episodes were considered
indelicate reading, but by employing an ironic, detached narra-
tor, who both reports and comments on the action, he provides a
model for Austen’s narrative voice. His first novel, The History of
the Adventures of Joseph Andrews (1742), is a parody of Richardson’s
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740–1), and like Northanger Abbey
invokes the quixotic tradition in order to mock the idealism of
naive but heroic characters who learn about life from books. Again
like Austen, Fielding defends the novel against critical scorn as
a trivial genre; his definition of the genre as a comic, prose epic,
with a range of characters and moral seriousness equivalent to the
loftiest literature, helped to differentiate the form from romantic
fantasy.
More significant influences upon Northanger Abbey, however, are
the conduct novels of Burney, whose first work, Evelina, was pub-
lished anonymously in 1778. The novel won immediate applause,
and Burney, once her authorship was revealed, instant fame. An
epistolary fiction written largely by the eponymous heroine to
her elderly clerical guardian in the country, the novel describes
Evelina’s introduction to fashionable society, the errors of conduct
that result from her social inexperience, and her discovery of love.
Burney’s third novel, Camilla, relates the experiences of a group
of cousins from their childhood to their weddings, focusing on
the heroine’s adventures in learning to judge people and act pru-
dently in matters of love and money. Camilla resembles Cather-
ine Morland in her vulnerability to ‘false reasoning . . . formed
upon false principles’, and in her eager, good-natured impulsive-
ness. Austen also adapts Burney’s character scheme by placing two
couples in a chiastic contrast: the primary agent of the evils in
Burney’s story is Camilla’s brother, Lionel Tyrold, an Oxonian
whose selfish extravagance plunges the family into financial dis-
aster. In his boasting, slang and irresponsible, violent treatment
of Camilla, which forces her into compromising situations, he
xxxiv
Introduction
resembles John Thorpe, while Camilla’s cousin, Indiana Lynmere,

is the beauty whose folly Austen’s narrator ironically commends
her ‘sister author’ for applauding. Paralleling Isabella Thorpe, she
entrances the naı̈f Oxonian Melmond but, when he appears poorer
than she hoped, she elopes with another man.
The second strand in Northanger Abbey is Austen’s parody of
the gothic romances; the vogue for these had begun in England
with the publication of Horace Walpole’s novella The Castle of
Otranto (1764), set in Italy at some unspecified medieval date. The
plot depicts the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy through the fall
of the usurper Manfred, involving supernatural manifestations as
well as crimes of violence. The third edition of Otranto in 1769
had the subtitle A Gothic Story, which gave its name to the genre.
Walpole’s tropes were widely imitated: the unexplained and unnatu-
ral occurrences, including omens, intimations and vague warnings;
the obscurity in plot and setting, in which the characters chase
and flee from each other through nightmarish dark labyrinths; the
threatened rape, distress and imprisonment of a beautiful heroine;
and the confusion and separation of lovers.
Ann Radcliffe developed her gothic fictions in response to
Walpole, and became hugely popular throughout Europe as the
leading author in this field. She wrote only five novels in this
genre – The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), A Sicilian
Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of
Udolpho (1794) and The Italian, or The Confessional of the Black Pen-
itents (1797) – but these established the gothic tradition in English
fiction: the archetypal figure of the male tyrant, whose castle holds
and reveals secrets, is balanced against an orphaned or deserted
heroine who struggles for control over herself and her inheritance,
experiencing suffering and terror while imprisoned in ruined edi-
fices before being united with the worthy hero in the last volume.
Radcliffe’s works depict not only the heroine’s embarrassment and
doubt as she makes moral choices, but also her feelings of confusion,
physical fear and superstitious terror as she gropes her way through
circumstances both menacing and incomprehensible. The Romance
xxxv
Introduction
of the Forest was so popular that Radcliffe received an unprecedented

£500 advance for The Mysteries of Udolpho, followed by £800 for The
Italian, both of which also won great popular acclaim.
Although moralists directed their condemnation of novels
towards schoolgirls and young women, they were fighting a los-
ing battle, for many members of the reading public, including most
respectable ladies and gentlemen, equally enjoyed these publica-
tions. The Austens’ neighbour, Mrs Bramston, discussed the latest
fiction with her kinswoman, Mrs Hicks Beach: ‘I suppose you will
soon be thinking of your Weymouth expedition & wandering by
the sea shore . . . if when there you want a little Autumn reading
Emmeline or the Orphan of the Castle is much recommended. I
have read only the first page so can not give my opinion but think
it will suit Weymouth as the scene lies in an old Castle on the sea
shore so if you may look out of your window & see the Scenes real-
ized that you are perusing.’14 Mrs Bramston owned copies of The
Romance of the Forest, Udolpho and The Italian,15 and may well have
lent these to the Austens. Another neighbour, Madam Lefroy, an
intellectual lady who ‘had an exquisite taste for poetry, and could
almost repeat the chief English poets by heart, especially Milton,
Pope, Collins, Gray, and the poetical passages of Shakespeare’,16
also saw no harm in owning a copy of The Italian.17
The instinctive comparison of gothic romances to real life
became commonplace: Mrs Austen’s old friend, Mrs Lybbe Powys,
when visiting the Deanery at Canterbury Cathedral in 1798, imme-
diately noticed that ‘in the back part of the house’ there were
‘numbers of small [rooms] and spiral staircases, dark passages, &c
&c, which put one in mind of the haunted castles in our present
novels’;18 and Mrs Austen herself, when visiting her family’s estate
14
Bramston archive, letter of 24 August 1788, Hampshire Record Office, 20M64/4.
15
W. A. W. Jarvis, ‘Those will last us some time’, in Collected Reports of the Jane Austen
Society, vol. 4 (1986–1995), pp. 108–12.
16
Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), p. 59; referred to as Family Record hereafter.
17
Gilson, Bibliography of Jane Austen, p. 434.
18
Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House, Oxon, AD 1756 to
1808, ed. Emily J. Climenson (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899), pp. 303–4.
xxxvi
Introduction
at Stoneleigh Abbey in 1806, wrote home: ‘I had figured to myself

long Avenues, dark Rookeries & dismal Yew Trees, but here are no
such melancholy things . . . Behind the smaller drawing Room is
the state Bed Chamber, with a high dark crimson Velvet Bed, an
alarming apartment just fit for a Heroine, the old Gallery opens into
it.’19 – hence it is not surprising that Jane agreed happily with Cas-
sandra that the Austens were ‘great Novel-readers & not ashamed
of being so’ (18–19 December 1798, Letters, p. 26).
A third strand in Northanger Abbey is the satirising of young
women who lose track of reality by immersing themselves in roman-
tic fantasies. Satires of learned, or at least reading-maddened,
women had been a commonplace theme for the past hundred
years, but with the rise of romantic fiction and the broadening
of a female reading public in the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury, writers merged this theme with an attack on the addiction
to novels. In Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote (1752), the
most important progenitor of this genre, the protagonist Arabella,
who has addled her mind with the novels of Madame de Scudéry,
believes she should behave like a heroine in a seventeenth-century
romance, and her consequent regal manners, arbitrary rejections of
her father’s authority and delusions of grandeur lead to her humil-
iation and near madness. Eaton Stannard Barrett returned to this
theme with his The Heroine, or, Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader
(1813), the subtitle for the second 1814 edition being changed
to The Adventures of Cherubina: Cherry Wilkinson, daughter of
a wealthy farmer, decides she must really be Lady Cherubina de
Willoughby, and sets off to find her inheritance and noble fam-
ily. The Austen family were reading this in early 1814, and Jane
told Cassandra: ‘I finished the Heroine last night & was very much
amused by it. I wonder James [her eldest brother] did not like
it better. It diverted me exceedingly . . . I have torn through
the 3d. vol. of the Heroine, & do not think it falls off.—It is
a delightful burlesque, particularly on the Radcliffe style’ (2–3
19
R. A. Austen-Leigh, Austen Papers, 1704–1856 (London: privately printed, 1942),
pp. 245–6.
xxxvii
Introduction
March 1814, Letters, pp. 255–6). In Northanger Abbey Austen turns

this theme on its head – Catherine Morland has no delusions
about herself, but thinks the world around her must contain the
spotless heroines, ferocious villains and terrifying mysteries she has
so far encountered only in books. It takes Henry Tilney’s kind but
thorough scolding to make her realise that ‘Charming as were all
Mrs Radcliffe’s works, and charming even as were the works of
all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature,
at least in the midland counties of England, was to be looked for’
(vol. 2, ch. 10).
Some of Radcliffe’s imitators are given in Isabella Thorpe’s
reading list (vol. 1, ch. 6), the most successful of whom was Regina
Maria Roche. Her third work, The Children of the Abbey, first
published in 1796, was reprinted up to 1850. Her next, Clermont, A
Tale (1798), did not attain the same success, and the Critical Review
thought poorly of it: ‘This tale reminds us, without any great
pleasure, of Mrs. Radcliffe’s romances . . . mystery is heaped upon
mystery, and murder upon murder, with little art, and great improb-
ability.’20 Eleanor Sleath’s The Orphan of the Rhine, a Romance
(1798), was likewise called a ‘vapid and servile’ imitation of Rad-
cliffe.21 The reviewer of Francis Lathom’s The Midnight Bell (which
Mr Austen was reading in the autumn of 1798 (24 October 1798,
Letters, p. 15)) referred to its ‘ghosts, murders, midnight bells, &c’
being introduced with ‘the usual mysterious apparatus; and the story
will not be the less relished because not very probable.’22 The other
four gothic novels on Isabella’s list were also largely condemned by
the reviewers for their improbable and clumsy plots; but that ‘sweet
girl’ Miss Andrews ‘has read every one of them’ and so is able to
assure her friend that they are ‘all horrid’ – that is, most delightfully
hair-raising, blood-curdling and spine-chilling (vol. 1, ch. 6). There
were nine circulating libraries in Bath at the turn of the century,
20
Garside, Raven and Schöwerling (eds.), The English Novel 1770–1829, vol. 1,
pp. 758–9.
21
Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 760–1.
22
Ibid., vol. 1, p. 750.
xxxviii
Introduction
one even located in Edgar’s Buildings – so perhaps Isabella was

able simply to go downstairs and collect an armful to read with
Catherine.
c r i ti c a l r ec e p ti o n
By the second decade of the nineteenth century, intelligent readers
were surfeited with the novel of manners and the gothic romance,
and it might be said that Austen’s works helped in a small way to
kill off both these schools of fiction. In 1813 Miss Milbanke, future
Lady Byron, wrote to her mother: ‘I have finished the Novel called
Pride and Prejudice, which I think a very superior work. It depends
not on any of the common resources of novel writers, no drownings,
no conflagrations, nor runaway horses, nor lap-dogs and parrots,
nor chambermaids and milliners, nor rencontres and disguises. I
really think it is the most probable fiction I have ever read.’23
A year or so later William Gifford, editor of John Murray’s Quar-
terly Review, read Pride and Prejudice before recommending Murray
to accept the manuscript of Emma, and told him: ‘I have for the first
time looked into Pride and Prejudice;—and it is really a very pretty
thing. No dark passages; no secret chambers; no wind-howlings
in long galleries; no drops of blood upon a rusty dagger—things
that should now be left to ladies’ maids and sentimental washer-
women’.24 Although Austen could not, of course, have known of
Gifford’s opinion, she too must have felt that the gothic was out-
moded – which is perhaps why, in 1815, it is only foolish little
Harriet Smith who is still enjoying The Romance of the Forest and
The Children of the Abbey (Emma, vol. 1, ch. 4).
Following the publication of Emma in late 1815, Murray asked
Walter Scott to write an article on Austen’s novels for the Quar-
terly Review, which appeared, anonymously, in March 1816. He
commended Austen for her depiction of ordinary characters and
everyday incidents, contrasting her realism with the formulaic fic-
tion in which the heroine
23
Malcolm Elwin, Lord Byron’s Wife (London: John Murray, 1962), p. 159.
24
Smiles, A Publisher, vol. 1, p. 282.
xxxix
Introduction
was regularly exposed to being forcibly carried off like a Sabine virgin
by some frantic admirer. And even if she escaped the terrors of masked
ruffians, an insidious ravisher, a cloak wrapped forcibly around her
head, and a coach with the blinds up driving she could not conjecture
whither, she had still her share of wandering, of poverty, of obloquy,
of seclusion, and of imprisonment, and was frequently extended upon
a bed of sickness, and reduced to her last shilling, before the author
condescended to shield her from persecution.
The author Susan Ferrier had probably read Scott’s article when
she wrote to Lady Charlotte Bury in March 1816:
This is a wild, stormy, snowy day, and I feel as if a mental horror would
be very relishing; but the literature of the present day is not of a spirit-
stirring, hair-raising sort; everything now is addressed to the reason,
nothing to the heart or fancy . . . Formerly, in my time, a heroine was
merely a piece of beautiful matter, with long fair hair and soft blue
eyes, who was buffeted up and down the world like a shuttle-cock, and
visited with all sorts of possible and impossible miseries. Now they are
black-haired, sensible women, who do plainwork, pay morning visits,
and make presents of legs of pork;— vide ‘Emma’.25
Despite its liveliness and wit, Northanger Abbey has generally

earned the least critical consideration and applause of all Austen’s
finished works. This may be due partly to the fact that in its first
publication it was prefaced by Henry Austen’s ‘Biographical Notice
of the Author’; Henry had recently taken Holy Orders, and was well
on the way to becoming ‘a zealous Preacher of the Gospel, according
to the religious views of the Calvinistic portion of the Evangelical
Clergy’ (Family Record, p. 262), hence he was anxious to stress his
sister’s piety and domestic virtues rather than to analyse her liter-
ary talent. He was happy to say that ‘Her favourite moral writers
were Johnson in prose, and Cowper in verse’, but was also careful
to assure his readers that she ‘did not rank any work of Fielding’ as
high as Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison, since ‘Neither nature,
25
The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, by Lady Charlotte Bury, ed. A. Francis Steuart (London:
John Lane The Bodley Head, 1908), pp. 260–1.
xl
Introduction
wit, nor humour, could make her amends for so very low a scale of
morals.’ By omitting any reference to her fondness for the popu-
lar fictions parodied in Northanger Abbey – not even repeating her
praise of Burney’s and Edgeworth’s works – the ‘Notice’ further sep-
arated it from the character sketch he was drawing. The fact that it
was published together with Persuasion may also have damaged its
critical reputation – Henry Austen’s picture of a gentle, beautifully
behaved maiden lady mirrors Anne Elliot far more closely than
either the bold narrative voice or the clumsy heroine of Northanger
Abbey, and so makes her last novel appear the more polished, and
certainly more mature, work of the two.
Like Scott, the early critics, reacting against improbable
romances, commend the novel’s medicinal realism. In March 1818,
the anonymous reviewer in the British Critic contrasts the exhaust-
ing torrent of sentimental and gothic fiction with Northanger Abbey
and Persuasion, which, albeit not morally profound, he considers
enjoyable reading. He makes no reference to the parodic aspect
of Northanger Abbey, but specifically admires Austen’s dramatisa-
tion of character, her ability to let the characters speak for them-
selves and her astute, unflinching observation in the Bath section
of the book. He thinks that her plots and subjects are common-
place, that the portrait of the General is improbable and not ‘pour-
trayed with our authoress’s usual taste and judgment’, and that
there is ‘a considerable want of delicacy in all the circumstances of
Catherine’s visit to the Abbey’; but assures his readers neverthe-
less that this is ‘one of the very best of Miss Austen’s productions,
and will every way repay the time and trouble of perusing it’. He
dismisses Persuasion as being ‘a much less fortunate performance
than that which we have just been considering’, and disapproves of
its dangerously radical encouragement of youthful desire for early
matrimony.26
Another anonymous reviewer, in the Edinburgh Magazine for
May 1818, thought that the prevailing taste for fictions that offered
historical and romantic incident, even when ‘altogether wild and
26
British Critic for March 1818, vol. 9, pp. 293–301.
xli
Introduction
monstrous’, had resulted in Austen’s novels being presently under-

valued in public estimation. He anticipated a future time when ‘the
delightful writer of the works now before us, will be one of the most
popular of English novelists . . . It is unnecessary to give a particular
account of the stories here presented to us . . . They have quite the
same kind of merit with the preceding works of their author . . .
The first is the more lively, and the second the more pathetic.’27
The Gentleman’s Magazine for July 1818 gave only a short mention,
stressing that ‘The two Novels now published have no connection
with each other’, and that ‘Northanger Abbey . . . is decidedly prefer-
able to the second Novel, not only in the incidents, but even in its
moral tendency.’28 The only known private contemporary comment
comes from Maria Edgeworth herself, who agrees with the British
Critic reviewer: ‘The behaviour of the General in . . . packing off
the young lady without a servant or the common civilities which
any bear of a man, not to say gentleman, would have shown, is quite
outrageously out of drawing and out of nature.’29
The Revd Richard Whately, future Archbishop of Dublin, wrote
an anonymous and rather belated review in the Quarterly Review for
January 1821. Much of his article was devoted to praising Austen
for her natural, logical plots, her skill in differentiating her charac-
ters, and especially for the ‘moral lessons’ to be found in Mansfield
Park. Turning at last to the books he was supposed to be review-
ing, in Northanger Abbey Whately, as an Oxford don himself, was
particularly amused by the portrait of John Thorpe, recognising
him as a member of a dying species, the ‘Bang-up Oxonian’, and
‘Miss Thorpe, the jilt of middling life, is . . . quite as good’; but
then dismissed it shortly as being ‘decidedly inferior to her other
works, having less plot, and what there is less artificially wrought
up, and also less exquisite nicety of moral painting’.30 He finished
27
Edinburgh Magazine for May 1818, vol. 2, pp. 453–5.
28
Gentleman’s Magazine for July 1818, vol. 88, pp. 52–3.
29
A Memoir of Maria Edgeworth with A Selection from her Letters, ed. Frances Maria
Edgeworth (London: privately printed, 1867), vol. 2, pp. 5–6.
30
Quarterly Review for January 1821, vol. 24, pp. 352–76.
xlii
Introduction
his article with a much longer discussion of Persuasion, which he

thought ‘superior to all’ the others.
This article by Whately is the last contemporary review of
Austen and her works, and for the next twenty years her novels
were largely overlooked, as the stars of the great Victorian nov-
elists rose in the sky of popularity. It was not until January 1843
that the eminent historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, who had
been devoted to her works since his boyhood, turned critical atten-
tion towards her again with an article he wrote for the Edinburgh
Review: ‘Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among
the writers who . . . have approached nearest to the manner of the
great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen . . .
She has given us a multitude of characters, all in a certain sense,
common-place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as
perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most
eccentric of human beings.’31 Macaulay’s letters make constant ref-
erence to the Austenian characters, and on 12 August 1854 he wrote
in his journal: ‘I read Dickens’s “Hard Times.” . . . Another book
of Pliny’s letters. Read “Northanger Abbey”; worth all Dickens and
Pliny put together. Yet it was the work of a girl. She was certainly
not more than twenty-six. Wonderful creature!’32
The scholarly journalist G. H. Lewes picked up this Edinburgh
Review comment, and took it a stage further, in 184733 and 1851,34
by claiming that Macaulay had said Austen was a prose Shake-
speare – a claim which much annoyed Charlotte Brontë, who told
him that the novels gave ‘An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of
a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden,
with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright,
vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill,
no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and
31
Edinburgh Review for January 1843, vol. 76, pp. 561–2.
32
G. O. Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1961), vol. 2, p. 307.
33
Fraser’s Magazine for 1847, vol. 36, p. 687.
34
The Leader, 22 November 1851, p. 115.
xliii
Introduction
gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.’35 In 1855 Eliz-

abeth Barrett Browning, too, was unenthusiastic: ‘[Miss Mitford]
never taught me anything but a very limited admiration of Miss
Austen, whose people struck me as wanting souls, even more than
is necessary for men & women of the world. The novels are perfect
as far as they go—that’s certain. Only they don’t go far, I think.’36
This prevailing mid-nineteenth-century idea that Austen’s char-
acters were lacking in idealism and passion led to the assump-
tion that she and her novels alike must be ‘hard and cold and
prudish’; but as one of her own great-nieces, Fanny Caroline Lefroy
(1820–85), commented perceptively in her manuscript ‘Family
History’:
Of passionate feeling she was perhaps incapable but passion is not

depth, and still less is it longlived. And as for the hardness and prudish-
ness, I think allowance enough is not made for the difference between
the fashion in this matter in her day and ours. In hers people were called
by their plain Christian names, and loves dears and darlings were less
plentifully used, caresses were not so common and were only bestowed
in private. It is not only her heroines who abstain from throwing them-
selves into their lovers arms but as sisters they are equally reticent. Dear
as Jane is to Lizzie in Pride and Prejudice, she is to her Jane, and Jane
only, and Elinor and Marianne who in these days would certainly
have been ‘Nellie and Minnie’ are contented with their own names
unadorned with any prefix of affection. The only person she paints as
addicted to the use of terms of endearment is Isabella Thorpe who
talks of her ‘dearest sweetest Catherine’ without having any real regard
for her or for any one save herself.37
G. H. Lewes remained a staunch advocate of Austen’s artistry,

and in his last and most important appraisal of her work, written
for the Edinburgh Magazine of July 1859, pointed out that Burney
35
T. J. Wise and J. A. Symington (eds.), The Brontës: Their Lives, Friendships and Cor-
respondence (Oxford: Published for the Shakespeare Head Press by Basil Blackwell,
1932), vol. 2, pp. 178–9.
36
The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. F. G. Kenyon (London: Smith, Elder,
1897), vol. 2, p. 217.
37
Austen-Leigh archive, Hampshire Record Office, 23M93/85/2.
xliv
Introduction
‘is no longer read, nor much worth reading’, while ‘Miss Edge-
worth is already little more than a name, and only finds a public for
her children’s books’. On the other hand, ‘it is evident that Miss
Austen’s works must possess elements of indestructible excellence,
since . . . she survives writers who were very popular; and forty
years after her death, gains more recognition than she gained when
alive’. Lewes recalls that ‘the charming novel, Northanger Abbey . . .
which the Quarterly Review pronounces the weakest of the series (a
verdict only intelligible to us because in the same breath Persuasion
is called the best!), is not only written with unflagging vivacity, but
contains two characters no one else could have equalled—Henry
Tilney and John Thorpe’. Later on he defines Catherine Morland
as being one of the ‘truly lovable, flesh-and-blood young women’
in the gallery of heroines.38
Sir William Frederick Pollock, a barrister and writer, in his arti-
cle ‘British Novelists—Richardson, Miss Austen, Scott’ for Fraser’s
Magazine in January 1860, praised her ‘power of impressing reality
upon her characters’ and ‘that delicate atmosphere of satire which
pervades her works’. He gave much space to discussing Sense and
Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma, a short paragraph to
Mansfield Park, a few lines to Persuasion, and dismissed Northanger
Abbey in one sentence as ‘not unworthy of its companions, although
it was not thought deserving of publication until after its writer’s
reputation was made.’39
The novelist Julia Kavanagh, in her literary biography English
Women of Letters (1862), also recognised Austen’s realism, but dis-
approved of her satirical approach: ‘She refused to build herself, or
to help to build for others, any romantic ideal of love, virtue, or
sorrow. She laughed at her first heroine, Catherine Morland . . .
and described her by negatives. Her irony, though gentle, was a
fault, and the parent of much coldness. She learned to check it, but
she never conquered it entirely. Catherine, though she makes us
smile, is amiable and innocent, and she contrasts pleasantly with
38
Edinburgh Magazine for July 1859, vol. 86, pp. 99–113.
39
Fraser’s Magazine for January 1860, vol. 61, pp. 30–5.
xlv
Introduction
Isabella Thorpe.’40 Kavanagh mentioned briefly ‘Mrs. Radcliffe’s

romances’, but did not relate them to Austen’s description of
Catherine, or comment upon the parodic aspects of the work.
More perceptive is the anonymous article on ‘Miss Austen’ in
the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine in 1866, in which the writer
alludes to the paragraph in defence of novels, and takes it as a sign
that Austen
saw and recognised the value of the novel, and with unusual sagacity set
to work to raise it from its degraded position . . . she resolved to paint
the world as she saw it, and to substitute rational for false amusement.
That such a resolution ever occurred to her in this precise form is, of
course, conjecture, but that she saw that the position novels held in the
opinion of the world was in a great measure the fault of the writers,
and determined to found her books on a more real base, is plain from
several passages in Northanger Abbey.41
The critic considers that in this ‘her first book, she does not, as
may be conjectured, arrive at so high a pitch of art as she afterwards
attained. In spite of some very excellent character drawing, the
book, on the whole, is crude, the interest insufficient, and the story
incompletely worked out.’ This writer still remembered the now
unfashionable gothic romances, and so was able to identify the
scene in which Catherine discovers a laundry list in the black and
gold cabinet as originating in Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest.
Criticism in the later Victorian period stems from the publica-
tion by her nephew, the Revd James Edward Austen-Leigh (1798–
1874), of the Memoir of Jane Austen in early 1870, which proved
sufficiently popular to be followed by an enlarged second edition
in 1871. Austen-Leigh repeats the family claims that his aunt pre-
ferred the works of Johnson, Cowper and Crabbe to most novels,
apart from Sir Charles Grandison and those of Maria Edgeworth,
thus once again marginalising Northanger Abbey and indeed linking
it with her teenage writings:
40
Julia Kavanagh, English Women of Letters (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1862), vol. 2,
pp. 251–74.
41
Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (1866) vol. 3, series 2, pp. 238–9, 278–82.
xlvi
Introduction
Instead of presenting faithful copies of nature, these tales [the later

juvenilia] were generally burlesques, ridiculing the improbable events
and exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly
romances. Something of this fancy is to be found in ‘Northanger
Abbey,’ but she soon left it far behind in her subsequent course. It would
seem as if she were first taking note of all the faults to be avoided, and
curiously considering how she ought not to write before she attempted
to put forth her strength in the right direction.
It is from the Memoir that we learn the circumstances of the

manuscript’s neglect by Crosby & Co, and the family’s understand-
able satisfaction when the publisher learned the author’s identity
only after he had returned her manuscript to Henry Austen.42
This idea of Austen as essentially a satirist of popular romances
and progenitor of a serious, moral genre reaches its first, full state-
ment in the long article on the Memoir by the Shakespearean scholar
Richard Simpson in the North British Review for April 1870. Here,
for the first time, a critic traces the conceptual growth between the
first and last three novels, classifying Northanger Abbey with Sense
and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. In claiming that she lacked
literary education, apart from her favourites Johnson and Richard-
son, he takes up Henry Austen’s picture of Jane as an instinctive
genius, who learned her art, like Shakespeare, by ironic observa-
tion of society. Simpson credits Northanger Abbey as part of her early
artistic practice in developing her craft by ridiculing the unreality
and improbability of the plots of contemporary novels, and recog-
nises its specific Radcliffian origins; however, he felt that, as one of
her early, polemical triad of novels dedicated to criticising novelistic
excesses, Northanger Abbey pushed the polemical intention even to
the verge of caricature.43
Another anonymous review article discussing the Memoir, ‘Jane
Austen’, appeared in St Paul’s Magazine for March 1870. The writer
was lukewarm in his praise of the novels, finding the heroines in
general rather unlikeable, and much preferred Scott as being the
42
Memoir, pp. 43–4, 106.
43
North British Review for April 1870, vol. 52, pp. 129–52.
xlvii
Introduction
‘novelist who has best . . . achieved the most natural amalgamation

of the romantic and the real’. However, his last paragraph, though
cool in its summary, significantly pointed out that: ‘Jane Austen’s
works – though not devoured by young ladies of our period . . . are
pondered over with most attention and most appreciation by men
of thought and literary education.’44
Despite this assumption that it was only male literary critics who
were likely to devote consideration to Austen’s works, a few years
later the prolific Scottish novelist Margaret Oliphant commented
on Northanger Abbey, recognising it as a ‘laughing assault upon Mrs.
Radcliffe’:
Catherine Morland, with all her enthusiasm and her mistakes, her
modest tenderness and right feeling, and the fine instinct which runs
through her simplicity, is the most captivating picture of a very young
girl which fiction, perhaps, has ever furnished . . . The machinery of
the story is wonderfully bad, and General Tylney [sic] an incredible
monster; but all the scenes in Bath – the vulgar Thorpes, the goodhu-
moured Mrs. Allen – are clear and vivid as the daylight, and Cather-
ine herself throughout always the most delightful little gentlewoman,
never wrong in instinct and feeling, notwithstanding all her amusing
foolishness.45
After the Memoir, the next step forward in Austenian stud-

ies came in 1884, when Austen’s great-nephew, Lord Brabourne
(1829–93) published his two-volume edition of the Letters of Jane
Austen, and thus provided information on her life which could be
related to her creative writings. The novelist Mrs Humphry Ward
wrote a review article, ‘Style and Miss Austen’, in Macmillan’s Mag-
azine, and particularly enjoyed the letters written between 1796 and
1799:
It is in the story of Catherine Morland that we get the inimitable

literary expression of that exuberant girlish wit, which expressed itself
44
St Paul ’s Magazine for March 1870, vol. 5, pp. 631–43.
45
Margaret Oliphant, The Literary History of England in the End of the Eighteenth and
Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan, 1882), vol. 3, pp. 228–9.
xlviii
Introduction
in letters and talk and harmless flirtations before it took to itself literary
shape, and it is pleasant to turn from the high spirits of that delightful
book to some of the first letters in this collection, and so to realise
afresh, by means of such records of the woman, the perfect spontaneity
of the writer. Any one who has ever interested himself in the impulsive
little heroine . . . will feel that in one or two of these newly-printed
letters he comes very near to the secret of Catherine’s manufacture.46
It was in the early twentieth century that the ‘men of thought

and literary education’ turned their attention towards the other lit-
erary references in Northanger Abbey, apart from those obviously
pertaining to Radcliffe’s works. The seven novels in Isabella’s list
had been forgotten long ago, and in 1901 John Louis Haney consid-
ered them worthy of an article in Modern Language Notes, in which
he identified their authorship and cited contemporary reviews.47
However, this information passed unnoticed, and other scholars
continued to write to Notes & Queries seeking for confirmation as
to the authenticity of the titles. Alan McKillop gave full details
again in 1921 but it was not until Michael Sadleir read a paper
to the English Association on 11 February 1927, that the literary
world finally took note and accepted that these were genuine gothic
romances.48 Even then, when the Folio Society reprinted all seven
in 1968 as The Northanger Set of Jane Austen Horrid Novels, edited
by Devendra P. Varma, some reviewers gave him unjustified credit
for priority in identifying them.49
To mark the centenary of Austen’s death in July 1917, the scholar
Reginald Farrer wrote an influential essay for the Quarterly Review,
pointing out that:
In Northanger Abbey Jane Austen takes a big stride forward. Developing

her taste for technical problems, she here tackles a very difficult one –
in an artist’s consciousness of the problem, indeed, but with youth’s
46
Macmillan’s Magazine, vol. 51 (1885), pp. 84–91.
47
Modern Language Notes, vol. 16 (1901), pp. 223–4.
48
Subsequently republished in enlarged form in Things Past (London: Constable, 1944),
pp. 167–200.
49
Gilson, Bibliography of Jane Austen, M247, p. 512; M307, p. 521; M343, p. 527; M402,
p. 534; M482, p. 545; M1338, pp. 665–6.
xlix
Introduction
indomitable unconsciousness of its full difficulty. A lesser writer or a

maturer, would have either jibbed at such a task as that of interweaving
two motives, of parody and serious drama, or would have crashed
heavily through their thin ice. In buoyancy of youth and certainty
of power, Jane Austen skims straight across the peril, and achieves a
triumph so complete that easy readers run the risk of missing both
triumph and problem, in mere joy of the book . . . In fact, Northanger
Abbey marks the point of transition between the author’s first period
and her second.
Writing in the middle of the First World War, Farrer considers ‘the
sane sensible young women of our own day’ – who, as his readers
would know, were working in munitions factories or as nurses in
military hospitals – are ‘infinitely nearer to Jane Austen’ than the
‘flopping vaporous fools who were the fashion among the Turkish-
minded male novelists’ of the Victorian era.50
The huge contribution of the twentieth century to Austenian
scholarship came with the first really scholarly edition of the novels,
by R. W. Chapman, published by Oxford University Press in 1923
in five volumes (Northanger Abbey together with Persuasion, as they
had originally appeared), which included numerous indexes and
short essays on matters of bibliographical and historical interest; for
the first time, trustworthy texts and much useful contextual knowl-
edge were available to critics, students and general readership alike.
The first writer to enjoy the benefit of Chapman’s pioneering work
was his Oxford colleague, Mary Lascelles, whose Jane Austen and
Her Art (1939) set a new standard in Austen criticism, combining
as it did biographical information with lucid discussions of Austen’s
style and narrative art; a model of clarity, it has remained in print
ever since its first appearance. Lascelles sees that
the burlesque element in Northanger Abbey has a pretty intri-

cacy and variety. Its strands are ingeniously interwoven with one
another – but not so well woven into the rest of the fabric. There is
weakness in the slight connexion between Catherine’s fancied and her
50
Quarterly Review for July 1917, vol. 228, pp. 1–30.
l
Introduction
actual adventures at the climax of the story. The General’s interference

with her fortunes is neither a consequence of her foolish misconcep-
tion of him (as it would be in any of the stock burlesques of the age),
nor an amusing looking-glass version of it. And not all the light, gay
references to her heroineship at the end can draw these two together.51
Subsequent twentieth-century criticism of Northanger Abbey has

concentrated on four main topics, which to some extent intertwine.
The first, developing from the rediscovery of the gothic novels par-
odied in Northanger Abbey, is the identification of Austen’s sources.
This has resulted in a detailed exploration of her novels’ indebt-
edness to a wide range of eighteenth-century literary, moral and
philosophical writing. This theme motivates the early studies by
Harrison R. Steeves in Before Jane Austen (1965), Frank W. Brad-
brook in Jane Austen and Her Predecessors (1966) and Kenneth L.
Moler in Jane Austen’s Art of Allusion (1968).52 Other scholars have
more narrowly analysed Northanger Abbey’s use of conduct books
and drama. Penny Gay, for example, observes in Jane Austen and
the Theatre (2002) that although both Henry and Catherine grow
out of their fondness for cheap theatrical sensation, ‘this “moral”,
nevertheless, is presented in a text which shares many of the char-
acteristics of the genre it supposedly repudiates. Sparkling dialogue
between energetic young people, dramaturgically brilliant scenes,
a delighted recognition of fiction’s artifice shared between author
and audience.’53
Austen’s opinions about her contemporaries’ writing have par-
ticularly interested scholars. Since it is an open target in Northanger
Abbey, Radcliffe’s Udolpho offers an intriguing case in point.
Although the conventional view holds that Austen mocks Rad-
cliffe’s gothic fiction for its ‘horrid’ perversions of probability,
51
Mary Lascelles, Jane Austen and her Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 64.
52
Harrison R. Steeves, Before Jane Austen (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1965); Frank W. Bradbrook, Jane Austen and Her Predecessors (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1966); Kenneth L. Moler, Jane Austen’s Art of Allusion (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1968).
53
Penny Gay, Jane Austen and the Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), pp. 71–2.
li
Introduction
several critics have argued instead that Northanger Abbey uses

Udolpho to elevate ordinary feelings: to make ‘common anxiety’ as
important as romance, as Judith Wilt observes in Ghosts of the Gothic:
Austen, Eliot, and Lawrence (1980).54 Austen’s novel can be seen
as transforming Radcliffe’s murderous tyrants into mere fortune-
hunters, her oppressed heroines into women on the marriage market
and the gothic world into Bath society. According to this reading,
Henry Tilney is guilty of male contempt for women’s culture, and
is partly responsible for Catherine’s delusions at Northanger. Maria
Jerinic’s ‘In Defense of the Gothic: Rereading Northanger Abbey’, for
example, argues that the book’s satire derogates not only novel-mad
females, but also ‘reading men’ like Henry, who construct ‘visions
of romance’ that make women vulnerable.55
Austen’s sources include didactic fictions which prescribed
proper feminine conduct. Evidently, Austen did not find these con-
vincing, since scholars have detected that she rewrote their scenes
in order to show the complexity of making moral decisions. In
Northanger Abbey, the result is a puzzling heroine who leaves behind
an ambivalent reader. Mary Waldron suggests in Jane Austen and the
Fiction of her Time (2001) that ‘Catherine is, on her first introduc-
tion to the world, neither like Emmeline [Smith’s heroine in The
Orphan of the Castle], who knows the right moves by instinct, nor
Arabella [Lennox’s heroine in The Female Quixote], so bemused by
her reading that she cannot tell reality from fiction . . . Thus Austen
complicates the interplay of fictional forms and leaves the reader
unsure whether to approve or disapprove of the heroine.’56
Catherine’s ability to understand the world informs the second,
main topic of criticism: education. Catherine seems not to learn
anything from conduct books, popular manuals outlining proper
54
Judith Wilt, Ghosts of the Gothic: Austen, Eliot, and Lawrence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1980), p. 126.
55
Maria Jerinic, ‘In Defense of the Gothic: Rereading Northanger Abbey’, in Jane Austen
and Discourses of Feminism, ed. Devoney Looser (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995),
p. 149.
56
Mary Waldron, Jane Austen and the Fiction of her Time (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2001), p. 30, p. 34.
lii
Introduction
feminine behaviour. In Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood

(1989), Alison G. Sulloway observes that these were written by men
who often betrayed condescending attitudes towards women – as
Henry shows when he lectures Catherine on the picturesque, taking
care not to tire her with too much information. Moreover, these
manuals confined women to a stifling, domestic sphere whereas
the unspoiled – and uneducated – Catherine prefers the outdoors:
‘Northanger Abbey is fully as much an irreverent mockery of the
conduct-book orthodoxies about women’s confined spaces, such as
ballrooms, schoolrooms, and drawing rooms indoors, and gardens
outdoors as it is a mockery of the Gothic novel.’57 Indeed, Jocelyn
Harris’s Jane Austen’s Art of Memory (1989) reveals that Cather-
ine’s education resembles that recommended by the philosopher
John Locke in his epistemological treatise Essay Concerning Human
Understanding (1690). Already trained in healthy, physical exercise,
Catherine learns to rely on her individual reasoning, and reject as
useless both fashionable accomplishments and imaginative play.58
As Joseph Wiesenfarth explains in The Errand of Form (1967), when
Catherine weighs facts against the false statements of her compan-
ions, like John Thorpe’s estimation of his horse’s speed, ‘She is
educated to reality.’59
The novel’s apparent rejection of fantasy has led to readings of
Austen as a reactionary writer. In Jane Austen and the War of Ideas
(1975), Marilyn Butler argues that Northanger Abbey provides an
anti-Jacobin lesson in morality aimed at radical sensibility. Senti-
mental philosophy held that human beings were naturally good, and
that emotion was a praiseworthy expression of instinctive morality.
According to Butler, Catherine is taught two valuable lessons – that
the ‘sentimentalist’s optimism about human nature’ is misplaced
and that, in order to assess human character accurately, she must
57
Alison G. Sulloway, Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood (Philadelphia: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), p. 198.
58
Jocelyn Harris, Jane Austen’s Art of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989).
59
Joseph Wiesenfarth, The Errand of Form: An Assay of Jane Austen’s Art (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1967), p. 22.
liii
Introduction
suspend her favoured kind of mental activity, ‘her habit of romantic

invention’. Isabella, foil to Catherine, meanwhile represents one of
a series of dangerous women in Austen who pursue the modern
creed of self: opportunistic and egotistical, she threatens the happi-
ness of her immediate circle and, more generally, the moral stability
of society.60
Although almost all critics agree that Catherine needs to learn
something, they differ on what and how. Some maintain she must
teach herself. Alistair M. Duckworth acknowledges that conven-
tional morality is not adequate for Catherine, but he disagrees that
reason should be her only guide, pointing out in The Improvement
of the Estate (1971) that it is instinct, not reason, that warns her
of General Tilney’s villainy. In contrast, Isabella exemplifies false
learning: Duckworth argues that her artifice, avarice and superfi-
ciality typify the values that Austen feared were eroding traditional,
Christian society.61 This novel, he concludes, is Austen’s first real
exploration of a heroine’s moral growth through an education in
manners. Catherine also illustrates the inadequacy of the educa-
tion and culture generally available to Regency women. Jane Nardin
explains that, having been misled by her sheltered, rural upbring-
ing, she must learn to read manners properly in order to recognise
that they can mask evil, as General Tilney’s do.62 Other scholars,
however, believe that Henry educates Catherine. Stuart M. Tave
devotes a chapter in Some Words of Jane Austen (1973) to suggesting
that the artless heroine learns from Henry a ‘moral art, an art of
common life’ that remedies her ignorance and bleaches out the false
arts of Radcliffe.63 Henry’s behaviour and conversation can also be
seen as a model of enlightenment reason that combats snobbery and
delusion. By exposing her gothic-fed misreading, suggests Howard
60
Marilyn Butler, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, reprint (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975), p. 177.
61
Alistair M. Duckworth, The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen’s Novels
(Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), p. 83.
62
Jane Nardin, Those Elegant Decorums: The Concept of Propriety in Jane Austen’s Novels
(Albany, NY: The State University of Albany Press, 1973), pp. 62–81, p. 63.
63
Stuart M. Tave, Some Words of Jane Austen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1973), p. 56.
liv
Introduction
S. Babb in Jane Austen’s Novels: The Fabric of Dialogue (1962),

Henry teaches Catherine both how to act in society and to examine
herself.64
A final approach to the representation of education in the novel
addresses the way Northanger Abbey affects the reader. In his 1963
‘Introduction’ to a collection of critical essays on Austen, Ian Watt
comments that Austen ‘enlarges the reader’s understanding of expe-
rience through making him realise how limited is that of her fic-
tional characters’.65 Many critics find that the naive reader is ulti-
mately the book’s target as Austen reverses readers’ expectations by
turning an unheroic protagonist into a heroine, and a workaday real-
ity into a network of gothic horrors. Karl Kroeber’s essay ‘Subvert-
ing a Hypocrite Lecteur’, for example, argues that Austen’s reader
is mocked just as much as Catherine for believing in fictions.66
Readers thus learn to distrust the apparently simple oppositions
between fantasy and reality, literature and history, the Thorpes and
the Tilneys and Bath and Northanger. Lloyd W. Brown notes in
Bits of Ivory (1973) that Austen also educates the reader through
the novel’s conversations, in which characters, by ‘talking at cross-
purposes’, present different versions of the truth which the reader
must unravel.67 Accordingly, as they peruse the novel, readers expe-
rience a process of discovery similar to Catherine’s, and learn to
re-examine their own assumptions about life and fiction.
The sophisticated structure of Northanger Abbey also leads crit-
ics to explore the novel as a complex work of art, the third topic
of modern criticism. The relationship between Northanger Abbey
and Austen’s other writings has become a critical concern in the
twentieth century. Generally, scholars have situated it between
Austen’s juvenilia and her five other completed novels as a fledgling
64
Howard S. Babb, Jane Austen’s Novels: The Fabric of Dialogue (Columbus: Ohio State
65
Ian Watt, ‘Introduction’, in Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 2.
66
Karl Kroeber, ‘Subverting a Hypocrite Lecteur’, in Jane Austen Today, ed. Joel Wein-
sheimer (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975), pp. 33–45.
67
Lloyd W. Brown, Bits of Ivory: Narrative Techniques in Jane Austen’s Fiction (Baton
Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1973), p. 178.
lv
Introduction
enterprise. Many see it as a blend and revision of Austen’s juve-

nile burlesques of sentimental conventions. Juliet McMaster, for
example, comparing it in Jane Austen the Novelist: Past and Present
(1996) with Austen’s travesty, ‘The Beautifull Cassandra’, points
out that ‘the narrative has been reconceived in moral terms’ as
Austen purges Catherine of the self-indulgence that ruled her
earlier heroine, and relocates outrageous behaviour in Isabella and
John Thorpe.68
At the same time, Northanger Abbey shows a real development
in Austen’s narrative voice. Jan Fergus in Jane Austen: A Literary
Life (1991) argues that ‘Revising Susan or Northanger Abbey was
for Austen an exercise in control and distance. It permitted her
to play with and manipulate her readers at the same time that
she both mocked and exploited the conventions of the sentimen-
tal and the Gothic novel.’69 Indeed, several critics recognise that
the book possesses a complex narrative viewpoint. A. Walton Litz’s
Jane Austen: A Study of Her Artistic Development (1965) offers the
explanation that Henry Tilney functions as an unreliable narra-
tor, sometimes a faulty character, sometimes the author’s voice.70
In Jane Austen and the Fiction of Culture (1990), the anthropolo-
gists Richard Handler and Daniel Segal maintain that Austen’s
characters, although shaped by their society, are also individuals
who understand ordinary ideas like common sense quite differently
from one another. Since they can therefore misread situations, they
should be aware of multiple possibilities – a precaution Catherine
does not understand.71 The complexity of Northanger Abbey is also
a result of its multi-layered parody. Tara Ghoshal Wallace points
out that the book ‘contains within it a critique of all the forms it
takes . . . parody and realism are as vulnerable to the narrator’s irony
68
Juliet McMaster, Jane Austen the Novelist: Past and Present (Houndmills, Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1996), p. 44.
69
Jan Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991),
p. 113.
70
A. Walton Litz, Jane Austen: A Study of Her Artistic Development (New York: Oxford
71
Richard Handler and Daniel Segal, Jane Austen and the Fiction of Culture: An Essay on
the Narration of Social Relations (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990), p. 127.
lvi
Introduction
as is the rhetoric of sentimentalism’.72 Bharat Tandon goes further

to suggest in Jane Austen and the Morality of Conversation (2003) that
Northanger Abbey deploys a new narrative technique ‘which enables
Austen to accept the necessity of form without always accepting
its casualties’, and thus transcends the genres of gothic, parody and
even anti-parody.73
The main problem for these critics is the relationship between
the Bath scenes and the parodic Northanger sections of the book.
Some see the two as mirroring satire in which Bath contains as many
hazards and villains as the average ‘horrid’ gothic novel, and novels
are as full of conventions as Bath. Andrew Wright’s Jane Austen’s
Novels: A Study in Structure (1954) early on maintained that the
bipartite structure in Northanger Abbey reveals the reciprocal crit-
icism that the gothic poses to good sense and good sense to the
gothic.74 Nonetheless, other scholars consider the parts disjunc-
tive, many also seeing the novel as hampered by parody. Psycho-
analytic approaches have explained this disjunction as a symptom
of Austen’s more or less unconscious revelation of her feelings. In
1940, D. W. Harding maintained that Austen encoded her caustic
sentiments in a style that veiled its virulence, in order to express
her criticism of superficial society without offending her neigh-
bours. His prime example is Henry Tilney’s remark concerning ‘a
neighbourhood of voluntary spies’ in his reproach to Catherine on
discovering her suspicions of his father. In 1952, Marvin Mudrick
developed this thesis in his highly influential Jane Austen: Irony
as Defense and Discovery, seeing Northanger Abbey as undermining
both the gothic and the Bath worlds.75
72
Tara Ghoshal Wallace, Jane Austen and Narrative Authority (Houndmills, Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1995), p. 30.
73
Bharat Tandon, Jane Austen and the Morality of Conversation (London: Anthem Press,
2003), p. 74.
74
Andrew Wright, Jane Austen’s Novels: A Study in Structure (London: Chatto & Windus,
1954).
75
D. W. Harding, ‘Regulated Hatred: An Aspect of the Work of Jane Austen’, Scrutiny,
8 (1940), pp. 346–62; Marvin Mudrick, Jane Austen: Irony as Defense and Discovery
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952).
lvii
Introduction
The fourth topic in twentieth-century criticism explores Austen’s

attitudes towards women’s place in society. Two significantly dif-
ferent feminist approaches have been applied to her work.76 The
first characterises Austen as a conscious feminist, locating her in
the tradition of such authors as Elizabeth Inchbald and Mary
Wollstonecraft, who were criticising sentimental conventions for
enfeebling women. These critics find Northanger Abbey especially
sympathetic to women’s concerns in its open defence of female
novelists and readers in the passage ending chapter 5. In particu-
lar, Claudia L. Johnson sees the novel as a response to a repressive
environment riven by fears of class violence and women’s rebel-
liousness. Such fears were exacerbated by such recent events as the
French Revolution, the Terror and revelations connecting feminist
ideology with scandalous incidents in Wollstonecraft’s personal life.
Johnson argues that by depicting a society in which men act as
domestic tyrants ominously similar to gothic villains, Northanger
Abbey shows that the gothic mode is not a foolish fantasy but a
valid expression of women’s feelings.77 Another argument suggests
that, in the gothic section of the narrative, Austen is not parodying
popular fiction itself, but rather a male value system that stereotypes
women as ignorant and weak.78
Whereas this approach casts Austen as a liberal thinker, an
alternative strand of feminist critics sees a contradiction between
her alleged Toryism and her concern for women’s equality. Mary
Poovey in The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer (1984) understands
Austen as limited by her conventionality and maintains that
Northanger Abbey condemns women’s feelings, showing that ‘female
desire is a natural force that is, at best, morally ambiguous; at
worst . . . capable of distorting reality’ and ‘disrupting social
76
Devoney Looser (ed.) identifies five in her ‘Introduction’ to Jane Austen and Discourses
of Feminism, pp. 6–7.
77
Claudia L. Johnson, Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1988).
78
See, for example, Carole Gerster, ‘Rereading Jane Austen: Dialogic Feminism in
Northanger Abbey’, in A Companion to Jane Austen Studies, ed. Laura Cooner Lambdin
and Robert Thomas Lambdin (London: Greenwood Press, 2000), p. 121.
lviii
Introduction
relations’.79 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s innovative The

Madwoman in the Attic (1979) in contrast interprets the novel
as a subversive text that muffles its protests against an unfair
class and gender system in irony, innuendo and a conventional
plot.80 Tony Tanner in Jane Austen (1986) also finds a hidden fem-
inism in the book’s restrained passion. While noting that the novel
contains powerful images of political and sexual repression, partic-
ularly Catherine’s opening of the inner drawer of the cabinet in her
Northanger chamber, he concludes that ‘the anger in Northanger
Abbey . . . is the real hidden horror’.81 Feminist criticism has thus
reinterpreted the novel’s parody and helped to restore the book to
prominence in the Austen canon.
c r i ti c a l s i g n i f i c a nc e
It is largely thanks to Austen and her desire to parody the gothic
romances by Ann Radcliffe and her imitators that the memories
of them have been preserved in the pages of Northanger Abbey like
dried flowers, or flies in amber; and indeed, in modern reprints, they
remain both exciting as fantasies, and illuminating for the study of
the tastes and feelings of the past. With some willing suspension of
disbelief, it is still possible even for the sophisticated reader of the
twenty-first century to agree with Henry Tilney when he says: ‘The
Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay
down again;—I remember finishing it in two days—my hair stand-
ing on end the whole time’ (vol. 1, ch. 14), since Radcliffe is an adept
at creating an atmosphere of suspense and terror, however unlikely
her red herrings, cliffhangers and plot-lines may eventually turn out
to be when the last chapter is reached. There is also a further aspect
of factual, not fictional, irony involved for the modern reader to
79
Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of
Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1984), p. 208.
80
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer
and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1979), pp. 107–83, especially pp. 128–45.
81
Tony Tanner, Jane Austen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 47.
lix
Introduction
enjoy, because Radcliffe herself had never travelled to Italy, France

or Switzerland to see the places she describes in so much picturesque
and convincing detail, but obtained her information from the works
of other travel writers and from studying the landscape paintings
of Claude Lorraine and Salvator Rosa, combining all with a great
deal of imagination.
Austen never lost her interest in reading and mocking unrealistic
fiction – in January 1811 Mary Brunton published Self-Control, in
which the heroine Laura Montreville is kidnapped and taken to
the wilds of Canada, escaping the villain by floating down the St
Lawrence river in an Indian canoe, an idea which obviously pro-
voked much amusement in the Austen household. It is not known
when Jane Austen first read this novel, but in October 1813 she
wrote to Cassandra: ‘I am looking over Self Control again, & my
opinion is confirmed of its’ being an excellently-meant, elegantly-
written Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it. I
declare I do not know whether Laura’s passage down the Amer-
ican River, is not the most natural, possible, every-day thing she
ever does.—’ (11–12 October 1813, Letters, p. 234); and later, in
November 1814, she promised her niece Anna Lefroy that she
would write ‘a close Imitation of “Self-control” as soon as I can;—I
will improve upon it; — my Heroine shall not merely be wafted
down an American river in a boat by herself, she shall cross the
Atlantic in the same way, & never stop till she reaches Gravesent.
—’ (24 November 1814, Letters, p. 283). In the short squib ‘Plan
of a Novel’, written probably in the summer of 1816, some of the
episodes in Self-Control are again recalled.
Apart from being the only one of Austen’s works deliberately
written as a parody of other novels, Northanger Abbey has another
unique qualification, that of being her only completed Bildungsro-
man. Catherine is the one heroine who actually leaves home and
meets her future husband in some hitherto unknown location,
and has unpredictable adventures in consequence. The heroines
of Austen’s other novels are all home-based and it is the men –
sometimes heroes, sometimes villains – who enter their tight little
lx
Introduction
circles of society. Another significant point about Northanger Abbey

is that it seems to lead on to Austen’s last, unfinished work, San-
diton, for in this the theme of novels and their effect upon their
readers, is once again invoked. In the opening chapters the hero-
ine, Charlotte Heywood, leaves home in her Sussex village for a
holiday in the budding seaside resort of Sanditon where, it may
reasonably be guessed, she will find a husband in the person of Sid-
ney Parker. However, Charlotte is specifically described as being
quite the reverse of Catherine Morland – she is ‘a very sober-minded
young Lady, sufficiently well-read in Novels to supply her Imagi-
nation with amusement, but not at all unreasonably influenced by
them’ (S, ch. 6); and in this case it is the young man, the would-
be lecherous baronet Sir Edward Denham, who ‘had read more
sentimental Novels than agreed with him.—With a perversity of
Judgement, which must be attributed to his not having by Nature a
very strong head, the Graces, the Spirit, the Ingenuity & the Per-
severance, of the Villain of the Story outweighed all his absurdities
& all his Atrocities with Sir Edward. With him, such Conduct was
Genius, Fire & Feeling’ (S, ch. 8). With another backward glance
at Self-Control, Austen tells us that Sir Edward dreams wistfully
of abducting the orphan Clara Brereton, the object of his amatory
fantasies, to some solitary house in the neighbourhood of Tombuc-
too. It can be envisaged that, again in parallel with Catherine in
Northanger Abbey, Charlotte Heywood will have adventures forced
upon her by the obsessions of the Parker and Denham families; and
perhaps it was the fact of rereading the manuscript of Northanger
Abbey in 1816 and writing her ‘Advertisement’ for it, which inspired
Austen to recycle some of these her earliest ideas into the plot
for another comic Bildungsroman with a similar topsyturvy parodic
storyline.
lxi
NOTE ON THE TEXT
Northanger Abbey was first published in December 1817 (with

a printed date of 1818) by John Murray of Albemarle Street,
London, as volumes 1 and 2 of a four-volume set which also
included Persuasion and which cost 24s. Both the volumes of
Northanger Abbey were printed by C. Roworth of Bell Yard,
Temple-bar. Jane Austen had died in July 1817 and so could not
have seen or corrected proofs, and no manuscript for any part of
Northanger Abbey as published, or the numerous earlier drafts of it
in various forms, has survived.
The copytext for this edition is taken from a copy of the first
edition held in Cambridge University Library (Syn.7.81.10-11).
It has been collated against two copies in the Beinecke Library,
Yale University (In Au74 818N and Tinker 207), and a copy in the
British Library (CUP 403bb13). No significant differences were
found between these copies.
In accordance with the principles of the Cambridge edition, the
catchwords which appeared at the bottom of each page, a common
feature of novels of the time, have not been recorded (and so the
error which occurs for the catchwords in vol. 1, pp. 190–91 has
not been recorded either). Dashes have been rationalised to single,
double or treble M-dashes (which has involved the replacement of
one single M-dash in vol 2, ch. 1, two in vol. 2, ch. 8 and four in
vol. 2. ch. 10 made up of three hyphens, which do not seem to have
any significance in themselves). Spacing and size of font have on
occasion been adjusted to meet the presentational requirements of
the Cambridge edition, and any italic punctuation following italic
text and preceding a return to Roman has been changed to Roman
lxiii
Notes on the text
font. Otherwise all changes to the copytext are recorded in the List
of Corrections and Emendations.
As will be seen from the List of Corrections and Emendations the
text is relatively clear from error and uncertainty. On two occasions
in the second volume, however, both involving General Tilney,
there is doubt about Austen’s intention in the matter of indirect
speech. The first is in the paragraph beginning ‘The elegance of
the breakfast set’ on p. 179. Closing quotation marks appear in
the penultimate line, but no opening quotation marks are given.
It seems Austen is intending particular attention to the General’s
indirect speech and the question is where to place the opening
quotation marks. Following other examples of Austen’s practice
(see for example the paragraph beginning ‘The imposing effect’ in
the same chapter, on pp. 180–1) we have chosen to place them in the
third line of the paragraph, where it seems the narrative shifts into
indirect speech mode. The second occasion is in vol. 2, ch. 11, in
the paragraph beginning ‘A day or two’ on p. 215. The copytext has
closing quotation marks after ‘in the country’ but again no opening
quotation marks are given; we have chosen to open the quotation
marks at ‘He often expressed his uneasiness’. But these choices are
inevitably speculative.
It is noticeable that whereas in the novels published in Austen’s
lifetime the great majority of direct speeches begin with a new para-
graph, this is less often the case in Northanger Abbey; in this respect
the text more closely resembles Austen’s surviving manuscripts,
where paragraphing is much more sparse than in the published
texts, and it is possible that Austen’s family, and publishers, were
cautious about intervening too much in the manuscripts of both
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Many of the idiosyncratic fea-
tures of Austen’s manuscripts however, including contractions of
verbs and spellings such as ‘agreable’ and ‘croud’, do not appear in
the published text of Northanger Abbey.
lxiv
The title page of the first edition, used as copytext for this edition
of Northanger Abbey. Reproduced by permission of the Syndics of
Cambridge University Library.
A DV ER T I S EM EN T,
B Y T H E A U T H O R E S S,
TO
N O R T H A N G ER A B B E Y
T h i s little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended

for immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller,
it was even advertised, and why the business proceeded no
farther, the author has never been able to learn. That any
bookseller should think it worth while to purchase what he
did not think it worth while to publish seems extraordinary.
But with this, neither the author nor the public have any
other concern than as some observation is necessary upon
those parts of the work which thirteen years have made com-
paratively obsolete. The public are entreated to bear in mind
that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many
more since it was begun, and that during that period, places,
manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable
changes.
1
Volume I
Chapter 1
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy,

would have supposed her born to be an heroine.1 Her sit-
uation in life, the character of her father and mother, her
own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her
father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor,
and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard—
and he had never been handsome.2 He had a considerable
independence3 besides two good livings4 —and he was not in
the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother
was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and,
what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had
three sons before Catherine was born; and instead of dying in
bringing the latter into the world, as any body might expect,
she still lived on—lived to have six children more—to see
them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health
herself.5 A family of ten children will be always called a fine
family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough
for the number; but the Morlands had little other right to
the word, for they were in general very plain, and Cather-
ine, for many years of her life, as plain as any.6 She had
a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark
lank hair, and strong features;—so much for her person;—
and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind. She
was fond of all boys’ plays, and greatly preferred cricket not
merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy,
nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a
5
no rth a ng e r a b bey Volume I Chapter 1
rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden;7 and if

she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure
of mischief—at least so it was conjectured from her always
preferring those which she was forbidden to take.—Such
were her propensities—her abilities were quite as extraordi-
nary. She never could learn or understand any thing before
she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was
often inattentive, and occasionally stupid.8 Her mother was
three months in teaching her only to repeat the “Beggar’s
Petition;”9 and after all, her next sister, Sally, could say it
better than she did. Not that Catherine was always stupid,—
by no means; she learnt the fable of “The Hare and many
Friends,”10 as quickly as any girl in England. Her mother
wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should
like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old
forlorn spinnet;11 so, at eight years old she began. She learnt
a year, and could not bear it;—and Mrs. Morland, who did
not insist on her daughters being accomplished12 in spite
of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day
which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest
of Catherine’s life. Her taste for drawing was not superior;
though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from
her mother, or seize upon any other odd piece of paper,13 she
did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees,
hens and chickens, all very much like one another.—Writing
and accounts14 she was taught by her father; French by her
mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and
she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could. What a
strange, unaccountable character!—for with all these symp-
toms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad
heart nor a bad temper; was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever
quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few inter-
ruptions of tyranny; she was moreover noisy and wild, hated
6
confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the

world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the
house.
Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appear-
ances were mending; she began to curl her hair and long for
balls; her complexion improved, her features were softened
by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation,
and her figure more consequence.15 Her love of dirt gave
way to an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she
grew smart; she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing
her father and mother remark on her personal improvement.
“Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl,—she is almost
pretty to day,” were words which caught her ears now and
then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost
pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has
been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a
beauty from her cradle can ever receive.
Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to
see her children every thing they ought to be; but her time
was so much occupied in lying-in16 and teaching the little
ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for
themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine,
who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer
cricket, base ball,17 riding on horseback, and running about
the country at the age of fourteen, to books—or at least books
of information—for, provided that nothing like useful knowl-
edge could be gained from them, provided they were all story
and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at
all.18 But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for
a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to
supply their memories with those quotations which are so ser-
viceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful
lives.19
7
From Pope, she learnt to censure those who

“bear about the mockery of woe.”20
From Gray, that

“Many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its fragrance on the desert air.”21
From Thompson, that

———“It is a delightful task
To teach the young idea how to shoot.”22
And from Shakspeare she gained a great store of

information—amongst the rest, that
————“Trifles light as air,
Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong,
As proofs of Holy Writ.”23
That
“The poor beetle, which we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”24
And that a young woman in love always looks

——“like Patience on a monument
Smiling at Grief.”25
So far her improvement was sufficient—and in many other

points she came on exceedingly well; for though she could not
write sonnets, she brought herself to read them; and though
there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into
raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte, of her own composi-
tion, she could listen to other people’s performance with very
little fatigue.26 Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil—
she had no notion of drawing—not enough even to attempt
8
a sketch of her lover’s profile, that she might be detected in

the design.27 There she fell miserably short of the true heroic
height. At present she did not know her own poverty, for she
had no lover to pourtray. She had reached the age of sev-
enteen, without having seen one amiable28 youth who could
call forth her sensibility;29 without having inspired one real
passion, and without having excited even any admiration but
what was very moderate and very transient. This was strange
indeed! But strange things may be generally accounted for if
their cause be fairly searched out.30 There was not one lord in
the neighbourhood; no—not even a baronet. There was not
one family among their acquaintance who had reared and
supported a boy accidentally found at their door—not one
young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no
ward, and the squire of the parish no children.31
But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness
of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something
must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.
Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about
Fullerton, the village in Wiltshire32 where the Morlands
lived, was ordered to Bath for the benefit of a gouty
constitution;33 —and his lady, a good-humoured woman,
fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures
will not befal a young lady in her own village, she must seek
them abroad,34 invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs.
Morland were all compliance, and Catherine all happiness.
9
Chapter 2
In addition to what has been already said of Catherine

Morland’s personal and mental endowments, when about to
be launched into all the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks’
residence in Bath, it may be stated, for the reader’s more cer-
tain information, lest the following pages should otherwise
fail of giving any idea of what her character is meant to be;
that her heart was affectionate, her disposition cheerful and
open, without conceit or affectation of any kind—her man-
ners just removed from the awkwardness and shyness of a girl;
her person pleasing, and, when in good looks, pretty—and
her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female
mind at seventeen usually is.
When the hour of departure drew near, the maternal
anxiety of Mrs. Morland will be naturally supposed to be
most severe. A thousand alarming presentiments of evil1 to
her beloved Catherine from this terrific2 separation must
oppress her heart with sadness, and drown her in tears for
the last day or two of their being together; and advice of the
most important and applicable nature must of course flow
from her wise lips in their parting conference in her closet.3
Cautions against the violence of such noblemen and baronets
as delight in forcing young ladies away to some remote farm-
house, must, at such a moment, relieve the fulness of her
heart. Who would not think so? But Mrs. Morland knew so
little of lords and baronets, that she entertained no notion of
their general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious
10
of danger to her daughter from their machinations. Her cau-

tions were confined to the following points. “I beg, Catherine,
you will always wrap yourself up very warm about the throat,
when you come from the Rooms4 at night; and I wish you
would try to keep some account of the money you spend;—I
will give you this little book on purpose.”5
Sally, or rather Sarah, (for what young lady of common
gentility will reach the age of sixteen without altering her
name6 as far as she can?) must from situation be at this
time the intimate friend and confidante of her sister. It is
remarkable, however, that she neither insisted on Catherine’s
writing by every post, nor exacted her promise of transmit-
ting the character of every new acquaintance, nor a detail
of every interesting conversation that Bath might produce.7
Every thing indeed relative to this important journey was
done, on the part of the Morlands, with a degree of moder-
ation and composure, which seemed rather consistent with
the common feelings of common life, than with the refined
susceptibilities, the tender emotions which the first separa-
tion of a heroine from her family ought always to excite. Her
father, instead of giving her an unlimited order on his banker,
or even putting an hundred pounds bank-bill into her hands,
gave her only ten guineas,8 and promised her more when she
wanted it.
Under these unpromising auspices, the parting took place,
and the journey began. It was performed with suitable quiet-
ness and uneventful safety. Neither robbers nor tempests
befriended them, nor one lucky overturn9 to introduce them
to the hero. Nothing more alarming occurred than a fear on
Mrs. Allen’s side, of having once left her clogs10 behind her
at an inn, and that fortunately proved to be groundless.
They arrived at Bath. Catherine was all eager delight;—
her eyes were here, there, every where, as they approached its
11
fine and striking environs,11 and afterwards drove through

those streets which conducted them to the hotel. She was
come to be happy, and she felt happy already.
They were soon settled in comfortable lodgings in
Pulteney-street.12
It is now expedient to give some description of Mrs. Allen,
that the reader may be able to judge, in what manner her
actions will hereafter tend to promote the general distress of
the work, and how she will, probably, contribute to reduce
poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which
a last volume13 is capable—whether by her imprudence,
vulgarity, or jealousy—whether by intercepting her letters,
ruining her character, or turning her out of doors.14
Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females,
whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at
there being any men in the world who could like them
well enough to marry them. She had neither beauty, genius,
accomplishment, nor manner.15 The air of a gentlewoman, a
great deal of quiet, inactive good temper, and a trifling turn
of mind, were all that could account for her being the choice
of a sensible, intelligent man, like Mr. Allen. In one respect
she was admirably fitted to introduce a young lady into pub-
lic, being as fond of going everywhere and seeing every thing
herself as any young lady could be. Dress was her passion.16
She had a most harmless delight in being fine; and our hero-
ine’s entrée into life could not take place till after three or four
days had been spent in learning what was mostly worn, and
her chaperon was provided with a dress of the newest fash-
ion. Catherine too made some purchases herself, and when
all these matters were arranged, the important evening came
which was to usher her into the Upper Rooms. Her hair was
cut and dressed by the best hand, her clothes put on with
care, and both Mrs. Allen and her maid declared she looked
12
quite as she should do. With such encouragement, Catherine

hoped at least to pass uncensured through the crowd. As for
admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but
she did not depend on it.
Mrs. Allen was so long in dressing, that they did not
enter the ball-room till late. The season17 was full, the room
crowded, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could.
As for Mr. Allen, he repaired directly to the card-room,18
and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves. With more care
for the safety of her new gown than for the comfort of her
protegée, Mrs. Allen made her way through the throng of
men by the door, as swiftly as the necessary caution would
allow; Catherine, however, kept close at her side, and linked
her arm too firmly within her friend’s to be torn asunder by
any common effort of a struggling assembly. But to her utter
amazement she found that to proceed along the room was by
no means the way to disengage themselves from the crowd;
it seemed rather to increase as they went on, whereas she
had imagined that when once fairly within the door, they
should easily find seats and be able to watch the dances with
perfect convenience. But this was far from being the case,
and though by unwearied diligence they gained19 even the
top of the room, their situation was just the same; they saw
nothing of the dancers but the high feathers20 of some of
the ladies. Still they moved on—something better was yet in
view; and by a continued exertion of strength and ingenuity
they found themselves at last in the passage behind the high-
est bench.21 Here there was something less of crowd than
below; and hence Miss Morland had a comprehensive view
of all the company beneath her, and of all the dangers of her
late passage through them. It was a splendid sight, and she
began, for the first time that evening, to feel herself at a ball:
she longed to dance, but she had not an acquaintance in the
13
room. Mrs. Allen did all that she could do in such a case by
saying very placidly, every now and then, “I wish you could
dance, my dear,—I wish you could get a partner.” For some
time her young friend felt obliged to her for these wishes; but
they were repeated so often, and proved so totally ineffec-
tual, that Catherine grew tired at last, and would thank her
no more.
They were not long able, however, to enjoy the repose of the
eminence they had so laboriously gained.—Every body was
shortly in motion for tea, and they must squeeze out like the
rest. Catherine began to feel something of disappointment—
she was tired of being continually pressed against by people,
the generality of whose faces possessed nothing to interest,
and with all of whom she was so wholly unacquainted, that
she could not relieve the irksomeness of imprisonment by
the exchange of a syllable with any of her fellow captives; and
when at last arrived in the tea-room, she felt yet more the
awkwardness of having no party to join, no acquaintance to
claim, no gentleman to assist them.—They saw nothing of
Mr. Allen; and after looking about them in vain for a more
eligible situation, were obliged to sit down at the end of a
table, at which a large party were already placed, without
having any thing to do there, or any body to speak to, except
each other.
Mrs. Allen congratulated herself, as soon as they were
seated, on having preserved her gown from injury. “It would
have been very shocking to have it torn,” said she, “would not
it?—It is such a delicate muslin.22 —For my part I have not
seen any thing I like so well in the whole room, I assure you.”
“How uncomfortable it is,” whispered Catherine, “not to
have a single acquaintance here!”
“Yes, my dear,” replied Mrs. Allen, with perfect serenity,
“it is very uncomfortable indeed.”
14
“What shall we do?—The gentlemen and ladies at this

table look as if they wondered why we came here—we seem
forcing ourselves into their party.”
“Aye, so we do.—That is very disagreeable. I wish we had
a large acquaintance here.”
“I wish we had any;—it would be somebody to go to.”
“Very true, my dear; and if we knew anybody we would
join them directly. The Skinners were here last year—I wish
they were here now.”
“Had not we better go away as it is?—Here are no tea
things for us, you see.”
“No more there are, indeed.—How very provoking! But I
think we had better sit still, for one gets so tumbled in such
a crowd! How is my head,23 my dear?—Somebody gave me
a push that has hurt it I am afraid.”
“No, indeed, it looks very nice.—But, dear Mrs. Allen, are
you sure there is nobody you know in all this multitude of
people? I think you must know somebody.”
“I don’t upon my word—I wish I did. I wish I had a large
acquaintance here with all my heart, and then I should get
you a partner.—I should be so glad to have you dance. There
goes a strange-looking woman! What an odd gown she has
got on!—How old fashioned it is! Look at the back.”
After some time they received an offer of tea from one of
their neighbours; it was thankfully accepted, and this intro-
duced a light conversation with the gentleman who offered
it, which was the only time that any body spoke to them dur-
ing the evening, till they were discovered and joined by Mr.
Allen when the dance was over.
“Well, Miss Morland,” said he, directly, “I hope you have
had an agreeable ball.”
“Very agreeable indeed,” she replied, vainly endeavouring
to hide a great yawn.
15
“I wish she had been able to dance,” said his wife, “I wish
we could have got a partner for her.—I have been saying how
glad I should be if the Skinners were here this winter instead
of last; or if the Parrys had come, as they talked of once, she
might have danced with George Parry. I am so sorry she has
not had a partner!”
“We shall do better another evening I hope,” was Mr.
Allen’s consolation.
The company began to disperse when the dancing was
over—enough to leave space for the remainder to walk about
in some comfort; and now was the time for a heroine, who
had not yet played a very distinguished part in the events of
the evening, to be noticed and admired. Every five minutes,
by removing some of the crowd, gave greater openings for
her charms. She was now seen by many young men who had
not been near her before. Not one, however, started with rap-
turous wonder on beholding her, no whisper of eager inquiry
ran round the room, nor was she once called a divinity by any
body.24 Yet Catherine was in very good looks, and had the
company only seen her three years before, they would now
have thought her exceedingly handsome.
She was looked at however, and with some admiration; for,
in her own hearing, two gentlemen pronounced her to be a
pretty girl. Such words had their due effect; she immediately
thought the evening pleasanter than she had found it before—
her humble vanity was contented—she felt more obliged to
the two young men for this simple praise than a true quality
heroine would have been for fifteen sonnets in celebration of
her charms, and went to her chair25 in good humour with
every body, and perfectly satisfied with her share of public
attention.
16
Chapter 3
E v e r y morning now brought its regular duties;—shops

were to be visited; some new part of the town to be looked at;
and the Pump-room1 to be attended, where they paraded up
and down for an hour, looking at every body and speaking to
no one. The wish of a numerous acquaintance in Bath was still
uppermost with Mrs. Allen, and she repeated it after every
fresh proof, which every morning brought, of her knowing
nobody at all.
They made their appearance in the Lower Rooms; and
here fortune was more favourable to our heroine. The master
of the ceremonies2 introduced to her a very gentlemanlike
young man as a partner;—his name was Tilney. He seemed
to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a
pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if
not quite handsome, was very near it. His address3 was good,
and Catherine felt herself in high luck. There was little leisure
for speaking while they danced; but when they were seated
at tea, she found him as agreeable as she had already given
him credit for being. He talked with fluency and spirit—and
there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which
interested, though it was hardly understood by her. After
chatting some time on such matters as naturally arose from
the objects around them, he suddenly addressed her with— “I
have hitherto been very remiss, madam, in the proper atten-
tions of a partner here; I have not yet asked you how long
you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before;
17
whether you have been at the Upper Rooms, the theatre, and
the concert; and how you like the place altogether. I have
been very negligent—but are you now at leisure to satisfy me
in these particulars? If you are I will begin directly.”
“You need not give yourself that trouble, sir.”
“No trouble I assure you, madam.” Then forming his fea-
tures into a set smile, and affectedly softening his voice, he
added, with a simpering air, “Have you been long in Bath,
madam?”
“About a week, sir,” replied Catherine, trying not to laugh.
“Really!” with affected astonishment.
“Why should you be surprized, sir?”
“Why indeed!” said he, in his natural tone—“but some
emotion must appear to be raised by your reply, and sur-
prize is more easily assumed, and not less reasonable than
any other.—Now let us go on. Were you never here before,
madam?”
“Never, sir.”
“Indeed! Have you yet honoured the Upper Rooms?”
“Yes, sir, I was there last Monday.”
“Have you been to the theatre?”
“Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday.”
“To the concert?”
“Yes, sir, on Wednesday.”4
“And are you altogether pleased with Bath?”
“Yes—I like it very well.”
“Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational
again.”
Catherine turned away her head, not knowing whether she
might venture to laugh.
“I see what you think of me,” said he gravely—“I shall
make but a poor figure in your journal to-morrow.”
“My journal!”
18
“Yes, I know exactly what you will say: Friday, went

to the Lower Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin5 robe
with blue trimmings—plain black shoes—appeared to much
advantage; but was strangely harassed by a queer, half-witted
man, who would make me dance with him, and distressed
me by his nonsense.”
“Indeed I shall say no such thing.”
“Shall I tell you what you ought to say?”
“If you please.”
“I danced with a very agreeable young man, introduced by
Mr. King; had a great deal of conversation with him—seems
a most extraordinary genius—hope I may know more of him.
That, madam, is what I wish you to say.”
“But, perhaps, I keep no journal.”
“Perhaps you are not sitting in this room, and I am not
sitting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equally
possible. Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins
to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one?
How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be
related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening
in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered,
and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your
hair to be described in all their diversities, without having
constant recourse to a journal?—My dear madam, I am not
so ignorant of young ladies’ ways as you wish to believe me;
it is this delightful habit of journalizing which largely con-
tributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are
so generally celebrated. Every body allows that the talent of
writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female.6 Nature may
have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially
assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.”
“I have sometimes thought,” said Catherine, doubt-
ingly, “whether ladies do write so much better letters than
19
gentlemen! That is—I should not think the superiority was

always on our side.”
“As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears
to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is
faultless, except in three particulars.”
“And what are they?”
“A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to
stops,7 and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.”
“Upon my word! I need not have been afraid of disclaiming
the compliment. You do not think too highly of us in that
way.”
“I should no more lay it down as a general rule that women
write better letters than men, than that they sing better duets,
or draw better landscapes. In every power, of which taste is
the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the
sexes.”
They were interrupted by Mrs. Allen:—“My dear Cather-
ine,” said she, “do take this pin out of my sleeve; I am afraid it
has torn a hole already; I shall be quite sorry if it has, for this is
a favourite gown, though it cost but nine shillings a yard.”8
“That is exactly what I should have guessed it, madam,”
said Mr. Tilney, looking at the muslin.
“Do you understand muslins, sir?”
“Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats,9 and am
allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often
trusted me in the choice of a gown.10 I bought one for her the
other day, and it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain
by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for
it, and a true Indian muslin.”
Mrs. Allen was quite struck by his genius. “Men commonly
take so little notice of those things,” said she: “I can never get
Mr. Allen to know one of my gowns from another. You must
be a great comfort to your sister, sir.”
20
“I hope I am, madam.”

“And pray, sir, what do you think of Miss Morland’s gown?”
“It is very pretty, madam,” said he, gravely examining it;
“but I do not think it will wash well; I am afraid it will fray.”
“How can you,” said Catherine, laughing, “be so——” she
had almost said, strange.
“I am quite of your opinion, sir,” replied Mrs. Allen; “and
so I told Miss Morland when she bought it.”
“But then you know, madam, muslin always turns to some
account or other; Miss Morland will get enough out of it
for a handkerchief, or a cap,11 or a cloak.—Muslin can never
be said to be wasted. I have heard my sister say so forty
times, when she has been extravagant in buying more than
she wanted, or careless in cutting it to pieces.”
“Bath is a charming place, sir; there are so many good shops
here.—We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have
very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go;—eight
miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine;
but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a
fag12 —I come back tired to death. Now here one can step
out of doors and get a thing in five minutes.”
Mr. Tilney was polite enough to seem interested in what
she said; and she kept him on the subject of muslins till the
dancing recommenced. Catherine feared, as she listened to
their discourse, that he indulged himself a little too much
with the foibles of others.—“What are you thinking of so
earnestly?” said he, as they walked back to the ball-room;—
“not of your partner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head,
your meditations are not satisfactory.”
Catherine coloured, and said, “I was not thinking of any
thing.”
“That is artful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be
told at once that you will not tell me.”
21
“Well then, I will not.”

“Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am
authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet,
and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much.”
They danced again; and, when the assembly closed, parted,
on the lady’s side at least, with a strong inclination for con-
tinuing the acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so
much, while she drank her warm wine and water,13 and pre-
pared herself for bed, as to dream of him when there, cannot
be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in a slight slum-
ber, or a morning doze at most; for if it be true, as a celebrated
writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in
falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared,* it must
be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gen-
tleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt
of her. How proper Mr. Tilney might be as a dreamer or a
lover, had not yet perhaps entered Mr. Allen’s head, but that
he was not objectionable as a common acquaintance for his
young charge he was on inquiry satisfied; for he had early in
the evening taken pains to know who her partner was,15 and
had been assured of Mr. Tilney’s being a clergyman, and of
a very respectable family in Gloucestershire.16
*
Vide a letter from Mr. Richardson, No. 97. vol. ii. Rambler.14
22
Chapter 4
W i th more than usual eagerness did Catherine hasten to

the Pump-room the next day, secure within herself of seeing
Mr. Tilney there before the morning were over, and ready
to meet him with a smile:—but no smile was demanded—
Mr. Tilney did not appear. Every creature in Bath, except
himself, was to be seen in the room at different periods of
the fashionable hours;1 crowds of people were every moment
passing in and out, up the steps and down; people whom
nobody cared about, and nobody wanted to see; and he only
was absent. “What a delightful place Bath is,” said Mrs. Allen,
as they sat down near the great clock,2 after parading the room
till they were tired; “and how pleasant it would be if we had
any acquaintance here.”
This sentiment had been uttered so often in vain, that Mrs.
Allen had no particular reason to hope it would be followed
with more advantage now; but we are told to “despair of
nothing we would attain,” as “unwearied diligence our point
would gain;”3 and the unwearied diligence with which she
had every day wished for the same thing was at length to
have its just reward, for hardly had she been seated ten min-
utes before a lady of about her own age, who was sitting by her,
and had been looking at her attentively for several minutes,
addressed her with great complaisance4 in these words:—
“I think, madam, I cannot be mistaken; it is a long time
since I had the pleasure of seeing you, but is not your name
23
Allen?” This question answered, as it readily was, the stranger

pronounced her’s to be Thorpe; and Mrs. Allen immediately
recognized the features of a former schoolfellow and intimate,
whom she had seen only once since their respective marriages,
and that many years ago. Their joy on this meeting was very
great, as well it might, since they had been contented to know
nothing of each other for the last fifteen years. Compliments
on good looks now passed; and, after observing how time
had slipped away since they were last together, how little
they had thought of meeting in Bath, and what a pleasure it
was to see an old friend, they proceeded to make inquiries
and give intelligence5 as to their families, sisters, and cousins,
talking both together, far more ready to give than to receive
information, and each hearing very little of what the other
said. Mrs. Thorpe, however, had one great advantage as a
talker, over Mrs. Allen, in a family of children; and when
she expatiated on the talents of her sons, and the beauty of
her daughters,—when she related their different situations
and views,—that John was at Oxford, Edward at Merchant-
Taylors’,6 and William at sea,—and all of them more beloved
and respected in their different stations than any other three
beings ever were, Mrs. Allen had no similar information to
give, no similar triumphs to press on the unwilling and unbe-
lieving ear of her friend, and was forced to sit and appear to
listen to all these maternal effusions, consoling herself, how-
ever, with the discovery, which her keen eye soon made, that
the lace on Mrs. Thorpe’s pelisse7 was not half so handsome
as that on her own.
“Here come my dear girls,” cried Mrs. Thorpe, pointing
at three smart looking females, who, arm in arm, were then
moving towards her. “My dear Mrs. Allen, I long to intro-
duce them; they will be so delighted to see you: the tallest
is Isabella,8 my eldest; is not she a fine young woman? The
24
others are very much admired too, but I believe Isabella is the
handsomest.”
The Miss Thorpes were introduced; and Miss Morland,
who had been for a short time forgotten, was introduced like-
wise. The name seemed to strike them all; and, after speaking
to her with great civility, the eldest young lady observed aloud
to the rest, “How excessively like her brother Miss Morland
is!”
“The very picture of him indeed!” cried the mother—and
“I should have known her any where for his sister!” was
repeated by them all, two or three times over. For a moment
Catherine was surprized; but Mrs. Thorpe and her daugh-
ters had scarcely begun the history of their acquaintance with
Mr. James Morland, before she remembered that her eldest
brother had lately formed an intimacy with a young man of
his own college, of the name of Thorpe; and that he had spent
the last week of the Christmas vacation with his family, near
London.
The whole being explained, many obliging things were said
by the Miss Thorpes of their wish of being better acquainted
with her; of being considered as already friends, through the
friendship of their brothers, &c. which Catherine heard with
pleasure, and answered with all the pretty expressions she
could command; and, as the first proof of amity, she was soon
invited to accept an arm of the eldest Miss Thorpe, and take a
turn9 with her about the room. Catherine was delighted with
this extension of her Bath acquaintance, and almost forgot
Mr. Tilney while she talked to Miss Thorpe. Friendship is
certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.10
Their conversation turned upon those subjects, of which
the free discussion has generally much to do in perfecting
a sudden intimacy between two young ladies; such as dress,
balls, flirtations, and quizzes.11 Miss Thorpe, however, being
25
four years older than Miss Morland, and at least four years
better informed, had a very decided advantage in discussing
such points; she could compare the balls of Bath with those
of Tunbridge;12 its fashions with the fashions of London;
could rectify the opinions of her new friend in many articles
of tasteful attire; could discover a flirtation between any gen-
tleman and lady who only smiled on each other; and point
out a quiz through the thickness of a crowd. These powers
received due admiration from Catherine, to whom they were
entirely new; and the respect which they naturally inspired
might have been too great for familiarity, had not the easy
gaiety of Miss Thorpe’s manners, and her frequent expres-
sions of delight on this acquaintance with her, softened down
every feeling of awe, and left nothing but tender affection.
Their increasing attachment was not to be satisfied with half
a dozen turns in the Pump-room, but required, when they
all quitted it together, that Miss Thorpe should accompany
Miss Morland to the very door of Mr. Allen’s house; and that
they should there part with a most affectionate and length-
ened shake of hands, after learning, to their mutual relief,
that they should see each other across the theatre13 at night,
and say their prayers in the same chapel14 the next morn-
ing. Catherine then ran directly up stairs, and watched Miss
Thorpe’s progress down the street from the drawing-room
window; admired the graceful spirit of her walk, the fashion-
able air of her figure and dress, and felt grateful, as well she
might, for the chance which had procured her such a friend.
Mrs. Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one; she was a
good-humoured, well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent
mother. Her eldest daughter had 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.
26
This brief account of the family is intended to supersede

the necessity of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe
herself, of her past adventures and sufferings, which might
otherwise be expected to occupy the three or four following
chapters; in which the worthlessness of lords and attornies15
might be set forth, and conversations, which had passed
twenty years before, be minutely repeated.16
27
Chapter 5
Ca th e r i n e was not so much engaged at the theatre that

evening, in returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe,
though they certainly claimed much of her leisure, as to forget
to look with an inquiring eye for Mr. Tilney in every box
which her eye could reach; but she looked in vain. Mr. Tilney
was no fonder of the play than the Pump-room. She hoped
to be more fortunate the next day; and when her wishes for
fine weather were answered by seeing a beautiful morning,
she hardly felt a doubt of it; for a fine Sunday in Bath empties
every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on
such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance
what a charming day it is.
As soon as divine service1 was over, the Thorpes and Allens
eagerly joined each other; and after staying long enough in
the Pump-room to discover that the crowd was insupport-
able, and that there was not a genteel2 face to be seen, which
every body discovers every Sunday throughout the season,
they hastened away to the Crescent,3 to breathe the fresh
air of better company. Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in
arm, again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved
conversation;—they talked much, and with much enjoyment;
but again was Catherine disappointed in her hope of re-seeing
her partner. He was no where to be met with; every search for
him was equally unsuccessful, in morning lounges or evening
assemblies; neither at the upper nor lower rooms, at dressed or
undressed balls, was he perceivable; nor among the walkers,
28
the horsemen, or the curricle-drivers4 of the morning. His

name was not in the Pump-room book,5 and curiosity could
do no more. He must be gone from Bath. Yet he had not
mentioned that his stay would be so short! This sort of mys-
teriousness, which is always so becoming in a hero,6 threw a
fresh grace in Catherine’s imagination around his person and
manners, and increased her anxiety to know more of him.
From the Thorpes she could learn nothing, for they had been
only two days in Bath before they met with Mrs. Allen. It
was a subject, however, in which she often indulged with her
fair friend, from whom she received every possible encour-
agement to continue to think of him; and his impression on
her fancy was not suffered therefore to weaken. Isabella was
very sure that he must be a charming young man; and was
equally sure that he must have been delighted with her dear
Catherine, and would therefore shortly return. She liked him
the better for being a clergyman, “for she must confess her-
self very partial to the profession;” and something like a sigh
escaped her as she said it. Perhaps Catherine was wrong in
not demanding the cause of that gentle emotion—but she was
not experienced enough in the finesse of love, or the duties of
friendship, to know when delicate raillery was properly called
for, or when a confidence should be forced.
Mrs. Allen was now quite happy—quite satisfied with
Bath. She had found some acquaintance, had been so lucky
too as to find in them the family of a most worthy old
friend; and, as the completion of good fortune, had found
these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself.
Her daily expressions were no longer, “I wish we had some
acquaintance in Bath!” They were changed into—“How glad
I am we have met with Mrs. Thorpe!”—and she was as eager
in promoting the intercourse of the two families, as her young
charge and Isabella themselves could be; never satisfied with
29
the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs.
Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there
was scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any
resemblance of subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her
children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.
The progress of the friendship between Catherine and
Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm, and they
passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing ten-
derness, that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be
given to their friends or themselves. They called each other
by their Christian name,7 were always arm in arm when they
walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were
not to be divided in the set;8 and if a rainy morning deprived
them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting
in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to read
novels together. Yes, novels;—for I will not adopt that ungen-
erous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers,
of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very perfor-
mances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—
joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest
epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to
be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a
novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust.9 Alas!
if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of
another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I
cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the Reviewers to abuse
such effusions of fancy10 at their leisure, and over every new
novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the
press now groans.11 Let us not desert one another; we are an
injured body. Although our productions have afforded more
extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other lit-
erary corporation in the world, no species of composition has
been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our
30
foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities
of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England,12
or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some
dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the
Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne,13 are eulogized by a
thousand pens,—there seems almost a general wish of decry-
ing the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist,
and of slighting the performances which have only genius,
wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel reader—I
seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read
novels—It is really very well for a novel.”—Such is the com-
mon cant.—“And what are you reading, Miss ———?” “Oh!
it is only a novel!” replies the young lady; while she lays down
her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame.—
“It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda;”14 or, in short,
only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are
displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human
nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest
effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the
best chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been
engaged with a volume of the Spectator,15 instead of such a
work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and
told its name; though the chances must be against her being
occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which
either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person
of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the
statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters,
and topics of conversation, which no longer concern any one
living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give
no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.
31
Chapter 6
The following conversation, which took place between

the two friends in the Pump-room one morning, after an
acquaintance of eight or nine days, is given as a specimen of
their very warm attachment, and of the delicacy, discretion,
originality of thought, and literary taste which marked the
reasonableness of that attachment.
They met by appointment; and as Isabella had arrived
nearly five minutes before her friend, her first address natu-
rally was—“My dearest creature, what can have made you so
late? I have been waiting for you at least this age!”
“Have you, indeed!—I am very sorry for it; but really I
thought I was in very good time. It is but just one. I hope you
have not been here long?”
“Oh! these ten ages at least. I am sure I have been here this
half hour. But now, let us go and sit down at the other end of
the room, and enjoy ourselves. I have an hundred things to
say to you. In the first place, I was so afraid it would rain this
morning, just as I wanted to set off; it looked very showery,
and that would have thrown me into agonies! Do you know,
I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a shop window in
Milsom-street1 just now—very like yours, only with coqueli-
cot2 ribbons instead of green; I quite longed for it. But, my
dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with yourself
all this morning?—Have you gone on with Udolpho?”
“Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am
got to the black veil.”
32
“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 upon any account. I know it must be a
skeleton, I am sure it is Laurentina’s skeleton.3 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 Italian4 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!—What are they all?”
“I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my
pocket-book. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious
Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell,
Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries.5 Those will last
us some time.”
“Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they
are all horrid?”6
“Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss
Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the
world, has read every one of them. I wish you knew Miss
Andrews, you would be delighted with her. She is netting
herself the sweetest cloak you can conceive. I think her as
beautiful as an angel, and I am so vexed with the men for not
admiring her!—I scold them all amazingly about it.”
“Scold them! Do you scold them for not admiring her?”
“Yes, that I do. There is nothing I would not do for those
who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people
by halves, it is not my nature. My attachments are always
excessively strong.7 I told Capt. Hunt at one of our assemblies
33
this winter, that if he was to tease me all night, I would not

dance with him, unless he would allow Miss Andrews to be
as beautiful as an angel. The men think us incapable of real
friendship you know, and I am determined to shew them the
difference. Now, if I were to hear any body speak slightingly
of you, I should fire up in a moment:—but that is not at all
likely, for you are just the kind of girl to be a great favourite
with the men.”
“Oh! dear,” cried Catherine, colouring, “how can you say
so?”
“I know you very well; you have so much animation, which
is exactly what Miss Andrews wants, for I must confess there
is something amazingly insipid about her. Oh! I must tell
you, that just after we parted yesterday, I saw a young man
looking at you so earnestly—I am sure he is in love with you.”
Catherine coloured, and disclaimed again. Isabella laughed.
“It is very true, upon my honour, but I see how it is; you are
indifferent to every body’s admiration, except that of one gen-
tleman, who shall be nameless. Nay, I cannot blame you—
(speaking more seriously)—your feelings are easily under-
stood. Where the heart is really attached, I know very well
how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body
else. Every thing is so insipid, so uninteresting, that does not
relate to the beloved object! I can perfectly comprehend your
feelings.”
“But you should not persuade me that I think so very
much about Mr. Tilney, for perhaps I may never see him
again.”
“Not see him again! My dearest creature, do not talk of it.
I am sure you would be miserable if you thought so.”
“No, indeed, I should not. I do not pretend to say that I was
not very much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho
to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable. Oh! the
34
dreadful black veil! My dear Isabella, I am sure there must be

Laurentina’s skeleton behind it.”
“It is so odd to me, that you should never have read
Udolpho before; but I suppose Mrs. Morland objects to nov-
els.”8
“No, she does not. She very often reads Sir Charles
Grandison herself; but new books do not fall in our way.”9
“Sir Charles Grandison! That is an amazing horrid book,
is it not?—I remember Miss Andrews could not get through
the first volume.”
“It is not like Udolpho at all; but yet I think it is very
entertaining.”
“Do you indeed!—you surprize me; I thought it had not
been readable. But, my dearest Catherine, have you settled
what to wear on your head to-night? I am determined at all
events to be dressed exactly like you. The men take notice of
that sometimes you know.”
“But it does not signify if they do;” said Catherine, very
innocently.
“Signify! Oh, heavens! I make it a rule never to mind what
they say. They are very often amazingly impertinent if you
do not treat them with spirit, and make them keep their
distance.”
“Are they?—Well, I never observed that. They always
behave very well to me.”
“Oh! they give themselves such airs. They are the most
conceited creatures in the world, and think themselves of so
much importance!—By the bye, though I have thought of it
a hundred times, I have always forgot to ask you what is your
favourite complexion in a man. Do you like them best dark
or fair?”
“I hardly know. I never much thought about it. Something
between both, I think. Brown—not fair, and not very dark.”
35
“Very well, Catherine. That is exactly he. I have not forgot

your description of Mr. Tilney;—‘a brown skin, with dark
eyes, and rather dark hair.’—Well, my taste is different. I
prefer light eyes, and as to complexion—do you know—I like
a sallow better than any other. You must not betray me, if you
should ever meet with one of your acquaintance answering
that description.”
“Betray you!—What do you mean?”
“Nay, do not distress me. I believe I have said too much.
Let us drop the subject.”
Catherine, in some amazement, complied; and after
remaining a few moments silent, was on the point of reverting
to what interested her at that time rather more than any thing
else in the world, Laurentina’s skeleton; when her friend pre-
vented her, by saying,—“For Heaven’s sake! let us move away
from this end of the room. Do you know, there are two odious
young men who have been staring at me this half hour. They
really put me quite out of countenance. Let us go and look
at the arrivals. They will hardly follow us there.”
Away they walked to the book; and while Isabella exam-
ined the names, it was Catherine’s employment to watch the
proceedings of these alarming young men.
“They are not coming this way, are they? I hope they are
not so impertinent as to follow us. Pray let me know if they
are coming. I am determined I will not look up.”
In a few moments Catherine, with unaffected pleasure,
assured her that she need not be longer uneasy, as the gen-
tlemen had just left the Pump-room.
“And which way are they gone?” said Isabella, turning
hastily round. “One was a very good-looking young man.”
“They went towards the church-yard.”
“Well, I am amazingly glad I have got rid of them! And
now, what say you to going to Edgar’s Buildings10 with me,
36
and looking at my new hat? You said you should like to see
it.”
Catherine readily agreed. “Only,” she added, “perhaps we
may overtake the two young men.”
“Oh! never mind that. If we make haste, we shall pass by
them presently, and I am dying to shew you my hat.”
“But if we only wait a few minutes, there will be no danger
of our seeing them at all.”
“I shall not pay them any such compliment, I assure you.
I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is
the way to spoil them.”
Catherine had nothing to oppose against such reasoning;
and therefore, to shew the independence of Miss Thorpe,
and her resolution of humbling the sex, they set off immedi-
ately as fast as they could walk, in pursuit of the two young
men.
37
Chapter 7
H a l f a minute conducted them through the Pump-yard

to the archway, opposite Union-passage; but here they were
stopped. Every body acquainted with Bath may remember the
difficulties of crossing Cheap-street at this point; it is indeed a
street of so impertinent a nature, so unfortunately connected
with the great London and Oxford roads, and the principal
inn1 of the city, that a day never passes in which parties of
ladies, however important their business, whether in quest of
pastry, millinery, or even (as in the present case) of young men,
are not detained on one side or other by carriages, horsemen,
or carts. This evil had been felt and lamented, at least three
times a day, by Isabella since her residence in Bath; and she
was now fated to feel and lament it once more, for at the very
moment of coming opposite to Union-passage, and within
view of the two gentlemen who were proceeding through
the crowds, and threading the gutters of that interesting
alley, they were prevented crossing by the approach of a gig,2
driven along on bad pavement by a most knowing-looking
coachman with all the vehemence that could most fitly endan-
ger the lives of himself, his companion, and his horse.
“Oh, these odious gigs!” said Isabella, looking up, “how I
detest them.” But this detestation, though so just, was of short
duration, for she looked again and exclaimed, “Delightful!
Mr. Morland and my brother!”
“Good heaven! ’tis James!” was uttered at the same moment
by Catherine; and, on catching the young men’s eyes, the
38
horse was immediately checked with a violence which almost

threw him on his haunches, and the servant3 having now
scampered up, the gentlemen jumped out, and the equipage
was delivered to his care.
Catherine, by whom this meeting was wholly unexpected,
received her brother with the liveliest pleasure; and he, being
of a very amiable disposition, and sincerely attached to her,
gave every proof on his side of equal satisfaction, which he
could have leisure to do, while the bright eyes of Miss Thorpe
were incessantly challenging his notice; and to her his devoirs4
were speedily paid, with a mixture of joy and embarrassment
which might have informed Catherine, had she been more
expert in the developement of other people’s feelings, and less
simply engrossed by her own, that her brother thought her
friend quite as pretty as she could do herself.
John Thorpe, who in the mean time had been giving
orders about the horses,5 soon joined them, and from him
she directly received the amends which were her due; for
while he slightly and carelessly touched the hand of Isabella,
on her he bestowed a whole scrape6 and half a short bow.
He was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a
plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too
handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much
like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be
civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy. He
took out his watch: “How long do you think we have been
running it from Tetbury,7 Miss Morland?”
“I do not know the distance.” Her brother told her that it
was twenty-three miles.
“Three-and-twenty!” cried Thorpe; “five-and-twenty if it
is an inch.” Morland remonstrated, pleaded the authority of
road-books, innkeepers, and milestones; but his friend dis-
regarded them all; he had a surer test of distance. “I know it
39
must be five-and-twenty,” said he, “by the time we have been

doing it. It is now half after one; we drove out of the inn-yard
at Tetbury as the town-clock struck eleven; and I defy any
man in England to make my horse go less than ten miles an
hour in harness; that makes it exactly twenty-five.”
“You have lost an hour,” said Morland; “it was only ten
o’clock when we came from Tetbury.”
“Ten o’clock! it was eleven, upon my soul! I counted every
stroke. This brother of yours would persuade me out of my
senses, Miss Morland; do but look at my horse; did you ever
see an animal so made for speed in your life?” (The servant
had just mounted the carriage and was driving off.) “Such
true blood!8 Three hours and a half indeed coming only
three-and-twenty miles! look at that creature, and suppose
it possible if you can.”
“He does look very hot to be sure.”
“Hot! he had not turned a hair till we came to Walcot
Church:9 but look at his forehand;10 look at his loins; only
see how he moves; that horse cannot go less than ten miles
an hour: tie his legs and he will get on. What do you think
of my gig, Miss Morland? a neat one, is not it? Well hung;
town built; I have not had it a month. It was built for a
Christ-church man,11 a friend of mine, a very good sort of
fellow; he ran it a few weeks, till, I believe, it was convenient
to have done with it. I happened just then to be looking out
for some light thing of the kind, though I had pretty well
determined on a curricle too; but I chanced to meet him on
Magdalen Bridge,12 as he was driving into Oxford, last term:
‘Ah! Thorpe,’ said he, ‘do you happen to want such a little
thing as this? it is a capital one of the kind, but I am cursed
tired of it.’ ‘Oh! d——,’13 said I, ‘I am your man; what do you
ask?’ And how much do you think he did, Miss Morland?”
“I am sure I cannot guess at all.”
40
“Curricle-hung you see; seat, trunk, sword-case, splashing-

board, lamps, silver moulding, all you see complete;14 the
iron-work as good as new, or better. He asked fifty guineas;15
I closed with him directly, threw down the money, and the
carriage was mine.”
“And I am sure,” said Catherine, “I know so little of such
things that I cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear.”
“Neither one nor t’other; I might have got it for less I dare
say; but I hate haggling, and poor Freeman wanted cash.”
“That was very good-natured of you,” said Catherine, quite
pleased.
“Oh! d—— it, when one has the means of doing a kind
thing by a friend, I hate to be pitiful.”16
An inquiry now took place into the intended movements
of the young ladies; and, on finding whither they were going,
it was decided that the gentlemen should accompany them
to Edgar’s Buildings, and pay their respects to Mrs. Thorpe.
James and Isabella led the way; and so well satisfied was the
latter with her lot, so contentedly was she endeavouring to
ensure a pleasant walk to him who brought the double rec-
ommendation of being her brother’s friend, and her friend’s
brother, so pure and uncoquettish were her feelings, that,
though they overtook and passed the two offending young
men in Milsom-street, she was so far from seeking to attract
their notice, that she looked back at them only three times.
John Thorpe kept of course with Catherine, and, after a few
minutes’ silence, renewed the conversation about his gig—
“You will find, however, Miss Morland, it would be reckoned
a cheap thing by some people, for I might have sold it for ten
guineas more the next day; Jackson, of Oriel,17 bid me sixty
at once; Morland was with me at the time.”
“Yes,” said Morland, who overheard this; “but you forget
that your horse was included.”
41
“My horse! oh, d—— it! I would not sell my horse for a
hundred. Are you fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?”
“Yes, very; I have hardly ever an opportunity of being in
one; but I am particularly fond of it.”
“I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day.”
“Thank you,” said Catherine, in some distress, from a
doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer.18
“I will drive you up Lansdown Hill19 to-morrow.”
“Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?”
“Rest! he has only come three-and-twenty miles to-day;
all nonsense; nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing
knocks them up so soon. No, no; I shall exercise mine at the
average of four hours every day while I am here.”
“Shall you indeed!” said Catherine very seriously, “that will
be forty miles a day.”
“Forty! aye fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up
Lansdown to-morrow; mind, I am engaged.”
“How delightful that will be!” cried Isabella, turning round;
“my dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid,
brother, you will not have room for a third.”
“A third indeed! no, no; I did not come to Bath to drive
my sisters about; that would be a good joke, faith! Morland
must take care of you.”
This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other
two; but Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the
result. Her companion’s discourse now sunk from its hitherto
animated pitch, to nothing more than a short decisive sen-
tence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman
they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long
as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youth-
ful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own
in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where
the beauty of her own sex is concerned, ventured at length to
42
vary the subject by a question which had been long upper-

most in her thoughts; it was, “Have you ever read Udolpho,
Mr. Thorpe?”
“Udolpho! Oh, Lord! not I; I never read novels; I have
something else to do.”
Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize
for her question, but he prevented her by saying, “Novels are
all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably
decent one come out since Tom Jones, except the Monk;20
I read that t’other day; but as for all the others, they are the
stupidest things in creation.”
“I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is
so very interesting.”
“Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliff ’s;
her novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some
fun and nature in them.”
“Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliff,” said Catherine,
with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him.
“No sure; was it? Aye, I remember, so it was; I was thinking
of that other stupid book, written by that woman they make
such a fuss about, she who married the French emigrant.”
“I suppose you mean Camilla?”
“Yes, that’s the book; such unnatural stuff !—An old man
playing at see-saw!21 I took up the first volume once and
looked it over, but I soon found it would not do; indeed I
guessed what sort of stuff it must be before I saw it: as soon
as I heard she had married an emigrant, I was sure I should
never be able to get through it.”
“I have never read it.”
“You had no loss I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense
you can imagine; there is nothing in the world in it but an old
man’s playing at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul
there is not.”
43
This critique, the justness of which was unfortunately

lost on poor Catherine, brought them to the door of Mrs.
Thorpe’s lodgings, and the feelings of the discerning and
unprejudiced reader of Camilla gave way to the feelings of the
dutiful and affectionate son, as they met Mrs. Thorpe, who
had descried them from above, in the passage. “Ah, mother!
how do you do?” said he, giving her a hearty shake of the
hand: “where did you get that quiz of a hat, it makes you
look like an old witch? Here is Morland and I come to stay a
few days with you, so you must look out for a couple of good
beds some where near.” And this address seemed to satisfy
all the fondest wishes of the mother’s heart, for she received
him with the most delighted and exulting affection. On his
two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his
fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did,
and observed that they both looked very ugly.
These manners did not please Catherine; but he was
James’s friend and Isabella’s brother; and her judgment was
further bought off by Isabella’s assuring her, when they with-
drew to see the new hat, that John thought her the most
charming girl in the world, and by John’s engaging her before
they parted to dance with him that evening. Had she been
older or vainer, such attacks might have done little; but, where
youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadi-
ness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most
charming girl in the world, and of being so very early engaged
as a partner; and the consequence was, that, when the two
Morlands, after sitting an hour with the Thorpes, set off to
walk together to Mr. Allen’s, and James, as the door was
closed on them, said, “Well, Catherine, how do you like my
friend Thorpe?” instead of answering, as she probably would
have done, had there been no friendship and no flattery in
44
the case, “I do not like him at all;” she directly replied, “I like
him very much; he seems very agreeable.”
“He is as good-natured a fellow as ever lived; a little of a
rattle;22 but that will recommend him to your sex I believe:
and how do you like the rest of the family?”
“Very, very much indeed: Isabella particularly.”
“I am very glad to hear you say so; she is just the kind of
young woman I could wish to see you attached to; she has
so much good sense, and is so thoroughly unaffected and
amiable; I always wanted you to know her; and she seems
very fond of you. She said the highest things in your praise
that could possibly be; and the praise of such a girl as Miss
Thorpe even you, Catherine,” taking her hand with affection,
“may be proud of.”
“Indeed I am,” she replied; “I love her exceedingly, and
am delighted to find that you like her too. You hardly men-
tioned any thing of her, when you wrote to me after your visit
there.”
“Because I thought I should soon see you myself. I hope
you will be a great deal together while you are in Bath. She is a
most amiable girl; such a superior understanding! How fond
all the family are of her; she is evidently the general favourite;
and how much she must be admired in such a place as this—is
not she?”
“Yes, very much indeed, I fancy; Mr. Allen thinks her the
prettiest girl in Bath.”
“I dare say he does; and I do not know any man who
is a better judge of beauty than Mr. Allen. I need not ask
you whether you are happy here, my dear Catherine; with
such a companion and friend as Isabella Thorpe, it would be
impossible for you to be otherwise; and the Allens I am sure
are very kind to you?”
45
“Yes, very kind; I never was so happy before; and now you
are come it will be more delightful than ever; how good it is
of you to come so far on purpose to see me.”
James accepted this tribute of gratitude, and qualified his
conscience for accepting it too, by saying with perfect sincer-
ity, “Indeed, Catherine, I love you dearly.”
Inquiries and communications concerning brothers and
sisters, the situation of some, the growth of the rest, and other
family matters, now passed between them, and continued,
with only one small digression on James’s part, in praise of
Miss Thorpe, till they reached Pulteney-street, where he was
welcomed with great kindness by Mr. and Mrs. Allen, invited
by the former to dine with them, and summoned by the latter
to guess the price and weigh the merits of a new muff and
tippet.23 A pre-engagement in Edgar’s Buildings prevented
his accepting the invitation of one friend, and obliged him
to hurry away as soon as he had satisfied the demands of the
other. The time of the two parties uniting in the Octagon
Room24 being correctly adjusted, Catherine was then left to
the luxury of a raised, restless, and frightened imagination
over the pages of Udolpho, lost from all worldly concerns of
dressing and dinner, incapable of soothing Mrs. Allen’s fears
on the delay of an expected dress-maker, and having only one
minute in sixty to bestow even on the reflection of her own
felicity, in being already engaged for the evening.
46
Chapter 8
In spite of Udolpho and the dress-maker, however, the party

from Pulteney-street reached the Upper-rooms in very good
time. The Thorpes and James Morland were there only two
minutes before them; and Isabella having gone through the
usual ceremonial of meeting her friend with the most smiling
and affectionate haste, of admiring the set of her gown, and
envying the curl of her hair, they followed their chaperons,
arm in arm, into the ball-room, whispering to each other
whenever a thought occurred, and supplying the place of
many ideas by a squeeze of the hand or a smile of affection.
The dancing began within a few minutes after they were
seated; and James, who had been engaged quite as long as
his sister, was very importunate with Isabella to stand up;1
but John was gone into the card-room to speak to a friend,
and nothing, she declared, should induce her to join the set
before her dear Catherine could join it too: “I assure you,”
said she, “I would not stand up without your dear sister for
all the world; for if I did we should certainly be separated
the whole evening.” Catherine accepted this kindness with
gratitude, and they continued as they were for three minutes
longer, when Isabella, who had been talking to James on the
other side of her, turned again to his sister and whispered,
“My dear creature, I am afraid I must leave you, your brother
is so amazingly impatient to begin; I know you will not mind
my going away, and I dare say John will be back in a moment,
and then you may easily find me out.” Catherine, though a
47
little disappointed, had too much good-nature to make any

opposition, and the others rising up, Isabella had only time
to press her friend’s hand and say, “Good bye, my dear love,”
before they hurried off. The younger Miss Thorpes being also
dancing, Catherine was left to the mercy of Mrs. Thorpe and
Mrs. Allen, between whom she now remained. She could not
help being vexed at the non-appearance of Mr. Thorpe, for
she not only longed to be dancing, but was likewise aware
that, as the real dignity of her situation could not be known,
she was sharing with the scores of other young ladies still
sitting down all the discredit of wanting a partner. To be dis-
graced in the eye of the world, to wear the appearance of
infamy while her heart is all purity, her actions all innocence,
and the misconduct of another the true source of her debase-
ment, is one of those circumstances which peculiarly belong
to the heroine’s life, and her fortitude under it what partic-
ularly dignifies her character.2 Catherine had fortitude too;
she suffered, but no murmur passed her lips.
From this state of humiliation, she was roused, at the end
of ten minutes, to a pleasanter feeling, by seeing, not Mr.
Thorpe, but Mr. Tilney, within three yards of the place where
they sat; he seemed to be moving that way, but he did not see
her, and therefore the smile and the blush, which his sudden
reappearance raised in Catherine, passed away without sul-
lying her heroic importance. He looked as handsome and as
lively as ever, and was talking with interest to a fashionable
and pleasing-looking young woman, who leant on his arm,
and whom Catherine immediately guessed to be his sister;
thus unthinkingly throwing away a fair opportunity of con-
sidering him lost to her for ever, by being married already.
But guided only by what was simple and probable, it had
never entered her head that Mr. Tilney could be married; he
had not behaved, he had not talked, like the married men to
48
whom she had been used; he had never mentioned a wife,

and he had acknowledged a sister. From these circumstances
sprang the instant conclusion of his sister’s now being by his
side; and therefore, instead of turning of a deathlike pale-
ness, and falling in a fit on Mrs. Allen’s bosom,3 Catherine
sat erect, in the perfect use of her senses, and with cheeks
only a little redder than usual.
Mr. Tilney and his companion, who continued, though
slowly, to approach, were immediately preceded by a lady,
an acquaintance of Mrs. Thorpe; and this lady stopping to
speak to her, they, as belonging to her, stopped likewise,
and Catherine, catching Mr. Tilney’s eye, instantly received
from him the smiling tribute of recognition. She returned
it with pleasure, and then advancing still nearer, he spoke
both to her and Mrs. Allen, by whom he was very civilly
acknowledged. “I am very happy to see you again, sir, indeed;
I was afraid you had left Bath.” He thanked her for her
fears, and said that he had quitted it for a week, on the
very morning after his having had the pleasure of seeing
her.
“Well, sir, and I dare say you are not sorry to be back again,
for it is just the place for young people—and indeed for every
body else too. I tell Mr. Allen, when he talks of being sick
of it, that I am sure he should not complain, for it is so very
agreeable a place, that it is much better to be here than at
home at this dull time of year. I tell him he is quite in luck to
be sent here for his health.”
“And I hope, madam, that Mr. Allen will be obliged to like
the place, from finding it of service to him.”
“Thank you, sir. I have no doubt that he will.—A neigh-
bour of ours, Dr. Skinner, was here for his health last winter,
and came away quite stout.”
“That circumstance must give great encouragement.”
49
“Yes, sir—and Dr. Skinner and his family were here three
months; so I tell Mr. Allen he must not be in a hurry to get
away.”
Here they were interrupted by a request from Mrs. Thorpe
to Mrs. Allen, that she would move a little to accommodate
Mrs. Hughes and Miss Tilney with seats, as they had agreed
to join their party. This was accordingly done, Mr. Tilney
still continuing standing before them; and after a few min-
utes consideration, he asked Catherine to dance with him.
This compliment, delightful as it was, produced severe mor-
tification to the lady;4 and in giving her denial, she expressed
her sorrow on the occasion so very much as if she really felt
it, that had Thorpe, who joined her just afterwards, been half
a minute earlier, he might have thought her sufferings rather
too acute. The very easy manner in which he then told her
that he had kept her waiting, did not by any means reconcile
her more to her lot; nor did the particulars which he entered
into while they were standing up, of the horses and dogs of
the friend whom he had just left, and of a proposed exchange
of terriers between them, interest her so much as to prevent
her looking very often towards that part of the room where
she had left Mr. Tilney. Of her dear Isabella, to whom she
particularly longed to point out that gentleman, she could see
nothing. They were in different sets. She was separated from
all her party, and away from all her acquaintance;—one mor-
tification succeeded another, and from the whole she deduced
this useful lesson, that to go previously engaged to a ball, does
not necessarily increase either the dignity or enjoyment of a
young lady. From such a moralizing strain as this, she was sud-
denly roused by a touch on the shoulder, and turning round,
perceived Mrs. Hughes directly behind her, attended by Miss
Tilney and a gentleman. “I beg your pardon, Miss Morland,”
said she, “for this liberty,—but I cannot any how get to Miss
50
Thorpe, and Mrs. Thorpe said she was sure you would not
have the least objection to letting in this young lady by you.”
Mrs. Hughes could not have applied to any creature in the
room more happy to oblige her than Catherine. The young
ladies were introduced to each other, Miss Tilney expressing
a proper sense of such goodness, Miss Morland with the real
delicacy of a generous mind making light of the obligation;5
and Mrs. Hughes, satisfied with having so respectably settled
her young charge, returned to her party.
Miss Tilney had a good figure, a pretty face, and a very
agreeable countenance; and her air, though it had not all the
decided pretension, the resolute stilishness of Miss Thorpe’s,
had more real elegance. Her manners shewed good sense and
good breeding; they were neither shy, nor affectedly open;
and she seemed capable of being young, attractive, and at
a ball, without wanting to fix the attention of every man
near her, and without exaggerated feelings of extatic delight
or inconceivable vexation on every little trifling occurrence.
Catherine, interested at once by her appearance and her rela-
tionship to Mr. Tilney, was desirous of being acquainted with
her, and readily talked therefore whenever she could think of
any thing to say, and had courage and leisure for saying it.
But the hindrance thrown in the way of a very speedy inti-
macy, by the frequent want of one or more of these requisites,
prevented their doing more than going through the first rudi-
ments of an acquaintance, by informing themselves how well
the other liked Bath, how much she admired its buildings and
surrounding country, whether she drew, or played or sang, and
whether she was fond of riding on horseback.
The two dances were scarcely concluded before Catherine
found her arm gently seized by her faithful Isabella, who in
great spirits exclaimed—“At last I have got you. My dearest
creature, I have been looking for you this hour. What could
51
induce you to come into this set, when you knew I was in the
other? I have been quite wretched without you.”
“My dear Isabella, how was it possible for me to get at you?
I could not even see where you were.”
“So I told your brother all the time—but he would not
believe me. Do go and see for her, Mr. Morland, said I—
but all in vain—he would not stir an inch. Was not it so,
Mr. Morland? But you men are all so immoderately lazy! I
have been scolding him to such a degree, my dear Catherine,
you would be quite amazed.—You know I never stand upon
ceremony with such people.”
“Look at that young lady with the white beads round
her head,” whispered Catherine, detaching her friend from
James—“It is Mr. Tilney’s sister.”
“Oh! heavens! You don’t say so! Let me look at her this
moment. What a delightful girl! I never saw any thing half
so beautiful! But where is her all-conquering brother? Is he
in the room? Point him out to me this instant, if he is. I die
to see him. Mr. Morland, you are not to listen. We are not
talking about you.”
“But what is all this whispering about? What is going on?”
“There now, I knew how it would be. You men have such
restless curiosity! Talk of the curiosity of women, indeed!—
’tis nothing. But be satisfied, for you are not to know any
thing at all of the matter.”
“And is that likely to satisfy me, do you think?”
“Well, I declare I never knew any thing like you. What
can it signify to you, what we are talking of ? Perhaps we are
talking about you, therefore I would advise you not to listen,
or you may happen to hear something not very agreeable.”
In this common-place chatter, which lasted some time,
the original subject seemed entirely forgotten; and though
Catherine was very well pleased to have it dropped for a while,
52
she could not avoid a little suspicion at the total suspension

of all Isabella’s impatient desire to see Mr. Tilney. When the
orchestra struck up a fresh dance, James would have led his
fair partner away, but she resisted. “I tell you, Mr. Morland,”
she cried, “I would not do such a thing for all the world. How
can you be so teasing; only conceive, my dear Catherine, what
your brother wants me to do. He wants me to dance with him
again, though I tell him that it is a most improper thing, and
entirely against the rules. It would make us the talk of the
place, if we were not to change partners.”6
“Upon my honour,” said James, “in these public assemblies,
it is as often done as not.”
“Nonsense, how can you say so? But when you men have
a point to carry, you never stick at any thing. My sweet
Catherine, do support me, persuade your brother how impos-
sible it is. Tell him, that it would quite shock you to see me
do such a thing; now would not it?”
“No, not at all; but if you think it wrong, you had much
better change.”
“There,” cried Isabella, “you hear what your sister says, and
yet you will not mind her. Well, remember that it is not my
fault, if we set all the old ladies in Bath in a bustle. Come
along, my dearest Catherine, for heaven’s sake, and stand by
me.” And off they went, to regain their former place. John
Thorpe, in the meanwhile, had walked away; and Catherine,
ever willing to give Mr. Tilney an opportunity of repeating
the agreeable request which had already flattered her once,
made her way to Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe as fast as
she could, in the hope of finding him still with them—a
hope which, when it proved to be fruitless, she felt to have
been highly unreasonable. “Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Thorpe,
impatient for praise of her son, “I hope you have had an
agreeable partner.”
53
“Very agreeable, madam.”

“I am glad of it. John has charming spirits, has not he?”
“Did you meet Mr. Tilney, my dear?” said Mrs. Allen.
“No, where is he?”
“He was with us just now, and said he was so tired of
lounging about, that he was resolved to go and dance; so I
thought perhaps he would ask you, if he met with you.”
“Where can he be?” said Catherine, looking round; but
she had not looked round long before she saw him leading a
young lady to the dance.
“Ah! he has got a partner, I wish he had asked you,” said
Mrs. Allen; and after a short silence, she added, “he is a very
agreeable young man.”
“Indeed he is, Mrs. Allen,” said Mrs. Thorpe, smiling
complacently; “I must say it, though I am his mother, that
there is not a more agreeable young man in the world.”
This inapplicable answer might have been too much for the
comprehension of many; but it did not puzzle Mrs. Allen, for
after only a moment’s consideration, she said, in a whisper
to Catherine, “I dare say she thought I was speaking of her
son.”
Catherine was disappointed and vexed. She seemed to have
missed by so little the very object she had had in view; and
this persuasion did not incline her to a very gracious reply,
when John Thorpe came up to her soon afterwards, and said,
“Well, Miss Morland, I suppose you and I are to stand up
and jig it together again.”
“Oh, no; I am much obliged to you, our two dances are
over; and, besides, I am tired, and do not mean to dance any
more.”
“Do not you?—then let us walk about and quiz people.
Come along with me, and I will shew you the four greatest
54
quizzes7 in the room; my two younger sisters and their part-

ners. I have been laughing at them this half hour.”
Again Catherine excused herself; and at last he walked off
to quiz his sisters by himself. The rest of the evening she
found very dull; Mr. Tilney was drawn away from their party
at tea, to attend that of his partner; Miss Tilney, though
belonging to it, did not sit near her, and James and Isabella
were so much engaged in conversing together, that the latter
had no leisure to bestow more on her friend than one smile,
one squeeze, and one “dearest Catherine.”
55
Chapter 9
T h e progress of Catherine’s unhappiness from the events of

the evening, was as follows. It appeared first in a general dis-
satisfaction with every body about her, while she remained in
the rooms, which speedily brought on considerable weariness
and a violent desire to go home. This, on arriving in Pulteney-
street, took the direction of extraordinary hunger, and when
that was appeased, changed into an earnest longing to be in
bed; such was the extreme point of her distress; for when
there she immediately fell into a sound sleep which lasted
nine hours, and from which she awoke perfectly revived, in
excellent spirits, with fresh hopes and fresh schemes.1 The
first wish of her heart was to improve her acquaintance with
Miss Tilney, and almost her first resolution, to seek her for
that purpose, in the Pump-room at noon. In the Pump-room,
one so newly arrived in Bath must be met with, and that build-
ing she had already found so favourable for the discovery of
female excellence, and the completion of female intimacy, so
admirably adapted for secret discourses and unlimited con-
fidence, that she was most reasonably encouraged to expect
another friend from within its walls. Her plan for the morning
thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast,
resolving to remain in the same place and the same employ-
ment till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little
incommoded by the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs. Allen,
whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such,
that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be
56
entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if

she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a car-
riage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must
observe it aloud, whether there were any one at leisure to
answer her or not. At about half past twelve, a remarkably
loud rap drew her in haste to the window, and scarcely had she
time to inform Catherine of there being two open carriages
at the door, in the first only a servant, her brother driving
Miss Thorpe in the second, before John Thorpe came run-
ning up stairs, calling out, “Well, Miss Morland, here I am.
Have you been waiting long? We could not come before;
the old devil of a coachmaker was such an eternity finding
out a thing fit to be got into,2 and now it is ten thousand
to one, but they break down before we are out of the street.
How do you do, Mrs. Allen? a famous ball last night, was
not it? Come, Miss Morland, be quick, for the others are in a
confounded hurry to be off. They want to get their tumble3
over.”
“What do you mean?” said Catherine, “where are you all
going to?”
“Going to? why, you have not forgot our engagement! Did
not we agree together to take a drive this morning? What a
head you have! We are going up Claverton Down.”4
“Something was said about it, I remember,” said Catherine,
looking at Mrs. Allen for her opinion; “but really I did not
expect you.”
“Not expect me! that’s a good one! And what a dust 5 you
would have made, if I had not come.”
Catherine’s silent appeal to her friend, mean while, was
entirely thrown away, for Mrs. Allen, not being at all in the
habit of conveying any expression herself by a look, was not
aware of its being ever intended by any body else; and Cather-
ine, whose desire of seeing Miss Tilney again could at that
57
moment bear a short delay in favour of a drive, and who

thought there could be no impropriety in her going with Mr.
Thorpe, as Isabella was going at the same time with James,
was therefore obliged to speak plainer. “Well, ma’am, what
do you say to it? Can you spare me for an hour or two? shall
I go?”
“Do just as you please, my dear,” replied Mrs. Allen, with
the most placid indifference. Catherine took the advice, and
ran off to get ready. In a very few minutes she re-appeared,
having scarcely allowed the two others time enough to get
through a few short sentences in her praise, after Thorpe
had procured Mrs. Allen’s admiration of his gig; and then
receiving her friend’s parting good wishes, they both hurried
down stairs. “My dearest creature,” cried Isabella, to whom
the duty of friendship immediately called her before she could
get into the carriage, “you have been at least three hours
getting ready. I was afraid you were ill. What a delightful ball
we had last night. I have a thousand things to say to you; but
make haste and get in, for I long to be off.”
Catherine followed her orders and turned away, but not
too soon to hear her friend exclaim aloud to James, “What a
sweet girl she is! I quite doat on her.”
“You will not be frightened, Miss Morland,” said Thorpe,
as he handed her in, “if my horse should dance about a little
at first setting off. He will, most likely, give a plunge or two,
and perhaps take the rest6 for a minute; but he will soon know
his master. He is full of spirits, playful as can be, but there is
no vice in him.”
Catherine did not think the portrait a very inviting one, but
it was too late to retreat, and she was too young to own herself
frightened; so, resigning herself to her fate, and trusting to
the animal’s boasted knowledge of its owner, she sat peaceably
down, and saw Thorpe sit down by her. Every thing being
58
then arranged, the servant who stood at the horse’s head was
bid in an important voice “to let him go,” and off they went
in the quietest manner imaginable, without a plunge or a
caper, or any thing like one. Catherine, delighted at so happy
an escape, spoke her pleasure aloud with grateful surprize;
and her companion immediately made the matter perfectly
simple by assuring her that it was entirely owing to the pecu-
liarly judicious manner in which he had then held the reins,
and the singular discernment and dexterity with which he
had directed his whip. Catherine, though she could not help
wondering that with such perfect command of his horse, he
should think it necessary to alarm her with a relation of its
tricks, congratulated herself sincerely on being under the care
of so excellent a coachman; and perceiving that the animal
continued to go on in the same quiet manner, without shew-
ing the smallest propensity towards any unpleasant vivacity,
and (considering its inevitable pace was ten miles an hour) by
no means alarmingly fast, gave herself up to all the enjoyment
of air and exercise of the most invigorating kind, in a fine mild
day of February, with the consciousness of safety. A silence
of several minutes succeeded their first short dialogue;—it
was broken by Thorpe’s saying very abruptly, “Old Allen is
as rich as a Jew7 —is not he?” Catherine did not understand
him—and he repeated his question, adding in explanation,
“Old Allen, the man you are with.”
“Oh! Mr. Allen, you mean. Yes, I believe, he is very rich.”
“And no children at all?”
“No—not any.”
“A famous thing for his next heirs. He is your godfather, is
not he?”
“My godfather!—no.”
“But you are always very much with them.”
“Yes, very much.”
59
“Aye, that is what I meant. He seems a good kind of old

fellow enough, and has lived very well in his time, I dare say;
he is not gouty for nothing. Does he drink his bottle a-day
now?”
“His bottle a-day!—no. Why should you think of such a
thing? He is a very temperate man, and you could not fancy
him in liquor last night?”
“Lord help you!—You women are always thinking of men’s
being in liquor. Why you do not suppose a man is overset by
a bottle? I am sure of this—that if every body was to drink
their bottle a-day, there would not be half the disorders in
the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing for
us all.”
“I cannot believe it.”
“Oh! lord, it would be the saving of thousands. There is not
the hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom,
that there ought to be. Our foggy climate wants help.”
“And yet I have heard that there is a great deal of wine
drank in Oxford.”
“Oxford! There is no drinking at Oxford now,8 I assure
you. Nobody drinks there. You would hardly meet with a
man who goes beyond his four pints at the utmost. Now,
for instance, it was reckoned a remarkable thing at the last
party in my rooms, that upon an average we cleared about
five pints a head. It was looked upon as something out of
the common way. Mine is famous good stuff to be sure. You
would not often meet with any thing like it in Oxford—and
that may account for it. But this will just give you a notion of
the general rate of drinking there.”
“Yes, it does give a notion,” said Catherine, warmly, “and
that is, that you all drink a great deal more wine than I
thought you did. However, I am sure James does not drink so
much.”
60
This declaration brought on a loud and overpowering reply,

of which no part was very distinct, except the frequent excla-
mations, amounting almost to oaths, which adorned it, and
Catherine was left, when it ended, with rather a strengthened
belief of there being a great deal of wine drank in Oxford,
and the same happy conviction of her brother’s comparative
sobriety.
Thorpe’s ideas then all reverted to the merits of his own
equipage, and she was called on to admire the spirit and free-
dom with which his horse moved along, and the ease which
his paces, as well as the excellence of the springs, gave the
motion of the carriage. She followed him in all his admira-
tion as well as she could. To go before, or beyond him was
impossible. His knowledge and her ignorance of the subject,
his rapidity of expression, and her diffidence of herself put
that out of her power; she could strike out nothing new in
commendation, but she readily echoed whatever he chose to
assert, and it was finally settled between them without any
difficulty, that his equipage was altogether the most com-
plete of its kind in England, his carriage the neatest, his
horse the best goer, and himself the best coachman.—“You
do not really think, Mr. Thorpe,” said Catherine, venturing
after some time to consider the matter as entirely decided,
and to offer some little variation on the subject, “that James’s
gig will break down?”
“Break down! Oh! lord! Did you ever see such a little tit-
tuppy9 thing in your life? There is not a sound piece of iron
about it. The wheels have been fairly worn out these ten years
at least—and as for the body! Upon my soul, you might shake
it to pieces yourself with a touch. It is the most devilish little
ricketty business I ever beheld!—Thank God! we have got a
better. I would not be bound to go two miles in it for fifty
thousand pounds.”
61
“Good heavens!” cried Catherine, quite frightened, “then

pray let us turn back; they will certainly meet with an accident
if we go on. Do let us turn back, Mr. Thorpe; stop and speak
to my brother, and tell him how very unsafe it is.”
“Unsafe! Oh, lord! what is there in that? they will only get
a roll if it does break down; and there is plenty of dirt, it will
be excellent falling. Oh, curse it! the carriage is safe enough,
if a man knows how to drive it; a thing of that sort in good
hands will last above twenty years after it is fairly worn out.
Lord bless you! I would undertake for five pounds to drive it
to York10 and back again, without losing a nail.”
Catherine listened with astonishment; she knew not how
to reconcile two such very different accounts of the same
thing; for she had not been brought up to understand the
propensities of a rattle, nor to know to how many idle asser-
tions and impudent falsehoods the excess of vanity will lead.
Her own family were plain matter-of-fact people, who sel-
dom aimed at wit of any kind; her father, at the utmost,
being contented with a pun, and her mother with a proverb;
they were not in the habit therefore of telling lies to increase
their importance, or of asserting at one moment what they
would contradict the next. She reflected on the affair for
some time in much perplexity, and was more than once on
the point of requesting from Mr. Thorpe a clearer insight
into his real opinion on the subject; but she checked herself,
because it appeared to her that he did not excel in giving those
clearer insights, in making those things plain which he had
before made ambiguous; and, joining to this, the considera-
tion, that he would not really suffer his sister and his friend to
be exposed to a danger from which he might easily preserve
them, she concluded at last, that he must know the carriage to
be in fact perfectly safe, and therefore would alarm herself no
62
longer. By him the whole matter seemed entirely forgotten;

and all the rest of his conversation, or rather talk, began and
ended with himself and his own concerns. He told her of
horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incred-
ible sums; of racing matches, in which his judgment had
infallibly foretold the winner; of shooting parties, in which
he had killed more birds (though without having one good
shot) than all his companions together; and described to her
some famous day’s sport, with the fox-hounds, in which his
foresight and skill in directing the dogs had repaired the mis-
takes of the most experienced huntsman, and in which the
boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his
own life for a moment, had been constantly leading others
into difficulties, which he calmly concluded had broken the
necks of many.
Little as Catherine was in the habit of judging for herself,
and unfixed as were her general notions of what men ought
to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore
with the effusions of his endless conceit, of his being alto-
gether completely agreeable. It was a bold surmise, for he was
Isabella’s brother; and she had been assured by James, that his
manners would recommend him to all her sex; but in spite
of this, the extreme weariness of his company, which crept
over her before they had been out an hour, and which con-
tinued unceasingly to increase till they stopped in Pulteney-
street again, induced her, in some small degree, to resist such
high authority, and to distrust his powers of giving universal
pleasure.
When they arrived at Mrs. Allen’s door, the astonishment
of Isabella was hardly to be expressed, on finding that it was
too late in the day for them to attend her friend into the
house:—“Past three o’clock!” it was inconceivable, incredible,
63
impossible! and she would neither believe her own watch,

nor her brother’s, nor the servant’s; she would believe no
assurance of it founded on reason or reality, till Morland pro-
duced his watch, and ascertained the fact; to have doubted a
moment longer then, would have been equally inconceivable,
incredible, and impossible; and she could only protest, over
and over again, that no two hours and a half had ever gone
off so swiftly before, as Catherine was called on to confirm;
Catherine could not tell a falsehood even to please Isabella;
but the latter was spared the misery of her friend’s dissenting
voice, by not waiting for her answer. Her own feelings entirely
engrossed her; her wretchedness was most acute on finding
herself obliged to go directly home.—It was ages since she
had had a moment’s conversation with her dearest Catherine;
and, though she had such thousands of things to say to her, it
appeared as if they were never to be together again; so, with
smiles of most exquisite misery, and the laughing eye of utter
despondency, she bade her friend adieu and went on.
Catherine found Mrs. Allen just returned from all the busy
idleness of the morning,11 and was immediately greeted with,
“Well, my dear, here you are;” a truth which she had no greater
inclination than power to dispute; “and I hope you have had
a pleasant airing?”
“Yes, ma’am, I thank you; we could not have had a nicer
day.”
“So Mrs. Thorpe said; she was vastly pleased at your all
going.”
“You have seen Mrs. Thorpe then?”
“Yes, I went to the Pump-room as soon as you were gone,
and there I met her, and we had a great deal of talk together.
She says there was hardly any veal to be got at market this
morning, it is so uncommonly scarce.”
“Did you see any body else of our acquaintance?”
64
“Yes; we agreed to take a turn in the Crescent, and there

we met Mrs. Hughes, and Mr. and Miss Tilney walking with
her.”
“Did you indeed? and did they speak to you?”
“Yes, we walked along the Crescent together for half an
hour. They seem very agreeable people. Miss Tilney was in a
very pretty spotted muslin, and I fancy, by what I can learn,
that she always dresses very handsomely. Mrs. Hughes talked
to me a great deal about the family.”
“And what did she tell you of them?”
“Oh! a vast deal indeed; she hardly talked of any thing
else.”
“Did she tell you what part of Gloucestershire they come
from?”
“Yes, she did; but I cannot recollect now. But they are very
good kind of people, and very rich. Mrs. Tilney was a Miss
Drummond, and she and Mrs. Hughes were school-fellows;
and Miss Drummond had a very large fortune; and, when
she married, her father gave her twenty thousand pounds,
and five hundred to buy wedding-clothes.12 Mrs. Hughes
saw all the clothes after they came from the warehouse.”
“And are Mr. and Mrs. Tilney in Bath?”
“Yes, I fancy they are, but I am not quite certain. Upon
recollection, however, I have a notion they are both dead; at
least the mother is; yes, I am sure Mrs. Tilney is dead, because
Mrs. Hughes told me there was a very beautiful set of pearls
that Mr. Drummond gave his daughter on her wedding-day
and that Miss Tilney has got now, for they were put by for
her when her mother died.”
“And is Mr. Tilney, my partner, the only son?”
“I cannot be quite positive about that, my dear; I have some
idea he is; but, however, he is a very fine young man Mrs.
Hughes says, and likely to do very well.”
65
Catherine inquired no further; she had heard enough to

feel that Mrs. Allen had no real intelligence to give, and
that she was most particularly unfortunate herself in having
missed such a meeting with both brother and sister. Could
she have foreseen such a circumstance, nothing should have
persuaded her to go out with the others; and, as it was, she
could only lament her ill-luck, and think over what she had
lost, till it was clear to her, that the drive had by no means
been very pleasant and that John Thorpe himself was quite
disagreeable.
66
Chapter 10
T h e Allens, Thorpes, and Morlands, all met in the evening

at the theatre; and, as Catherine and Isabella sat together,
there was then an opportunity for the latter to utter some
few of the many thousand things which had been collecting
within her for communication, in the immeasurable length
of time which had divided them.—“Oh, heavens! my beloved
Catherine, have I got you at last?” was her address on Cather-
ine’s entering the box and sitting by her. “Now, Mr. Morland,”
for he was close to her on the other side, “I shall not speak
another word to you all the rest of the evening; so I charge
you not to expect it. My sweetest Catherine, how have you
been this long age? but I need not ask you, for you look
delightfully. You really have done your hair in a more heav-
enly style than ever: you mischievous creature, do you want
to attract every body? I assure you, my brother is quite in love
with you already; and as for Mr. Tilney—but that is a set-
tled thing—even your modesty cannot doubt his attachment
now; his coming back to Bath makes it too plain. Oh! what
would not I give to see him! I really am quite wild with impa-
tience. My mother says he is the most delightful young man
in the world; she saw him this morning you know: you must
introduce him to me. Is he in the house now?—Look about
for heaven’s sake! I assure you, I can hardly exist till I see
him.”
“No,” said Catherine, “he is not here; I cannot see him any
where.”
67
“Oh, horrid! am I never to be acquainted with him? How

do you like my gown? I think it does not look amiss; the
sleeves were entirely my own thought. Do you know I get so
immoderately sick of Bath; your brother and I were agreeing
this morning that, though it is vastly well to be here for a few
weeks, we would not live here for millions. We soon found
out that our tastes were exactly alike in preferring the country
to every other place; really, our opinions were so exactly the
same, it was quite ridiculous! There was not a single point
in which we differed; I would not have had you by for the
world; you are such a sly thing, I am sure you would have
made some droll remark or other about it.”
“No, indeed I should not.”
“Oh, yes you would indeed; I know you better than you
know yourself. You would have told us that we seemed born
for each other, or some nonsense of that kind, which would
have distressed me beyond conception; my cheeks would have
been as red as your roses; I would not have had you by for the
world.”
“Indeed you do me injustice; I would not have made so
improper a remark upon any account; and besides, I am sure
it would never have entered my head.”
Isabella smiled incredulously, and talked the rest of the
evening to James.
Catherine’s resolution of endeavouring to meet Miss
Tilney again continued in full force the next morning; and till
the usual moment of going to the Pump-room, she felt some
alarm from the dread of a second prevention. But nothing of
that kind occurred, no visitors appeared to delay them, and
they all three set off in good time for the Pump-room, where
the ordinary course of events and conversation took place;
Mr. Allen, after drinking his glass of water,1 joined some gen-
tlemen to talk over the politics of the day and compare the
68
accounts of their newspapers; and the ladies walked about

together, noticing every new face, and almost every new
bonnet in the room. The female part of the Thorpe fam-
ily, attended by James Morland, appeared among the crowd
in less than a quarter of an hour, and Catherine immediately
took her usual place by the side of her friend. James, who
was now in constant attendance, maintained a similar posi-
tion, and separating themselves from the rest of their party,
they walked in that manner for some time, till Catherine
began to doubt the happiness of a situation which confin-
ing her entirely to her friend and brother, gave her very lit-
tle share in the notice of either. They were always engaged
in some sentimental discussion or lively dispute, but their
sentiment was conveyed in such whispering voices, and their
vivacity attended with so much laughter, that though Cather-
ine’s supporting opinion was not unfrequently called for by
one or the other, she was never able to give any, from not
having heard a word of the subject. At length however she
was empowered to disengage herself from her friend, by the
avowed necessity of speaking to Miss Tilney, whom she most
joyfully saw just entering the room with Mrs. Hughes, and
whom she instantly joined, with a firmer determination to
be acquainted, than she might have had courage to com-
mand, had she not been urged by the disappointment of the
day before. Miss Tilney met her with great civility, returned
her advances with equal good will, and they continued talk-
ing together as long as both parties remained in the room;
and though in all probability not an observation was made,
nor an expression used by either which had not been made
and used some thousands of times before, under that roof, in
every Bath season, yet the merit of their being spoken with
simplicity and truth, and without personal conceit, might be
something uncommon.—
69
“How well your brother dances!” was an artless exclamation

of Catherine’s towards the close of their conversation, which
at once surprized and amused her companion.
“Henry!” she replied with a smile. “Yes, he does dance very
well.”
“He must have thought it very odd to hear me say I
was engaged the other evening, when he saw me sitting
down. But I really had been engaged the whole day to Mr.
Thorpe.” Miss Tilney could only bow. “You cannot think,”
added Catherine after a moment’s silence, “how surprized I
was to see him again. I felt so sure of his being quite gone
away.”
“When Henry had the pleasure of seeing you before, he
was in Bath but for a couple of days. He came only to engage
lodgings for us.”
“That never occurred to me; and of course, not seeing him
any where, I thought he must be gone. Was not the young
lady he danced with on Monday a Miss Smith?”
“Yes, an acquaintance of Mrs. Hughes.”
“I dare say she was very glad to dance. Do you think her
pretty?”
“Not very.”
“He never comes to the Pump-room, I suppose?”
“Yes, sometimes; but he has rid out this morning with my
father.”
Mrs. Hughes now joined them, and asked Miss Tilney if
she was ready to go. “I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing
you again soon,” said Catherine. “Shall you be at the cotillion
ball2 to-morrow?”
“Perhaps we——yes, I think we certainly shall.”
“I am glad of it, for we shall all be there.”—This civility
was duly returned; and they parted—on Miss Tilney’s side
with some knowledge of her new acquaintance’s feelings, and
70
on Catherine’s, without the smallest consciousness of having

explained them.
She went home very happy. The morning had answered
all her hopes, and the evening of the following day was now
the object of expectation, the future good. What gown and
what head-dress she should wear on the occasion became her
chief concern. She cannot be justified in it. Dress is at all
times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about
it often destroys its own aim. Catherine knew all this very
well; her great aunt had read her a lecture on the subject3
only the Christmas before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes
on Wednesday night debating between her spotted and her
tamboured4 muslin, and nothing but the shortness of the time
prevented her buying a new one for the evening. This would
have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon,
from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother
rather than a great aunt might have warned her, for man only
can be aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown.
It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could
they be made to understand how little the heart of man is
affected by what is costly or new in their attire; how little it is
biassed by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible
of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the
mull or the jackonet.5 Woman is fine for her own satisfaction
alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like
her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the
former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will
be most endearing to the latter.—But not one of these grave
reflections troubled the tranquillity of Catherine.
She entered the rooms on Thursday evening with feelings
very different from what had attended her thither the Mon-
day before. She had then been exulting in her engagement
to Thorpe, and was now chiefly anxious to avoid his sight,
71
lest he should engage her again; for though she could not,
dared not expect that Mr. Tilney should ask her a third time
to dance, her wishes, hopes and plans all centered in nothing
less. Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this criti-
cal moment, for every young lady has at some time or other
known the same agitation. All have been, or at least all have
believed themselves to be, in danger from the pursuit of some
one whom they wished to avoid; and all have been anxious for
the attentions of some one whom they wished to please. As
soon as they were joined by the Thorpes, Catherine’s agony
began; she fidgetted about if John Thorpe came towards her,
hid herself as much as possible from his view, and when he
spoke to her pretended not to hear him. The cotillions were
over, the country-dancing6 beginning, and she saw nothing
of the Tilneys. “Do not be frightened, my dear Catherine,”
whispered Isabella, “but I am really going to dance with your
brother again. I declare positively it is quite shocking. I tell
him he ought to be ashamed of himself, but you and John
must keep us in countenance. Make haste, my dear creature,
and come to us. John is just walked off, but he will be back
in a moment.”
Catherine had neither time nor inclination to answer. The
others walked away, John Thorpe was still in view, and she
gave herself up for lost. That she might not appear, however,
to observe or expect him, she kept her eyes intently fixed on
her fan; and a self-condemnation for her folly, in suppos-
ing that among such a crowd they should even meet with
the Tilneys in any reasonable time, had just passed through
her mind, when she suddenly found herself addressed and
again solicited to dance, by Mr. Tilney himself. With what
sparkling eyes and ready motion she granted his request, and
with how pleasing a flutter of heart she went with him to the
set, may be easily imagined. To escape, and, as she believed,
72
so narrowly escape John Thorpe, and to be asked, so imme-

diately on his joining her, asked by Mr. Tilney, as if he had
sought her on purpose!—it did not appear to her that life
could supply any greater felicity.
Scarcely had they worked themselves into the quiet pos-
session of a place, however, when her attention was claimed
by John Thorpe, who stood behind her. “Heyday, Miss
Morland!” said he, “what is the meaning of this?—I thought
you and I were to dance together.”
“I wonder you should think so, for you never asked me.”
“That is a good one, by Jove!—I asked you as soon as I
came into the room, and I was just going to ask you again,
but when I turned round, you were gone!—this is a cursed
shabby trick! I only came for the sake of dancing with you, and
I firmly believe you were engaged to me ever since Monday.
Yes; I remember, I asked you while you were waiting in the
lobby for your cloak. And here have I been telling all my
acquaintance that I was going to dance with the prettiest
girl in the room; and when they see you standing up with
somebody else, they will quiz me famously.”
“Oh, no; they will never think of me, after such a descrip-
tion as that.”
“By heavens, if they do not, I will kick them out of the
room for blockheads. What chap have you there?” Catherine
satisfied his curiosity. “Tilney,” he repeated, “Hum—I do not
know him. A good figure of a man; well put together.—Does
he want a horse?—Here is a friend of mine, Sam Fletcher,
has got one to sell that would suit any body. A famous clever
animal for the road—only forty guineas. I had fifty minds
to buy it myself, for it is one of my maxims always to buy a
good horse when I meet with one; but it would not answer
my purpose, it would not do for the field. I would give any
money for a real good hunter. I have three now, the best that
73
ever were back’d. I would not take eight hundred guineas for
them. Fletcher and I mean to get a house in Leicestershire,7
against the next season. It is so d—— uncomfortable, living
at an inn.”
This was the last sentence by which he could weary Cather-
ine’s attention, for he was just then born off by the resistless
pressure of a long string of passing ladies. Her partner now
drew near, and said, “That gentleman would have put me out
of patience, had he staid with you half a minute longer. He
has no business to withdraw the attention of my partner from
me. We have entered into a contract of mutual agreeableness
for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness belongs
solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten them-
selves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the
other. I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage.
Fidelity and complaisance are the principal duties of both;
and those men who do not chuse to dance or marry them-
selves, have no business with the partners or wives of their
neighbours.”
“But they are such very different things!—”
“—That you think they cannot be compared together.”
“To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but
must go and keep house together. People that dance, only
stand opposite each other in a long room for half an hour.”
“And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing.
Taken in that light certainly, their resemblance is not striking;
but I think I could place them in such a view.—You will allow,
that in both, man has the advantage of choice, woman only
the power of refusal; that in both, it is an engagement between
man and woman, formed for the advantage of each; and that
when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each other
till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each to
endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she
74
had bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest

to keep their own imaginations from wandering towards the
perfections of their neighbours, or fancying that they should
have been better off with any one else. You will allow all
this?”
“Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well;
but still they are so very different.—I cannot look upon them
at all in the same light, nor think the same duties belong to
them.”
“In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In mar-
riage, the man is supposed to provide for the support of the
woman; the woman to make the home agreeable to the man;
he is to purvey, and she is to smile. But in dancing, their
duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness, the compliance
are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and the
lavender water.8 That, I suppose, was the difference of duties
which struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of
comparison.”
“No, indeed, I never thought of that.”
“Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must
observe. This disposition on your side is rather alarming. You
totally disallow any similarity in the obligations; and may I
not thence infer, that your notions of the duties of the dancing
state are not so strict as your partner might wish? Have I not
reason to fear, that if the gentleman who spoke to you just
now were to return, or if any other gentleman were to address
you, there would be nothing to restrain you from conversing
with him as long as you chose?”
“Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother’s,
that if he talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are
hardly three young men in the room besides him, that I have
any acquaintance with.”
“And is that to be my only security? alas, alas!”
75
“Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not

know any body, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and,
besides, I do not want to talk to any body.”
“Now you have given me a security worth having; and I
shall proceed with courage. Do you find Bath as agreeable as
when I had the honour of making the inquiry before?”
“Yes, quite—more so, indeed.”
“More so!—Take care, or you will forget to be tired of it
at the proper time.—You ought to be tired at the end of six
weeks.”
“I do not think I should be tired, if I were to stay here six
months.”
“Bath, compared with London, has little variety, and so
every body finds out every year. ‘For six weeks, I allow Bath
is pleasant enough; but beyond that, it is the most tiresome
place in the world.’ You would be told so by people of all
descriptions, who come regularly every winter, lengthen their
six weeks into ten or twelve,9 and go away at last because they
can afford to stay no longer.”
“Well, other people must judge for themselves, and those
who go to London may think nothing of Bath. But I, who live
in a small retired village in the country, can never find greater
sameness in such a place as this, than in my own home; for
here are a variety of amusements, a variety of things to be seen
and done all day long, which I can know nothing of there.”
“You are not fond of the country.”
“Yes, I am. I have always lived there, and always been very
happy. But certainly there is much more sameness in a country
life than in a Bath life. One day in the country is exactly like
another.”
“But then you spend your time so much more rationally in
the country.”
76
“Do I?”
“Do you not?”
“I do not believe there is much difference.”
“Here you are in pursuit only of amusement all day long.”
“And so I am at home—only I do not find so much of it. I
walk about here, and so I do there;—but here I see a variety
of people in every street, and there I can only go and call on
Mrs. Allen.”
Mr. Tilney was very much amused. “Only go and call
on Mrs. Allen!” he repeated. “What a picture of intellec-
tual poverty! However, when you sink into this abyss again,
you will have more to say. You will be able to talk of Bath,
and of all that you did here.”
“Oh! yes. I shall never be in want of something to talk of
again to Mrs. Allen, or any body else. I really believe I shall
always be talking of Bath, when I am at home again—I do
like it so very much. If I could but have papa and mamma,
and the rest of them here, I suppose I should be too happy!
James’s coming (my eldest brother) is quite delightful—and
especially as it turns out, that the very family we are just got
so intimate with, are his intimate friends already. Oh! who
can ever be tired of Bath?”
“Not those who bring such fresh feelings of every sort to it,
as you do. But papas and mammas, and brothers and intimate
friends are a good deal gone by, to most of the frequenters of
Bath—and the honest relish of balls and plays, and every-day
sights, is past with them.”
Here their conversation closed; the demands of the dance
becoming now too importunate for a divided attention.
Soon after their reaching the bottom of the set, Catherine
perceived herself to be earnestly regarded by a gentleman
who stood among the lookers-on, immediately behind her
77
partner. He was a very handsome man, of a commanding

aspect, past the bloom, but not past the vigour of life; and
with his eye still directed towards her, she saw him presently
address Mr. Tilney in a familiar whisper. Confused by his
notice, and blushing from the fear of its being excited by
something wrong in her appearance, she turned away her
head. But while she did so, the gentleman retreated, and
her partner coming nearer, said, “I see that you guess what
I have just been asked. That gentleman knows your name,
and you have a right to know his. It is General Tilney, my
father.”
Catherine’s answer was only “Oh!”—but it was an “Oh!”
expressing every thing needful; attention to his words, and
perfect reliance on their truth. With real interest and strong
admiration did her eye now follow the General, as he moved
through the crowd, and “How handsome a family they are!”
was her secret remark.
In chatting with Miss Tilney before the evening con-
cluded, a new source of felicity arose to her. She had never
taken a country walk since her arrival in Bath. Miss Tilney,
to whom all the commonly-frequented environs were famil-
iar, spoke of them in terms which made her all eagerness to
know them too; and on her openly fearing that she might find
nobody to go with her, it was proposed by the brother and
sister that they should join in a walk, some morning or other.
“I shall like it,” she cried, “beyond any thing in the world;
and do not let us put it off—let us go to-morrow.” This was
readily agreed to, with only a proviso of Miss Tilney’s, that
it did not rain, which Catherine was sure it would not. At
twelve o’clock, they were to call for her in Pulteney-street—
and “remember—twelve o’clock,” was her parting speech to
her new friend. Of her other, her older, her more established
friend, Isabella, of whose fidelity and worth she had enjoyed a
78
fortnight’s experience, she scarcely saw any thing during the

evening. Yet, though longing to make her acquainted with
her happiness, she cheerfully submitted to the wish of Mr.
Allen, which took them rather early away, and her spirits
danced within her, as she danced in her chair all the way
home.
79
Chapter 11
T h e morrow brought a very sober looking morning; the sun

making only a few efforts to appear; and Catherine augured
from it, every thing most favourable to her wishes. A bright
morning so early in the year, she allowed would generally turn
to rain, but a cloudy one foretold improvement as the day
advanced. She applied to Mr. Allen for confirmation of her
hopes, but Mr. Allen not having his own skies and barometer
about him, declined giving any absolute promise of sunshine.
She applied to Mrs. Allen, and Mrs. Allen’s opinion was more
positive. “She had no doubt in the world of its being a very
fine day, if the clouds would only go off, and the sun keep
out.”
At about eleven o’clock however, a few specks of small rain
upon the windows caught Catherine’s watchful eye, and “Oh!
dear, I do believe it will be wet,” broke from her in a most
desponding tone.
“I thought how it would be,” said Mrs. Allen.
“No walk for me to-day,” sighed Catherine;—“but per-
haps it may come to nothing, or it may hold up before
twelve.”
“Perhaps it may, but then, my dear, it will be so dirty.”
“Oh! that will not signify; I never mind dirt.”
“No,” replied her friend very placidly, “I know you never
mind dirt.”
After a short pause, “It comes on faster and faster!” said
Catherine, as she stood watching at a window.
80
“So it does indeed. If it keeps raining, the streets will be

very wet.”
“There are four umbrellas up already. How I hate the sight
of an umbrella!”
“They are disagreeable things to carry. I would much rather
take a chair at any time.”
“It was such a nice looking morning! I felt so convinced it
would be dry!”
“Any body would have thought so indeed. There will be
very few people in the Pump-room, if it rains all the morning.
I hope Mr. Allen will put on his great coat when he goes, but
I dare say he will not, for he had rather do any thing in the
world than walk out in a great coat; I wonder he should dislike
it, it must be so comfortable.”
The rain continued—fast, though not heavy. Catherine
went every five minutes to the clock, threatening on each
return that, if it still kept on raining another five minutes,
she would give up the matter as hopeless. The clock struck
twelve, and it still rained.—“You will not be able to go, my
dear.”
“I do not quite despair yet. I shall not give it up till a quarter
after twelve. This is just the time of day for it to clear up, and
I do think it looks a little lighter. There, it is twenty minutes
after twelve, and now I shall give it up entirely. Oh! that we
had such weather here as they had at Udolpho, or at least in
Tuscany and the South of France!—the night that poor St.
Aubin died!—such beautiful weather!”1
At half past twelve, when Catherine’s anxious attention
to the weather was over, and she could no longer claim
any merit from its amendment, the sky began voluntarily
to clear. A gleam of sunshine took her quite by surprize;
she looked round; the clouds were parting, and she instantly
returned to the window to watch over and encourage the
81
happy appearance. Ten minutes more made it certain that a

bright afternoon would succeed, and justified the opinion of
Mrs. Allen, who had “always thought it would clear up.” But
whether Catherine might still expect her friends, whether
there had not been too much rain for Miss Tilney to venture,
must yet be a question.
It was too dirty for Mrs. Allen to accompany her husband
to the Pump-room; he accordingly set off by himself, and
Catherine had barely watched him down the street, when
her notice was claimed by the approach of the same two
open carriages, containing the same three people that had
surprized her so much a few mornings back.
“Isabella, my brother, and Mr. Thorpe, I declare! They
are coming for me perhaps—but I shall not go—I cannot go
indeed, for you know Miss Tilney may still call.” Mrs. Allen
agreed to it. John Thorpe was soon with them, and his voice
was with them yet sooner, for on the stairs he was calling out
to Miss Morland to be quick. “Make haste! make haste!” as
he threw open the door—“put on your hat this moment—
there is no time to be lost—we are going to Bristol.2 —How
d’ye do, Mrs. Allen?”
“To Bristol! Is not that a great way off ?—But, however, I
cannot go with you to-day, because I am engaged; I expect
some friends every moment.” This was of course vehemently
talked down as no reason at all; Mrs. Allen was called on
to second him, and the two others walked in, to give their
assistance. “My sweetest Catherine, is not this delightful?
We shall have a most heavenly drive. You are to thank your
brother and me for the scheme; it darted into our heads at
breakfast-time, I verily believe at the same instant; and we
should have been off two hours ago if it had not been for
this detestable rain. But it does not signify, the nights are
moonlight, and we shall do delightfully. Oh! I am in such
82
extasies at the thoughts of a little country air and quiet!—so

much better than going to the Lower Rooms. We shall drive
directly to Clifton3 and dine there; and, as soon as dinner is
over, if there is time for it, go on to Kingsweston.”
“I doubt our being able to do so much,” said Morland.
“You croaking fellow!” cried Thorpe, “we shall be able to
do ten times more. Kingsweston! aye, and Blaize Castle4 too,
and any thing else we can hear of; but here is your sister says
she will not go.”
“Blaize Castle!” cried Catherine; “what is that?”
“The finest place in England—worth going fifty miles at
any time to see.”
“What, is it really a castle, an old castle?”
“The oldest in the kingdom.”
“But is it like what one reads of ?”
“Exactly—the very same.”
“But now really—are there towers and long galleries?”
“By dozens.”
“Then I should like to see it; but I cannot——I cannot
go.”
“Not go!—my beloved creature, what do you mean?”
“I cannot go, because”——(looking down as she spoke,
fearful of Isabella’s smile) “I expect Miss Tilney and her
brother to call on me to take a country walk. They promised
to come at twelve, only it rained; but now, as it is so fine, I
dare say they will be here soon.”
“Not they indeed,” cried Thorpe; “for, as we turned into
Broad-street,5 I saw them—does he not drive a phaeton with
bright chesnuts?”6
“I do not know indeed.”
“Yes, I know he does; I saw him. You are talking of the
man you danced with last night, are not you?”
“Yes.”
83
“Well, I saw him at that moment turn up the Lansdown

Road,7 —driving a smart-looking girl.”
“Did you indeed?”
“Did upon my soul; knew him again directly, and he
seemed to have got some very pretty cattle too.”
“It is very odd! but I suppose they thought it would be too
dirty for a walk.”
“And well they might, for I never saw so much dirt in my
life. Walk! you could no more walk than you could fly! it has
not been so dirty the whole winter; it is ancle-deep every
where.”
Isabella corroborated it:—“My dearest Catherine, you can-
not form an idea of the dirt; come, you must go; you cannot
refuse going now.”
“I should like to see the castle; but may we go all over it?
may we go up every staircase, and into every suite of rooms?”
“Yes, yes, every hole and corner.”
“But then,—if they should only be gone out for an hour
till it is drier, and call by and bye?”
“Make yourself easy, there is no danger of that, for I heard
Tilney hallooing to a man who was just passing by on horse-
back, that they were going as far as Wick Rocks.”8
“Then I will. Shall I go, Mrs. Allen?”
“Just as you please, my dear.”
“Mrs. Allen, you must persuade her to go,” was the general
cry. Mrs. Allen was not inattentive to it:—“Well, my dear,”
said she, “suppose you go.”—And in two minutes they were
off.
Catherine’s feelings, as she got into the carriage, were in
a very unsettled state; divided between regret for the loss of
one great pleasure, and the hope of soon enjoying another,
almost its equal in degree, however unlike in kind. She could
not think the Tilneys had acted quite well by her, in so readily
84
giving up their engagement, without sending her any message

of excuse. It was now but an hour later than the time fixed on
for the beginning of their walk; and, in spite of what she had
heard of the prodigious accumulation of dirt in the course
of that hour, she could not from her own observation help
thinking, that they might have gone with very little incon-
venience. To feel herself slighted by them was very painful.
On the other hand, the delight of exploring an edifice like
Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was
such a counterpoise of good, as might console her for almost
any thing.
They passed briskly down Pulteney-street, and through
Laura-place, without the exchange of many words. Thorpe
talked to his horse, and she meditated, by turns, on broken
promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings,
Tilneys and trap-doors.9 As they entered Argyle-buildings,10
however, she was roused by this address from her companion,
“Who is that girl who looked at you so hard as she went by?”
“Who?—where?”
“On the right-hand pavement—she must be almost out
of sight now.” Catherine looked round and saw Miss Tilney
leaning on her brother’s arm, walking slowly down the street.
She saw them both looking back at her. “Stop, stop, Mr.
Thorpe,” she impatiently cried, “it is Miss Tilney; it is
indeed.—How could you tell me they were gone?—Stop,
stop, I will get out this moment and go to them.” But to
what purpose did she speak?—Thorpe only lashed his horse
into a brisker trot; the Tilneys, who had soon ceased to look
after her, were in a moment out of sight round the corner of
Laura-place, and in another moment she was herself whisked
into the Market-place.11 Still, however, and during the length
of another street, she intreated him to stop. “Pray, pray stop,
Mr. Thorpe.—I cannot go on.—I will not go on.—I must go
85
back to Miss Tilney.” But Mr. Thorpe only laughed, smacked

his whip, encouraged his horse, made odd noises, and drove
on; and Catherine, angry and vexed as she was, having no
power of getting away, was obliged to give up the point and
submit.12 Her reproaches, however, were not spared. “How
could you deceive me so, Mr. Thorpe?—How could you say,
that you saw them driving up the Lansdown-road?—I would
not have had it happen so for the world.—They must think it
so strange; so rude of me! to go by them, too, without saying
a word! You do not know how vexed I am—I shall have no
pleasure at Clifton, nor in any thing else. I had rather, ten
thousand times rather get out now, and walk back to them.
How could you say, you saw them driving out in a phaeton?”
Thorpe defended himself very stoutly, declared he had never
seen two men so much alike in his life, and would hardly give
up the point of its having been Tilney himself.
Their drive, even when this subject was over, was not likely
to be very agreeable. Catherine’s complaisance was no longer
what it had been in their former airing. She listened reluc-
tantly, and her replies were short. Blaize Castle remained
her only comfort; towards that, she still looked at inter-
vals with pleasure; though rather than be disappointed of
the promised walk, and especially rather than be thought
ill of by the Tilneys, she would willingly have given up all
the happiness which its walls could supply—the happiness
of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms, exhibiting
the remains of magnificent furniture, though now for many
years deserted—the happiness of being stopped in their way
along narrow, winding vaults, by a low, grated door; or even
of having their lamp, their only lamp, extinguished by a sud-
den gust of wind, and of being left in total darkness.13 In
the meanwhile, they proceeded on their journey without any
mischance; and were within view of the town of Keynsham,14
86
when a halloo15 from Morland, who was behind them, made

his friend pull up, to know what was the matter. The others
then came close enough for conversation, and Morland said,
“We had better go back, Thorpe; it is too late to go on to-
day; your sister thinks so as well as I. We have been exactly
an hour coming from Pulteney-street, very little more than
seven miles; and, I suppose, we have at least eight more to
go. It will never do. We set out a great deal too late. We had
much better put it off till another day, and turn round.”
“It is all one to me,” replied Thorpe rather angrily; and
instantly turning his horse, they were on their way back to
Bath.
“If your brother had not got such a d—— beast to drive,”
said he soon afterwards, “we might have done it very well.
My horse would have trotted to Clifton within the hour, if
left to himself, and I have almost broke my arm with pulling
him in to that cursed broken-winded jade’s pace.16 Morland
is a fool for not keeping a horse and gig of his own.”
“No, he is not,” said Catherine warmly, “for I am sure he
could not afford it.”
“And why cannot he afford it?”
“Because he has not money enough.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Nobody’s, that I know of.” Thorpe then said something
in the loud, incoherent way to which he had often recourse,
about its being a d—— thing to be miserly; and that if people
who rolled in money could not afford things, he did not
know who could; which Catherine did not even endeavour
to understand. Disappointed of what was to have been the
consolation for her first disappointment, she was less and
less disposed either to be agreeable herself, or to find her
companion so; and they returned to Pulteney-street without
her speaking twenty words.
87
As she entered the house, the footman told her, that a

gentleman and lady had called and inquired for her a few
minutes after her setting off; that, when he told them she
was gone out with Mr. Thorpe, the lady had asked whether
any message had been left for her; and on his saying no, had
felt for a card,17 but said she had none about her, and went
away. Pondering over these heart-rending tidings, Catherine
walked slowly up stairs. At the head of them she was met by
Mr. Allen, who, on hearing the reason of their speedy return,
said, “I am glad your brother had so much sense; I am glad
you are come back. It was a strange, wild scheme.”
They all spent the evening together at Thorpe’s. Catherine
was disturbed and out of spirits; but Isabella seemed to find
a pool of commerce,18 in the fate of which she shared, by
private partnership with Morland, a very good equivalent for
the quiet and country air of an inn at Clifton. Her satisfaction,
too, in not being at the Lower Rooms, was spoken more than
once. “How I pity the poor creatures that are going there!
How glad I am that I am not amongst them! I wonder whether
it will be a full ball19 or not! They have not begun dancing
yet. I would not be there for all the world. It is so delightful
to have an evening now and then to oneself. I dare say it
will not be a very good ball. I know the Mitchells will not
be there. I am sure I pity every body that is. But I dare say,
Mr. Morland, you long to be at it, do not you? I am sure you
do. Well, pray do not let any body here be a restraint on you.
I dare say we could do very well without you; but you men
think yourselves of such consequence.”
Catherine could almost have accused Isabella of being
wanting in tenderness towards herself and her sorrows; so
very little did they appear to dwell on her mind, and so very
inadequate was the comfort she offered. “Do not be so dull,
my dearest creature,” she whispered. “You will quite break my
88
heart. It was amazingly shocking to be sure; but the Tilneys

were entirely to blame. Why were not they more punctual?
It was dirty, indeed, but what did that signify? I am sure
John and I should not have minded it. I never mind going
through any thing, where a friend is concerned; that is my
disposition, and John is just the same; he has amazing strong
feelings. Good heavens! what a delightful hand you have got!
Kings,20 I vow! I never was so happy in my life! I would fifty
times rather you should have them than myself.”
And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch,
which is the true heroine’s portion; to a pillow strewed with
thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself,
if she get another good night’s rest in the course of the next
three months.
89
Chapter 12
“M r s . A l l e n ,” said Catherine the next morning, “will

there be any harm in my calling on Miss Tilney to-day? I
shall not be easy till I have explained every thing.”
“Go by all means, my dear; only put on a white1 gown;
Miss Tilney always wears white.”
Catherine cheerfully complied; and being properly
equipped, was more impatient than ever to be at the Pump-
room, that she might inform herself of General Tilney’s lodg-
ings, for though she believed they were in Milsom-street, she
was not certain of the house, and Mrs. Allen’s wavering con-
victions only made it more doubtful. To Milsom-street she
was directed; and having made herself perfect in the num-
ber, hastened away with eager steps and a beating heart to
pay her visit, explain her conduct, and be forgiven; tripping
lightly through the church-yard, and resolutely turning away
her eyes, that she might not be obliged to see her beloved
Isabella and her dear family, who, she had reason to believe,
were in a shop hard by. She reached the house without any
impediment, looked at the number, knocked at the door, and
inquired for Miss Tilney. The man believed Miss Tilney to
be at home, but was not quite certain. Would she be pleased
to send up her name? She gave her card. In a few min-
utes the servant returned, and with a look which did not
quite confirm his words, said he had been mistaken, for that
Miss Tilney was walked out. Catherine, with a blush of
mortification, left the house. She felt almost persuaded that
90
Miss Tilney was at home, and too much offended to admit

her; and as she retired down the street, could not withhold
one glance at the drawing-room windows, in expectation of
seeing her there, but no one appeared at them. At the bottom
of the street, however, she looked back again, and then, not
at a window, but issuing from the door, she saw Miss Tilney
herself. She was followed by a gentleman, whom Catherine
believed to be her father, and they turned up towards Edgar’s-
buildings. Catherine, in deep mortification, proceeded on her
way. She could almost be angry herself at such angry incivility;
but she checked the resentful sensation; she remembered her
own ignorance. She knew not how such an offence as her’s
might be classed by the laws of worldly politeness,2 to what
a degree of unforgivingness it might with propriety lead, nor
to what rigours of rudeness in return it might justly make her
amenable.
Dejected and humbled, she had even some thoughts of not
going with the others to the theatre that night; but it must
be confessed that they were not of long continuance: for she
soon recollected, in the first place, that she was without any
excuse for staying at home; and, in the second, that it was a
play she wanted very much to see. To the theatre accordingly
they all went; no Tilneys appeared to plague or please her;
she feared that, amongst the many perfections of the family,
a fondness for plays was not to be ranked; but perhaps it was
because they were habituated to the finer performances of the
London stage, which she knew, on Isabella’s authority, ren-
dered every thing else of the kind “quite horrid.” She was not
deceived in her own expectation of pleasure; the comedy so
well suspended her care, that no one, observing her during the
first four acts, would have supposed she had any wretched-
ness about her. On the beginning of the fifth, however, the
sudden view of Mr. Henry Tilney and his father, joining a
91
party in the opposite box, recalled her to anxiety and distress.

The stage could no longer excite genuine merriment—no
longer keep her whole attention. Every other look upon an
average was directed towards the opposite box; and, for the
space of two entire scenes, did she thus watch Henry Tilney,
without being once able to catch his eye. No longer could
he be suspected of indifference for a play; his notice was
never withdrawn from the stage during two whole scenes. At
length, however, he did look towards her, and he bowed—but
such a bow! no smile, no continued observance attended it;
his eyes were immediately returned to their former direction.
Catherine was restlessly miserable; she could almost have run
round to the box in which he sat, and forced him to hear her
explanation. Feelings rather natural than heroic possessed
her; instead of considering her own dignity injured by this
ready condemnation—instead of proudly resolving, in con-
scious innocence,3 to shew her resentment towards him who
could harbour a doubt of it, to leave to him all the trouble
of seeking an explanation, and to enlighten him on the past
only by avoiding his sight, or flirting with somebody else,
she took to herself all the shame of misconduct, or at least
of its appearance, and was only eager for an opportunity of
explaining its cause.
The play concluded—the curtain fell—Henry Tilney was
no longer to be seen where he had hitherto sat, but his father
remained, and perhaps he might be now coming round to
their box. She was right; in a few minutes he appeared, and,
making his way through the then thinning rows, spoke with
like calm politeness to Mrs. Allen and her friend.—Not with
such calmness was he answered by the latter: “Oh! Mr. Tilney,
I have been quite wild to speak to you, and make my apologies.
You must have thought me so rude; but indeed it was not
my own fault,—was it, Mrs. Allen? Did not they tell me that
92
Mr. Tilney and his sister were gone out in a phaeton together?
and then what could I do? But I had ten thousand times rather
have been with you; now had not I, Mrs. Allen?”
“My dear, you tumble my gown,” was Mrs. Allen’s reply.
Her assurance, however, standing sole as it did, was not
thrown away; it brought a more cordial, more natural smile
into his countenance, and he replied in a tone which retained
only a little affected reserve:—“We were much obliged to you
at any rate for wishing us a pleasant walk after our passing
you in Argyle-street: you were so kind as to look back on
purpose.”
“But indeed I did not wish you a pleasant walk; I never
thought of such a thing; but I begged Mr. Thorpe so earnestly
to stop; I called out to him as soon as ever I saw you; now,
Mrs. Allen, did not——Oh! you were not there; but indeed
I did; and, if Mr. Thorpe would only have stopped, I would
have jumped out and run after you.”
Is there a Henry in the world who could be insensible to
such a declaration? Henry Tilney at least was not. With a
yet sweeter smile, he said every thing that need be said of
his sister’s concern, regret, and dependence on Catherine’s
honour.—“Oh! do not say Miss Tilney was not angry,” cried
Catherine, “because I know she was; for she would not see
me this morning when I called; I saw her walk out of the
house the next minute after my leaving it; I was hurt, but
I was not affronted. Perhaps you did not know I had been
there.”
“I was not within at the time; but I heard of it from Eleanor,
and she has been wishing ever since to see you, to explain the
reason of such incivility; but perhaps I can do it as well. It
was nothing more than that my father——they were just
preparing to walk out, and he being hurried for time, and not
caring to have it put off, made a point of her being denied.
93
That was all, I do assure you. She was very much vexed, and
meant to make her apology as soon as possible.”
Catherine’s mind was greatly eased by this information, yet
a something of solicitude remained, from which sprang the
following question, thoroughly artless in itself, though rather
distressing to the gentleman:—“But, Mr. Tilney, why were
you less generous than your sister? If she felt such confidence
in my good intentions, and could suppose it to be only a
mistake, why should you be so ready to take offence?”
“Me!—I take offence!”
“Nay, I am sure by your look, when you came into the box,
you were angry.”
“I angry! I could have no right.”
“Well, nobody would have thought you had no right who
saw your face.” He replied by asking her to make room for
him, and talking of the play.
He remained with them some time, and was only too agree-
able for Catherine to be contented when he went away. Before
they parted, however, it was agreed that the projected walk
should be taken as soon as possible; and, setting aside the
misery of his quitting their box, she was, upon the whole, left
one of the happiest creatures in the world.
While talking to each other, she had observed with some
surprize, that John Thorpe, who was never in the same part
of the house for ten minutes together, was engaged in con-
versation with General Tilney; and she felt something more
than surprize, when she thought she could perceive herself
the object of their attention and discourse. What could they
have to say of her? She feared General Tilney did not like
her appearance: she found it was implied in his preventing
her admittance to his daughter, rather than postpone his own
walk a few minutes. “How came Mr. Thorpe to know your
father?” was her anxious inquiry, as she pointed them out to
94
her companion. He knew nothing about it; but his father,

like every military man, had a very large acquaintance.
When the entertainment was over, Thorpe came to assist
them in getting out. Catherine was the immediate object
of his gallantry; and, while they waited in the lobby for a
chair, he prevented the inquiry which had travelled from her
heart almost to the tip of her tongue, by asking, in a con-
sequential manner,4 whether she had seen him talking with
General Tilney:—“He is a fine old fellow, upon my soul!—
stout, active—looks as young as his son. I have a great regard
for him, I assure you: a gentleman-like, good sort of fellow
as ever lived.”5
“But how came you to know him?”
“Know him!—There are few people much about town that
I do not know. I have met him for ever at the Bedford;6 and
I knew his face again to-day the moment he came into the
billiard-room. One of the best players we have, by the bye;
and we had a little touch7 together, though I was almost afraid
of him at first: the odds were five to four against me; and, if
I had not made one of the cleanest strokes that perhaps ever
was made in this world——I took his ball exactly——but I
could not make you understand it without a table;—however
I did beat him. A very fine fellow; as rich as a Jew. I should
like to dine with him; I dare say he gives famous dinners.
But what do you think we have been talking of ?—You. Yes,
by heavens!—and the General thinks you the finest girl in
Bath.”
“Oh! nonsense! how can you say so?”
“And what do you think I said?” (lowering his voice) “Well
done, General, said I, I am quite of your mind.”
Here Catherine, who was much less gratified by his admi-
ration than by General Tilney’s, was not sorry to be called
away by Mr. Allen. Thorpe, however, would see her to her
95
chair, and, till she entered it, continued the same kind of
delicate flattery, in spite of her entreating him to have done.
That General Tilney, instead of disliking, should admire
her, was very delightful; and she joyfully thought, that there
was not one of the family whom she need now fear to meet.—
The evening had done more, much more, for her, than could
have been expected.
96
Chapter 13
M o n da y , Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sat-

urday have now passed in review before the reader; the events
of each day, its hopes and fears, mortifications and pleasures
have been separately stated, and the pangs of Sunday only
now remain to be described, and close the week.1 The Clifton
scheme had been deferred, not relinquished, and on the after-
noon’s Crescent of this day,2 it was brought forward again. In
a private consultation between Isabella and James, the former
of whom had particularly set her heart upon going, and the
latter no less anxiously placed his upon pleasing her, it was
agreed that, provided the weather were fair, the party should
take place on the following morning; and they were to set off
very early, in order to be at home in good time. The affair thus
determined, and Thorpe’s approbation secured, Catherine
only remained to be apprized of it. She had left them for a
few minutes to speak to Miss Tilney. In that interval the plan
was completed, and as soon as she came again, her agreement
was demanded; but instead of the gay acquiescence expected
by Isabella, Catherine looked grave, was very sorry, but could
not go. The engagement which ought to have kept her from
joining in the former attempt, would make it impossible for
her to accompany them now. She had that moment settled
with Miss Tilney to take their promised walk to-morrow; it
was quite determined, and she would not, upon any account,
retract. But that she must and should retract, was instantly
the eager cry of both the Thorpes; they must go to Clifton
97
to-morrow, they would not go without her, it would be noth-

ing to put off a mere walk for one day longer, and they
would not hear of a refusal. Catherine was distressed, but not
subdued. “Do not urge me, Isabella. I am engaged to Miss
Tilney. I cannot go.” This availed nothing. The same argu-
ments assailed her again; she must go, she should go, and they
would not hear of a refusal. “It would be so easy to tell Miss
Tilney that you had just been reminded of a prior engage-
ment, and must only beg to put off the walk till Tuesday.”
“No, it would not be easy. I could not do it. There has been
no prior engagement.” But Isabella became only more and
more urgent; calling on her in the most affectionate manner;
addressing her by the most endearing names. She was sure her
dearest, sweetest Catherine would not seriously refuse such a
trifling request to a friend who loved her so dearly. She knew
her beloved Catherine to have so feeling a heart, so sweet a
temper, to be so easily persuaded by those she loved. But all
in vain; Catherine felt herself to be in the right, and though
pained by such tender, such flattering supplication, could not
allow it to influence her. Isabella then tried another method.
She reproached her with having more affection for Miss
Tilney, though she had known her so little a while, than for
her best and oldest friends; with being grown cold and indif-
ferent, in short, towards herself. “I cannot help being jealous,
Catherine, when I see myself slighted for strangers, I, who
love you so excessively! When once my affections are placed, it
is not in the power of any thing to change them. But I believe
my feelings are stronger than any body’s; I am sure they are
too strong for my own peace; and to see myself supplanted
in your friendship by strangers, does cut me to the quick, I
own. These Tilneys seem to swallow up every thing else.”
Catherine thought this reproach equally strange and
unkind. Was it the part of a friend thus to expose her feelings
98
to the notice of others? Isabella appeared to her ungenerous

and selfish, regardless of every thing but her own gratifica-
tion. These painful ideas crossed her mind, though she said
nothing. Isabella, in the meanwhile, had applied her hand-
kerchief to her eyes; and Morland, miserable at such a sight,
could not help saying, “Nay, Catherine. I think you cannot
stand out any longer now. The sacrifice is not much; and to
oblige such a friend—I shall think you quite unkind, if you
still refuse.”
This was the first time of her brother’s openly siding against
her, and anxious to avoid his displeasure, she proposed a com-
promise. If they would only put off their scheme till Tuesday,
which they might easily do, as it depended only on them-
selves, she could go with them, and every body might then
be satisfied. But “No, no, no!” was the immediate answer;
“that could not be, for Thorpe did not know that he might
not go to town on Tuesday.” Catherine was sorry, but could
do no more; and a short silence ensued, which was broken by
Isabella; who in a voice of cold resentment said, “Very well,
then there is an end of the party. If Catherine does not go, I
cannot. I cannot be the only woman. I would not, upon any
account in the world, do so improper a thing.”
“Catherine, you must go,” said James.
“But why cannot Mr. Thorpe drive one of his other sisters?
I dare say either of them would like to go.”
“Thank ye,” cried Thorpe, “but I did not come to Bath to
drive my sisters about, and look like a fool. No, if you do not
go, d——me if I do. I only go for the sake of driving you.”
“That is a compliment which gives me no pleasure.” But
her words were lost on Thorpe, who had turned abruptly
away.
The three others still continued together, walking in a most
uncomfortable manner to poor Catherine; sometimes not a
99
word was said, sometimes she was again attacked with sup-
plications or reproaches, and her arm was still linked within
Isabella’s, though their hearts were at war. At one moment
she was softened, at another irritated; always distressed, but
always steady.
“I did not think you had been so obstinate, Catherine,”
said James; “you were not used to be so hard to persuade; you
once were the kindest, best-tempered of my sisters.”
“I hope I am not less so now,” she replied, very feelingly;
“but indeed I cannot go. If I am wrong, I am doing what I
believe to be right.”
“I suspect,” said Isabella, in a low voice, “there is no great
struggle.”
Catherine’s heart swelled; she drew away her arm, and
Isabella made no opposition. Thus passed a long ten minutes,
till they were again joined by Thorpe, who coming to them
with a gayer look, said, “Well, I have settled the matter, and
now we may all go to-morrow with a safe conscience. I have
been to Miss Tilney, and made your excuses.”
“You have not!” cried Catherine.
“I have, upon my soul. Left her this moment. Told her
you had sent me to say, that having just recollected a prior
engagement of going to Clifton with us to-morrow, you could
not have the pleasure of walking with her till Tuesday. She
said very well, Tuesday was just as convenient to her; so there
is an end of all our difficulties.—A pretty good thought of
mine—hey?”
Isabella’s countenance was once more all smiles and good-
humour, and James too looked happy again.
“A most heavenly thought indeed! Now, my sweet
Catherine, all our distresses are over; you are honourably
acquitted, and we shall have a most delightful party.”
100
“This will not do,” said Catherine; “I cannot submit to

this. I must run after Miss Tilney directly and set her right.”
Isabella, however, caught hold of one hand; Thorpe of
the other; and remonstrances poured in from all three. Even
James was quite angry. When every thing was settled, when
Miss Tilney herself said that Tuesday would suit her as well,
it was quite ridiculous, quite absurd to make any further
objection.
“I do not care. Mr. Thorpe had no business to invent any
such message. If I had thought it right to put it off, I could
have spoken to Miss Tilney myself. This is only doing it in a
ruder way; and how do I know that Mr. Thorpe has——he
may be mistaken again perhaps; he led me into one act of
rudeness by his mistake on Friday. Let me go, Mr. Thorpe;
Isabella, do not hold me.”
Thorpe told her it would be in vain to go after the Tilneys;
they were turning the corner into Brock-street,3 when he had
overtaken them, and were at home by this time.
“Then I will go after them,” said Catherine; “wherever
they are I will go after them. It does not signify talking. If I
could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I
never will be tricked into it.” And with these words she broke
away and hurried off. Thorpe would have darted after her,
but Morland withheld him.
“Let her go, let her go, if she will go. She is as obstinate
as———”
Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have
been a proper one.4
Away walked Catherine in great agitation, as fast as the
crowd would permit her, fearful of being pursued, yet deter-
mined to persevere. As she walked, she reflected on what
had passed. It was painful to her to disappoint and displease
101
them, particularly to displease her brother; but she could not

repent her resistance. Setting her own inclination apart, to
have failed a second time in her engagement to Miss Tilney,
to have retracted a promise voluntarily made only five minutes
before, and on a false pretence too, must have been wrong.
She had not been withstanding them on selfish principles
alone, she had not consulted merely her own gratification;
that might have been ensured in some degree by the excursion
itself, by seeing Blaize Castle; no, she had attended to what
was due to others, and to her own character in their opinion.
Her conviction of being right however was not enough to
restore her composure, till she had spoken to Miss Tilney
she could not be at ease; and quickening her pace when she
got clear of the Crescent, she almost ran over the remaining
ground till she gained the top of Milsom-street. So rapid had
been her movements, that in spite of the Tilneys’ advantage in
the outset, they were but just turning into their lodgings as she
came within view of them; and the servant still remaining at
the open door, she used only the ceremony of saying that she
must speak with Miss Tilney that moment, and hurrying by
him proceeded up stairs. Then, opening the first door before
her, which happened to be the right, she immediately found
herself in the drawing-room with General Tilney, his son and
daughter. Her explanation, defective only in being—from her
irritation of nerves and shortness of breath—no explanation
at all, was instantly given. “I am come in a great hurry—It was
all a mistake—I never promised to go—I told them from the
first I could not go.—I ran away in a great hurry to explain
it.—I did not care what you thought of me.—I would not
stay for the servant.”
The business however, though not perfectly elucidated by
this speech, soon ceased to be a puzzle. Catherine found that
John Thorpe had given the message; and Miss Tilney had no
102
scruple in owning herself greatly surprized by it. But whether

her brother had still exceeded her in resentment, Catherine,
though she instinctively addressed herself as much to one as
to the other in her vindication, had no means of knowing.
Whatever might have been felt before her arrival, her eager
declarations immediately made every look and sentence as
friendly as she could desire.
The affair thus happily settled, she was introduced by Miss
Tilney to her father, and received by him with such ready, such
solicitous politeness as recalled Thorpe’s information to her
mind, and made her think with pleasure that he might be
sometimes depended on. To such anxious attention was the
general’s civility carried, that not aware of her extraordinary
swiftness in entering the house, he was quite angry with the
servant whose neglect had reduced her to open the door of the
apartment herself. “What did William mean by it? He should
make a point of inquiring into the matter.” And if Catherine
had not most warmly asserted his innocence, it seemed likely
that William would lose the favour of his master for ever, if
not his place, by her rapidity.
After sitting with them a quarter of an hour,5 she rose to
take leave, and was then most agreeably surprized by General
Tilney’s asking her if she would do his daughter the honour of
dining and spending the rest of the day with her. Miss Tilney
added her own wishes. Catherine was greatly obliged; but it
was quite out of her power. Mr. and Mrs. Allen would expect
her back every moment. The general declared he could say
no more; the claims of Mr. and Mrs. Allen were not to be
superseded; but on some other day he trusted, when longer
notice could be given, they would not refuse to spare her
to her friend. “Oh, no; Catherine was sure they would not
have the least objection, and she should have great pleasure in
coming.” The general attended her himself to the street-door,
103
saying every thing gallant as they went down stairs, admiring

the elasticity of her walk, which corresponded exactly with
the spirit of her dancing, and making her one of the most
graceful bows she had ever beheld, when they parted.
Catherine, delighted by all that had passed, proceeded gaily
to Pulteney-street; walking, as she concluded, with great elas-
ticity, though she had never thought of it before. She reached
home without seeing any thing more of the offended party;
and now that she had been triumphant throughout, had car-
ried her point and was secure of her walk, she began (as the
flutter of her spirits subsided) to doubt whether she had been
perfectly right. A sacrifice was always noble; and if she had
given way to their entreaties, she should have been spared
the distressing idea of a friend displeased, a brother angry,
and a scheme of great happiness to both destroyed, perhaps
through her means. To ease her mind, and ascertain by the
opinion of an unprejudiced person what her own conduct had
really been, she took occasion to mention before Mr. Allen
the half-settled scheme of her brother and the Thorpes for
the following day. Mr. Allen caught at it directly. “Well,” said
he, “and do you think of going too?”
“No; I had just engaged myself to walk with Miss Tilney
before they told me of it; and therefore you know I could not
go with them, could I?”
“No, certainly not; and I am glad you do not think of
it. These schemes are not at all the thing. Young men and
women driving about the country in open carriages! Now
and then it is very well; but going to inns and public places
together!6 It is not right; and I wonder Mrs. Thorpe should
allow it. I am glad you do not think of going; I am sure Mrs.
Morland would not be pleased. Mrs. Allen, are not you of
my way of thinking? Do not you think these kind of projects
objectionable?”
104
“Yes, very much so indeed. Open carriages are nasty things.

A clean gown is not five minutes wear in them. You are
splashed getting in and getting out; and the wind takes your
hair and your bonnet in every direction. I hate an open car-
riage myself.”
“I know you do; but that is not the question. Do not you
think it has an odd appearance, if young ladies are frequently
driven about in them by young men, to whom they are not
even related?”
“Yes, my dear, a very odd appearance indeed. I cannot bear
to see it.”
“Dear madam,” cried Catherine, “then why did not you
tell me so before? I am sure if I had known it to be improper,
I would not have gone with Mr. Thorpe at all; but I always
hoped you would tell me, if you thought I was doing wrong.”
“And so I should, my dear, you may depend on it; for as I
told Mrs. Morland at parting, I would always do the best for
you in my power. But one must not be over particular. Young
people will be young people, as your good mother says herself.
You know I wanted you, when we first came, not to buy that
sprigged muslin, but you would. Young people do not like to
be always thwarted.”
“But this was something of real consequence; and I do not
think you would have found me hard to persuade.”
“As far as it has gone hitherto, there is no harm done,” said
Mr. Allen; “and I would only advise you, my dear, not to go
out with Mr. Thorpe any more.”
“That is just what I was going to say,” added his wife.
Catherine, relieved for herself, felt uneasy for Isabella; and
after a moment’s thought, asked Mr. Allen whether it would
not be both proper and kind in her to write to Miss Thorpe,
and explain the indecorum of which she must be as insensible
as herself; for she considered that Isabella might otherwise
105
perhaps be going to Clifton the next day, in spite of what

had passed. Mr. Allen however discouraged her from doing
any such thing. “You had better leave her alone, my dear, she
is old enough to know what she is about; and if not, has a
mother to advise her. Mrs. Thorpe is too indulgent beyond a
doubt; but however you had better not interfere. She and your
brother chuse to go, and you will be only getting ill-will.”
Catherine submitted; and though sorry to think that
Isabella should be doing wrong, felt greatly relieved by Mr.
Allen’s approbation of her own conduct, and truly rejoiced
to be preserved by his advice from the danger of falling into
such an error herself. Her escape from being one of the party
to Clifton was now an escape indeed; for what would the
Tilneys have thought of her, if she had broken her promise
to them in order to do what was wrong in itself ? if she had
been guilty of one breach of propriety, only to enable her to
be guilty of another?
106
Chapter 14
T h e next morning was fair, and Catherine almost expected

another attack from the assembled party. With Mr. Allen
to support her, she felt no dread of the event: but she would
gladly be spared a contest, where victory itself was painful; and
was heartily rejoiced therefore at neither seeing nor hearing
any thing of them. The Tilneys called for her at the appointed
time; and no new difficulty arising, no sudden recollection,
no unexpected summons, no impertinent intrusion to discon-
cert their measures, my heroine was most unnaturally able to
fulfil her engagement, though it was made with the hero
himself. They determined on walking round Beechen Cliff,1
that noble hill, whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice
render it so striking an object from almost every opening in
Bath.
“I never look at it,” said Catherine, as they walked along the
side of the river, “without thinking of the south of France.”
“You have been abroad then?” said Henry, a little surprized.
“Oh! no, I only mean what I have read about. It always puts
me in mind of the country that Emily and her father travelled
through, in the ‘Mysteries of Udolpho.’ But you never read
novels, I dare say?”
“Why not?”
“Because they are not clever enough for you—gentlemen
read better books.”
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure
in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all
107
Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure.

The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could
not lay down again;—I remember finishing it in two days—
my hair standing on end the whole time.”
“Yes,” added Miss Tilney, “and I remember that you under-
took to read it aloud to me, and that when I was called away
for only five minutes to answer a note, instead of waiting for
me, you took the volume into the Hermitage-walk,2 and I
was obliged to stay till you had finished it.”
“Thank you, Eleanor;—a most honourable testimony. You
see, Miss Morland, the injustice of your suspicions. Here was
I, in my eagerness to get on, refusing to wait only five minutes
for my sister; breaking the promise I had made of reading
it aloud, and keeping her in suspense at a most interesting
part, by running away with the volume, which, you are to
observe, was her own, particularly her own. I am proud when
I reflect on it, and I think it must establish me in your good
opinion.”
“I am very glad to hear it indeed, and now I shall never
be ashamed of liking Udolpho myself. But I really thought
before, young men despised novels amazingly.”
“It is amazingly;3 it may well suggest amazement if they
do—for they read nearly as many as women. I myself have
read hundreds and hundreds. Do not imagine that you can
cope with me in a knowledge of Julias and Louisas.4 If we pro-
ceed to particulars, and engage in the never-ceasing inquiry
of ‘Have you read this?’ and ‘Have you read that?’ I shall soon
leave you as far behind me as—what shall I say?—I want an
appropriate simile;—as far as your friend Emily herself left
poor Valancourt when she went with her aunt into Italy.5
Consider how many years I have had the start of you. I had
entered on my studies at Oxford, while you were a good little
girl working your sampler6 at home!”
108
“Not very good I am afraid. But now really, do not you

think Udolpho the nicest7 book in the world?”
“The nicest;—by which I suppose you mean the neatest.
That must depend upon the binding.”8
“Henry,” said Miss Tilney, “you are very impertinent. Miss
Morland, he is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He
is for ever finding fault with me, for some incorrectness of
language, and now he is taking the same liberty with you. The
word ‘nicest,’ as you used it, did not suit him; and you had
better change it as soon as you can, or we shall be overpowered
with Johnson and Blair9 all the rest of the way.”
“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say any
thing wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call
it so?”
“Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and
we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice
young ladies. Oh! it is a very nice word indeed!—it does
for every thing. Originally perhaps it was applied only to
express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement;—people
were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice.
But now every commendation on every subject is comprised
in that one word.”
“While, in fact,” cried his sister, “it ought only to be applied
to you, without any commendation at all. You are more nice
than wise. Come, Miss Morland, let us leave him to meditate
over our faults in the utmost propriety of diction, while we
praise Udolpho in whatever terms we like best. It is a most
interesting work. You are fond of that kind of reading?”
“To say the truth, I do not much like any other.”
“Indeed!”
“That is, I can read poetry and plays, and things of that sort,
and do not dislike travels. But history, real solemn history, I
cannot be interested in. Can you?”
109
“Yes, I am fond of history.”

“I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me
nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels
of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page;
the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at
all—it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it
should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The
speeches that are put into the heroes’ mouths, their thoughts
and designs—the chief of all this must be invention, and
invention is what delights me in other books.”
“Historians, you think,” said Miss Tilney, “are not happy
in their flights of fancy. They display imagination without
raising interest. I am fond of history—and am very well
contented to take the false with the true.10 In the princi-
pal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories
and records, which may be as much depended on, I con-
clude, as any thing that does not actually pass under one’s
own observation; and as for the little embellishments you
speak of, they are embellishments, and I like them as such. If
a speech be well drawn up, I read it with pleasure, by whom-
soever it may be made—and probably with much greater,
if the production of Mr. Hume or Mr. Robertson, than if
the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the
Great.”11
“You are fond of history!—and so are Mr. Allen and my
father; and I have two brothers who do not dislike it. So many
instances within my small circle of friends is remarkable! At
this rate, I shall not pity the writers of history any longer. If
people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at
so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to
think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring
only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck
me as a hard fate; and though I know it is all very right and
110
necessary, I have often wondered at the person’s courage that

could sit down on purpose to do it.”
“That little boys and girls should be tormented,” said
Henry, “is what no one at all acquainted with human nature
in a civilized state can deny; but in behalf of our most distin-
guished historians, I must observe, that they might well be
offended at being supposed to have no higher aim; and that
by their method and style, they are perfectly well qualified
to torment readers of the most advanced reason and mature
time of life. I use the verb ‘to torment,’ as I observed to be
your own method, instead of ‘to instruct,’ supposing them to
be now admitted as synonimous.”
“You think me foolish to call instruction a torment, but
if you had been as much used as myself to hear poor little
children first learning their letters and then learning to spell,
if you had ever seen how stupid they can be for a whole
morning together, and how tired my poor mother is at the
end of it, as I am in the habit of seeing almost every day of my
life at home, you would allow that to torment and to instruct
might sometimes be used as synonimous words.”
“Very probably. But historians are not accountable for the
difficulty of learning to read; and even you yourself, who
do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe,
very intense application, may perhaps be brought to acknowl-
edge that it is very well worth while to be tormented for two
or three years of one’s life, for the sake of being able to read all
the rest of it. Consider—if reading had not been taught, Mrs.
Radcliffe would have written in vain—or perhaps might not
have written at all.”
Catherine assented—and a very warm panegyric from her
on that lady’s merits, closed the subject.—The Tilneys were
soon engaged in another on which she had nothing to say.
They were viewing the country with the eyes of persons
111
accustomed to drawing, and decided on its capability of being

formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste. Here
Catherine was quite lost. She knew nothing of drawing—
nothing of taste:—and she listened to them with an atten-
tion which brought her little profit, for they talked in phrases
which conveyed scarcely any idea to her. The little which
she could understand however appeared to contradict the
very few notions she had entertained on the matter before.
It seemed as if a good view were no longer to be taken from
the top of an high hill, and that a clear blue sky was no
longer a proof of a fine day.12 She was heartily ashamed of
her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to
attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-
informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering
to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always
wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfor-
tune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she
can.13
The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been
already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author;14 —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 any thing more
in woman than ignorance. But Catherine did not know her
own advantages—did not know that a good-looking girl, with
an affectionate heart and a very ignorant mind, cannot fail of
attracting a clever young man, unless circumstances are par-
ticularly untoward. In the present instance, she confessed and
lamented her want of knowledge; declared that she would
give any thing in the world to be able to draw; and a lec-
ture on the picturesque immediately followed, in which his
112
instructions were so clear that she soon began to see beauty in

every thing admired by him, and her attention was so earnest,
that he became perfectly satisfied of her having a great deal
of natural taste. He talked of fore-grounds, distances, and
second distances—side-screens and perspectives—lights and
shades;—and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar, that when
they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected
the whole city of Bath, as unworthy to make part of a land-
scape. Delighted with her progress, and fearful of wearying
her with too much wisdom at once, Henry suffered the sub-
ject to decline, and by an easy transition from a piece of rocky
fragment and the withered oak which he had placed near its
summit, to oaks in general, to forests, the inclosure of them,
waste lands, crown lands and government, he shortly found
himself arrived at politics;15 and from politics, it was an easy
step to silence. The general pause which succeeded his short
disquisition on the state of the nation, was put an end to by
Catherine, who, in rather a solemn tone of voice, uttered these
words, “I have heard that something very shocking indeed,
will soon come out in London.”
Miss Tilney, to whom this was chiefly addressed, was star-
tled, and hastily replied, “Indeed!—and of what nature?”
“That I do not know, nor who is the author. I have only
heard that it is to be more horrible than any thing we have
met with yet.”
“Good heaven!—Where could you hear of such a thing?”
“A particular friend of mine had an account of it in a letter
from London yesterday. It is to be uncommonly dreadful. I
shall expect murder and every thing of the kind.”
“You speak with astonishing composure! But I hope your
friend’s accounts have been exaggerated;—and if such a
design is known beforehand, proper measures will undoubt-
edly be taken by government to prevent its coming to effect.”
113
“Government,” said Henry, endeavouring not to smile,

“neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters. There
must be murder; and government cares not how much.”
The ladies stared. He laughed, and added, “Come, shall I
make you understand each other, or leave you to puzzle out
an explanation as you can? No—I will be noble. I will prove
myself a man, no less by the generosity of my soul than the
clearness of my head. I have no patience with such of my sex
as disdain to let themselves sometimes down to the compre-
hension of yours. Perhaps the abilities of women are neither
sound nor acute—neither vigorous nor keen. Perhaps they
may want observation, discernment, judgment, fire, genius,
and wit.”
“Miss Morland, do not mind what he says;—but have the
goodness to satisfy me as to this dreadful riot.”16
“Riot!—what riot?”
“My dear Eleanor, the riot is only in your own brain. The
confusion there is scandalous. Miss Morland has been talk-
ing of nothing more dreadful than a new publication which
is shortly to come out, in three duodecimo volumes, two
hundred and seventy-six pages in each, with a frontispiece
to the first, of two tombstones and a lantern17 —do you
understand?—And you, Miss Morland—my stupid sister has
mistaken all your clearest expressions. You talked of expected
horrors in London—and instead of instantly conceiving, as
any rational creature would have done, that such words could
relate only to a circulating library, she immediately pictured
to herself a mob of three thousand men assembling in St.
George’s Fields; the Bank attacked, the Tower threatened,
the streets of London flowing with blood, a detachment of
the 12th Light Dragoons, (the hopes of the nation,) called
up from Northampton to quell the insurgents, and the gal-
lant Capt. Frederick Tilney, in the moment of charging at
114
the head of his troop, knocked off his horse by a brickbat18

from an upper window. Forgive her stupidity. The fears of
the sister have added to the weakness of the woman; but she
is by no means a simpleton in general.”
Catherine looked grave. “And now, Henry,” said Miss
Tilney, “that you have made us understand each other, you
may as well make Miss Morland understand yourself—unless
you mean to have her think you intolerably rude to your sister,
and a great brute in your opinion of women in general. Miss
Morland is not used to your odd ways.”
“I shall be most happy to make her better acquainted with
them.”
“No doubt;—but that is no explanation of the present.”
“What am I to do?”
“You know what you ought to do. Clear your character
handsomely before her. Tell her that you think very highly of
the understanding of women.”
“Miss Morland, I think very highly of the understanding
of all the women in the world—especially of those—whoever
they may be—with whom I happen to be in company.”
“That is not enough. Be more serious.”
“Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the
understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature
has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to
use more than half.”
“We shall get nothing more serious from him now, Miss
Morland. He is not in a sober mood. But I do assure you that
he must be entirely misunderstood, if he can ever appear to
say an unjust thing of any woman at all, or an unkind one of
me.”
It was no effort to Catherine to believe that Henry Tilney
could never be wrong. His manner might sometimes sur-
prize, but his meaning must always be just:—and what she
115
did not understand, she was almost as ready to admire, as

what she did. The whole walk was delightful, and though
it ended too soon, its conclusion was delightful too;—her
friends attended her into the house, and Miss Tilney, before
they parted, addressing herself with respectful form, as much
to Mrs. Allen as to Catherine, petitioned for the pleasure of
her company to dinner on the day after the next. No difficulty
was made on Mrs. Allen’s side—and the only difficulty on
Catherine’s was in concealing the excess of her pleasure.
The morning had passed away so charmingly as to ban-
ish all her friendship and natural affection; for no thought of
Isabella or James had crossed her during their walk. When
the Tilneys were gone, she became amiable again, but she was
amiable for some time to little effect; Mrs. Allen had no intel-
ligence to give that could relieve her anxiety, she had heard
nothing of any of them. Towards the end of the morning
however, Catherine having occasion for some indispensable
yard of ribbon which must be bought without a moment’s
delay, walked out into the town, and in Bond-street19 over-
took the second Miss Thorpe, as she was loitering towards
Edgar’s Buildings between two of the sweetest girls in the
world, who had been her dear friends all the morning. From
her, she soon learned that the party to Clifton had taken
place. “They set off at eight this morning,” said Miss Anne,
“and I am sure I do not envy them their drive. I think you
and I are very well off to be out of the scrape.—It must be the
dullest thing in the world, for there is not a soul at Clifton
at this time of year.20 Belle went with your brother, and John
drove Maria.”
Catherine spoke the pleasure she really felt on hearing this
part of the arrangement.
“Oh! yes,” rejoined the other, “Maria is gone. She was
quite wild to go. She thought it would be something very
116
fine. I cannot say I admire her taste; and for my part I was
determined from the first not to go, if they pressed me ever
so much.”
Catherine, a little doubtful of this, could not help answer-
ing, “I wish you could have gone too. It is a pity you could
not all go.”
“Thank you; but it is quite a matter of indifference to me.
Indeed, I would not have gone on any account. I was saying
so to Emily and Sophia when you overtook us.”
Catherine was still unconvinced; but glad that Anne should
have the friendship of an Emily and a Sophia to console her,
she bade her adieu without much uneasiness, and returned
home, pleased that the party had not been prevented by her
refusing to join it, and very heartily wishing that it might be
too pleasant to allow either James or Isabella to resent her
resistance any longer.
117
Chapter 15
E a r l y the next day, a note from Isabella, speaking peace

and tenderness in every line, and entreating the immedi-
ate presence of her friend on a matter of the utmost impor-
tance, hastened Catherine, in the happiest state of confidence
and curiosity, to Edgar’s Buildings.—The two youngest Miss
Thorpes were by themselves in the parlour; and, on Anne’s
quitting it to call her sister, Catherine took the opportunity
of asking the other for some particulars of their yesterday’s
party. Maria desired no greater pleasure than to speak of it;
and Catherine immediately learnt that it had been altogether
the most delightful scheme in the world; that nobody could
imagine how charming it had been, and that it had been more
delightful than any body could conceive. Such was the infor-
mation of the first five minutes; the second unfolded thus
much in detail,—that they had driven directly to the York
Hotel,1 ate some soup, and bespoke an early dinner,2 walked
down to the Pump-room, tasted the water, and laid out some
shillings in purses and spars; thence adjoined to eat ice at a
pastry-cook’s,3 and hurrying back to the Hotel, swallowed
their dinner in haste, to prevent being in the dark; and then
had a delightful drive back, only the moon was not up, and it
rained a little, and Mr. Morland’s horse was so tired he could
hardly get it along.
Catherine listened with heartfelt satisfaction. It appeared
that Blaize Castle had never been thought of; and, as for all
the rest, there was nothing to regret for half an instant.—
118
Maria’s intelligence concluded with a tender effusion of pity

for her sister Anne, whom she represented as insupportably
cross, from being excluded the party.
“She will never forgive me, I am sure; but, you know, how
could I help it? John would have me go, for he vowed he
would not drive her, because she had such thick ancles. I dare
say she will not be in good humour again this month; but I
am determined I will not be cross; it is not a little matter that
puts me out of temper.”
Isabella now entered the room with so eager a step, and
a look of such happy importance, as engaged all her friend’s
notice. Maria was without ceremony sent away, and Isabella,
embracing Catherine, thus began:— “Yes, my dear Cather-
ine, it is so indeed; your penetration has not deceived you.—
Oh! that arch eye of yours!—It sees through every thing.”
Catherine replied only by a look of wondering ignorance.
“Nay, my beloved, sweetest friend,” continued the other,
“compose yourself.—I am amazingly agitated, as you per-
ceive. Let us sit down and talk in comfort. Well, and so you
guessed it the moment you had my note?—Sly creature!—
Oh! my dear Catherine, you alone who know my heart can
judge of my present happiness. Your brother is the most
charming of men. I only wish I were more worthy of him.—
But what will your excellent father and mother say?—Oh!
heavens! when I think of them I am so agitated!”
Catherine’s understanding began to awake: an idea of the
truth suddenly darted into her mind; and, with the natural
blush of so new an emotion, she cried out, “Good heaven!—
my dear Isabella, what do you mean? Can you—can you really
be in love with James?”
This bold surmise, however, she soon learnt compre-
hended but half the fact. The anxious affection, which
she was accused of having continually watched in Isabella’s
119
every look and action, had, in the course of their yester-

day’s party, received the delightful confession of an equal
love. Her heart and faith were alike engaged to James.—
Never had Catherine listened to any thing so full of inter-
est, wonder, and joy. Her brother and her friend engaged!—
New to such circumstances, the importance of it appeared
unspeakably great, and she contemplated it as one of those
grand events, of which the ordinary course of life can hardly
afford a return. The strength of her feelings she could not
express; the nature of them, however, contented her friend.
The happiness of having such a sister was their first effu-
sion, and the fair ladies mingled in embraces and tears of
joy.
Delighting, however, as Catherine sincerely did in the
prospect of the connexion, it must be acknowledged that
Isabella far surpassed her in tender anticipations.—“You will
be so infinitely dearer to me, my Catherine, than either Anne
or Maria: I feel that I shall be so much more attached to my
dear Morland’s family than to my own.”
This was a pitch of friendship beyond Catherine.
“You are so like your dear brother,” continued Isabella, “that
I quite doated on you the first moment I saw you. But so it
always is with me; the first moment settles everything. The
very first day that Morland came to us last Christmas—the
very first moment I beheld him—my heart was irrecoverably
gone. I remember I wore my yellow gown, with my hair done
up in braids; and when I came into the drawing-room, and
John introduced him, I thought I never saw any body so
handsome before.”
Here Catherine secretly acknowledged the power of love;
for, though exceedingly fond of her brother, and partial to
all his endowments, she had never in her life thought him
handsome.
120
“I remember too, Miss Andrews drank tea with us that

evening, and wore her puce-coloured sarsenet;4 and she
looked so heavenly, that I thought your brother must cer-
tainly fall in love with her; I could not sleep a wink all night
for thinking of it. Oh! Catherine, the many sleepless nights
I have had on your brother’s account!—I would not have you
suffer half what I have done! I am grown wretchedly thin I
know; but I will not pain you by describing my anxiety; you
have seen enough of it. I feel that I have betrayed myself
perpetually;—so unguarded in speaking of my partiality for
the church!—But my secret I was always sure would be safe
with you.”
Catherine felt that nothing could have been safer; but
ashamed of an ignorance little expected, she dared no longer
contest the point, nor refuse to have been as full of arch
penetration and affectionate sympathy as Isabella chose to
consider her. Her brother she found was preparing to set off
with all speed to Fullerton, to make known his situation and
ask consent; and here was a source of some real agitation
to the mind of Isabella. Catherine endeavoured to persuade
her, as she was herself persuaded, that her father and mother
would never oppose their son’s wishes.—“It is impossible,”
said she, “for parents to be more kind, or more desirous of
their children’s happiness; I have no doubt of their consenting
immediately.”
“Morland says exactly the same,” replied Isabella; “and yet
I dare not expect it; my fortune will be so small; they never
can consent to it. Your brother, who might marry any body!”
Here Catherine again discerned the force of love.
“Indeed, Isabella, you are too humble.—The difference of
fortune can be nothing to signify.”
“Oh! my sweet Catherine, in your generous heart I know
it would signify nothing; but we must not expect such
121
disinterestedness in many. As for myself, I am sure I only

wish our situations were reversed. Had I the command of
millions, were I mistress of the whole world, your brother
would be my only choice.”
This charming sentiment, recommended as much by sense
as novelty, gave Catherine a most pleasing remembrance of all
the heroines of her acquaintance; and she thought her friend
never looked more lovely than in uttering the grand idea.—“I
am sure they will consent,” was her frequent declaration; “I
am sure they will be delighted with you.”
“For my own part,” said Isabella, “my wishes are so moder-
ate, that the smallest income in nature would be enough for
me. Where people are really attached, poverty itself is wealth:
grandeur I detest: I would not settle in London for the uni-
verse. A cottage in some retired village would be extasy. There
are some charming little villas about Richmond.”5
“Richmond!” cried Catherine.—“You must settle near
Fullerton. You must be near us.”
“I am sure I shall be miserable if we do not. If I can but
be near you, I shall be satisfied. But this is idle talking! I
will not allow myself to think of such things, till we have
your father’s answer. Morland says that by sending it to-night
to Salisbury,6 we may have it to-morrow.—To-morrow? —I
know I shall never have courage to open the letter. I know it
will be the death of me.”
A reverie succeeded this conviction—and when Isabella
spoke again, it was to resolve on the quality of her wedding-
gown.
Their conference was put an end to by the anxious young
lover himself, who came to breathe his parting sigh before he
set off for Wiltshire. Catherine wished to congratulate him,
but knew not what to say, and her eloquence was only in her
eyes. From them however the eight parts of speech7 shone out
122
most expressively, and James could combine them with ease.

Impatient for the realization of all that he hoped at home, his
adieus were not long; and they would have been yet shorter,
had he not been frequently detained by the urgent entreaties
of his fair one that he would go. Twice was he called almost
from the door by her eagerness to have him gone. “Indeed,
Morland, I must drive you away. Consider how far you have
to ride. I cannot bear to see you linger so. For Heaven’s sake,
waste no more time. There, go, go—I insist on it.”
The two friends, with hearts now more united than ever,
were inseparable for the day; and in schemes of sisterly happi-
ness the hours flew along. Mrs. Thorpe and her son, who were
acquainted with every thing, and who seemed only to want
Mr. Morland’s consent, to consider Isabella’s engagement as
the most fortunate circumstance imaginable for their fam-
ily, were allowed to join their counsels, and add their quota
of significant looks and mysterious expressions to fill up the
measure of curiosity to be raised in the unprivileged younger
sisters. To Catherine’s simple feelings, this odd sort of reserve
seemed neither kindly meant, nor consistently supported; and
its unkindness she would hardly have forborn pointing out,
had its inconsistency been less their friend;—but Anne and
Maria soon set her heart at ease by the sagacity of their “I
know what;” and the evening was spent in a sort of war of
wit, a display of family ingenuity; on one side in the mystery
of an affected secret, on the other of undefined discovery, all
equally acute.
Catherine was with her friend again the next day, endeav-
ouring to support her spirits, and while away the many tedious
hours before the delivery of the letters; a needful exertion,
for as the time of reasonable expectation drew near, Isabella
became more and more desponding, and before the letter
arrived, had worked herself into a state of real distress. But
123
when it did come, where could distress be found? “I have had

no difficulty in gaining the consent of my kind parents, and
am promised that every thing in their power shall be done
to forward my happiness,” were the first three lines, and in
one moment all was joyful security. The brightest glow was
instantly spread over Isabella’s features, all care and anxiety
seemed removed, her spirits became almost too high for con-
troul, and she called herself without scruple the happiest of
mortals.
Mrs. Thorpe, with tears of joy, embraced her daughter, her
son, her visitor, and could have embraced half the inhabitants
of Bath with satisfaction. Her heart was overflowing with
tenderness. It was “dear John,” and “dear Catherine” at every
word;—“dear Anne and dear Maria” must immediately be
made sharers in their felicity; and two “dears” at once before
the name of Isabella were not more than that beloved child
had now well earned. John himself was no skulker in joy. He
not only bestowed on Mr Morland the high commendation
of being one of the finest fellows in the world, but swore off
many sentences in his praise.
The letter, whence sprang all this felicity, was short, con-
taining little more than this assurance of success; and every
particular was deferred till James could write again. But for
particulars Isabella could well afford to wait. The needful
was comprised in Mr. Morland’s promise; his honour was
pledged to make every thing easy; and by what means their
income was to be formed, whether landed property were to be
resigned, or funded money made over, was a matter in which
her disinterested spirit took no concern. She knew enough to
feel secure of an honourable and speedy establishment, and
her imagination took a rapid flight over its attendant felic-
ities. She saw herself at the end of a few weeks, the gaze
and admiration of every new acquaintance at Fullerton, the
124
envy of every valued old friend in Putney,8 with a carriage

at her command, a new name on her tickets, and a brilliant
exhibition of hoop rings9 on her finger.
When the contents of the letter were ascertained, John
Thorpe, who had only waited its arrival to begin his journey
to London, prepared to set off. “Well, Miss Morland,” said
he, on finding her alone in the parlour, “I am come to bid you
good bye.” Catherine wished him a good journey. Without
appearing to hear her, he walked to the window, fidgetted
about, hummed a tune, and seemed wholly self-occupied.
“Shall not you be late at Devizes?”10 said Catherine. He
made no answer; but after a minute’s silence burst out with,
“A famous good thing this marrying scheme, upon my soul!
A clever fancy of Morland’s and Belle’s. What do you think
of it, Miss Morland? I say it is no bad notion.”
“I am sure I think it a very good one.”
“Do you?—that’s honest, by heavens! I am glad you are
no enemy to matrimony however. Did you ever hear the old
song, ‘Going to one wedding brings on another?’11 I say, you
will come to Belle’s wedding, I hope.”
“Yes; I have promised your sister to be with her, if possible.”
“And then you know”—twisting himself about and forcing
a foolish laugh—“I say, then you know, we may try the truth
of this same old song.”
“May we?—but I never sing. Well, I wish you a good jour-
ney. I dine with Miss Tilney to-day, and must now be going
home.”
“Nay, but there is no such confounded hurry.—Who knows
when we may be together again?—Not but that I shall be
down again by the end of a fortnight, and a devilish long
fortnight it will appear to me.”
“Then why do you stay away so long?” replied Catherine—
finding that he waited for an answer.
125
“That is kind of you, however—kind and good-natured.—

I shall not forget it in a hurry.—But you have more good-
nature and all that, than any body living I believe. A mon-
strous deal of good-nature, and it is not only good-nature,
but you have so much, so much of every thing; and then you
have such—upon my soul I do not know any body like you.”
“Oh! dear, there are a great many people like me, I dare
say, only a great deal better. Good morning to you.”
“But I say, Miss Morland, I shall come and pay my respects
at Fullerton before it is long, if not disagreeable.”
“Pray do.—My father and mother will be very glad to see
you.”
“And I hope—I hope, Miss Morland, you will not be sorry
to see me.”
“Oh! dear, not at all. There are very few people I am sorry
to see. Company is always cheerful.”
“That is just my way of thinking, Give me but a little
cheerful company, let me only have the company of the people
I love, let me only be where I like and with whom I like, and
the devil take the rest, say I.—And I am heartily glad to hear
you say the same. But I have a notion, Miss Morland, you
and I think pretty much alike upon most matters.”
“Perhaps we may; but it is more than I ever thought of.
And as to most matters, to say the truth, there are not many
that I know my own mind about.”
“By Jove, no more do I. It is not my way to bother my
brains with what does not concern me. My notion of things
is simple enough. Let me only have the girl I like, say I, with
a comfortable house over my head, and what care I for all the
rest? Fortune is nothing. I am sure of a good income of my
own; and if she had not a penny, why so much the better.”
“Very true. I think like you there. If there is a good fortune
on one side, there can be no occasion for any on the other. No
126
matter which has it, so that there is enough. I hate the idea
of one great fortune looking out for another. And to marry
for money I think the wickedest thing in existence.—Good
day.—We shall be very glad to see you at Fullerton, whenever
it is convenient.” And away she went. It was not in the power
of all his gallantry to detain her longer. With such news to
communicate, and such a visit to prepare for, her departure
was not to be delayed by any thing in his nature to urge; and
she hurried away, leaving him to the undivided consciousness
of his own happy address, and her explicit encouragement.
The agitation which she had herself experienced on first
learning her brother’s engagement, made her expect to raise
no inconsiderable emotion in Mr. and Mrs. Allen, by the
communication of the wonderful event. How great was her
disappointment! The important affair, which many words
of preparation ushered in, had been foreseen by them both
ever since her brother’s arrival; and all that they felt on the
occasion was comprehended in a wish for the young people’s
happiness, with a remark, on the gentleman’s side, in favour
of Isabella’s beauty, and on the lady’s, of her great good luck.
It was to Catherine the most surprizing insensibility.12 The
disclosure however of the great secret of James’s going to
Fullerton the day before, did raise some emotion in Mrs.
Allen. She could not listen to that with perfect calmness; but
repeatedly regretted the necessity of its concealment, wished
she could have known his intention, wished she could have
seen him before he went, as she should certainly have troubled
him with her best regards to his father and mother, and her
kind compliments to all the Skinners.
end of volume 1
127
Volume II
Chapter 1
Ca th e r i n e ’ s expectations of pleasure from her visit in

Milsom-street were so very high, that disappointment was
inevitable; and accordingly, though she was most politely
received by General Tilney, and kindly welcomed by his
daughter, though Henry was at home, and no one else of
the party, she found, on her return, without spending many
hours in the examination of her feelings, that she had gone
to her appointment preparing for happiness which it had
not afforded. Instead of finding herself improved in acquain-
tance with Miss Tilney, from the intercourse of the day, she
seemed hardly so intimate with her as before; instead of see-
ing Henry Tilney to greater advantage than ever, in the ease
of a family party, he had never said so little, nor been so lit-
tle agreeable; and, in spite of their father’s great civilities to
her—in spite of his thanks, invitations, and compliments—it
had been a release to get away from him. It puzzled her to
account for all this. It could not be General Tilney’s fault.
That he was perfectly agreeable and good-natured, and alto-
gether a very charming man, did not admit of a doubt, for
he was tall and handsome, and Henry’s father. He could not
be accountable for his children’s want of spirits, or for her
want of enjoyment in his company. The former she hoped
at last might have been accidental, and the latter she could
only attribute to her own stupidity. Isabella, on hearing the
particulars of the visit, gave a different explanation: “It was
all pride, pride, insufferable haughtiness and pride! She had
131
no rth a ng e r a b bey Volume II Chapter 1
long suspected the family to be very high, and this made it

certain. Such insolence of behaviour as Miss Tilney’s she had
never heard of in her life! Not to do the honours of her house
with common good-breeding!—To behave to her guest with
such superciliousness!—Hardly even to speak to her!”
“But it was not so bad as that, Isabella; there was no
superciliousness; she was very civil.”
“Oh! don’t defend her! And then the brother, he, who had
appeared so attached to you! Good heavens! well, some peo-
ple’s feelings are incomprehensible. And so he hardly looked
once at you the whole day?”
“I do not say so; but he did not seem in good spirits.”
“How contemptible! Of all things in the world inconstancy
is my aversion. Let me entreat you never to think of him again,
my dear Catherine; indeed he is unworthy of you.”
“Unworthy! I do not suppose he ever thinks of me.”
“That is exactly what I say; he never thinks of you.—Such
fickleness! Oh! how different to your brother and to mine! I
really believe John has the most constant heart.”
“But as for General Tilney, I assure you it would be impos-
sible for any body to behave to me with greater civility and
attention; it seemed to be his only care to entertain and make
me happy.”
“Oh! I know no harm of him; I do not suspect him of pride.
I believe he is a very gentleman-like man. John thinks very
well of him, and John’s judgment——”
“Well, I shall see how they behave to me this evening; we
shall meet them at the rooms.”
“And must I go?”
“Do not you intend it? I thought it was all settled.”
“Nay, since you make such a point of it, I can refuse you
nothing. But do not insist upon my being very agreeable, for
my heart, you know, will be some forty miles off. And as
132
for dancing, do not mention it I beg; that is quite out of the

question. Charles Hodges will plague me to death I dare say;
but I shall cut him very short. Ten to one but he guesses the
reason, and that is exactly what I want to avoid, so I shall
insist on his keeping his conjecture to himself.”
Isabella’s opinion of the Tilneys did not influence her
friend; she was sure there had been no insolence in the man-
ners either of brother or sister; and she did not credit there
being any pride in their hearts. The evening rewarded her
confidence; she was met by one with the same kindness, and
by the other with the same attention as heretofore: Miss
Tilney took pains to be near her, and Henry asked her to
dance.
Having heard the day before in Milsom-street, that their
elder brother, Captain Tilney, was expected almost every
hour, she was at no loss for the name of a very fashionable-
looking, handsome young man, whom she had never seen
before, and who now evidently belonged to their party. She
looked at him with great admiration, and even supposed it
possible, that some people might think him handsomer than
his brother, though, in her eyes, his air was more assum-
ing, and his countenance less prepossessing. His taste and
manners were beyond a doubt decidedly inferior; for, within
her hearing, he not only protested against every thought of
dancing himself, but even laughed openly at Henry for find-
ing it possible. From the latter circumstance it may be pre-
sumed, that, whatever might be our heroine’s opinion of him,
his admiration of her was not of a very dangerous kind; not
likely to produce animosities between the brothers, nor per-
secutions to the lady. He cannot be the instigator of the three
villains in horsemen’s great coats, by whom she will hereafter
be forced into a travelling-chaise and four, which will drive off
with incredible speed.1 Catherine, meanwhile, undisturbed
133
by presentiments of such an evil, or of any evil at all, except

that of having but a short set to dance down, enjoyed her
usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling
eyes to every thing he said; and, in finding him irresistible,
becoming so herself.
At the end of the first dance, Captain Tilney came towards
them again, and, much to Catherine’s dissatisfaction, pulled
his brother away. They retired whispering together; and,
though her delicate sensibility did not take immediate alarm,
and lay it down as fact, that Captain Tilney must have heard
some malevolent misrepresentation of her, which he now has-
tened to communicate to his brother, in the hope of separating
them for ever, she could not have her partner conveyed from
her sight without very uneasy sensations. Her suspense was of
full five minutes’ duration; and she was beginning to think it a
very long quarter of an hour, when they both returned, and an
explanation was given, by Henry’s requesting to know, if she
thought her friend, Miss Thorpe, would have any objection
to dancing, as his brother would be most happy to be intro-
duced to her. Catherine, without hesitation, replied, that she
was very sure Miss Thorpe did not mean to dance at all. The
cruel reply was passed on to the other, and he immediately
walked away.
“Your brother will not mind it I know,” said she, “because
I heard him say before, that he hated dancing; but it was very
good-natured in him to think of it. I suppose he saw Isabella
sitting down, and fancied she might wish for a partner; but he
is quite mistaken, for she would not dance upon any account
in the world.”
Henry smiled, and said, “How very little trouble it can give
you to understand the motive of other people’s actions.”
“Why?—What do you mean?”
134
“With you, it is not, How is such a one likely to be

influenced? What is the inducement most likely to act upon
such a person’s feelings, age, situation, and probable habits
of life considered?—but, how should I be influenced, what
would be my inducement in acting so and so?”
“I do not understand you.”
“Then we are on very unequal terms, for I understand you
perfectly well.”
“Me?—yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligi-
ble.”
“Bravo!—an excellent satire on modern language.”
“But pray tell me what you mean.”
“Shall I indeed?—Do you really desire it?—But you are
not aware of the consequences; it will involve you in a very
cruel embarrassment, and certainly bring on a disagreement
between us.”
“No, no; it shall not do either; I am not afraid.”
“Well then, I only meant that your attributing my brother’s
wish of dancing with Miss Thorpe to good-nature alone,
convinced me of your being superior in good-nature yourself
to all the rest of the world.”
Catherine blushed and disclaimed, and the gentleman’s
predictions were verified. There was a something, however,
in his words which repaid her for the pain of confusion; and
that something occupied her mind so much, that she drew
back for some time, forgetting to speak or to listen, and almost
forgetting where she was; till, roused by the voice of Isabella,
she looked up and saw her with Captain Tilney preparing to
give them hands across.2
Isabella shrugged her shoulders and smiled, the only expla-
nation of this extraordinary change which could at that time
be given; but as it was not quite enough for Catherine’s
135
comprehension, she spoke her astonishment in very plain

terms to her partner.
“I cannot think how it could happen! Isabella was so deter-
mined not to dance.”
“And did Isabella never change her mind before?”
“Oh! but, because——and your brother!—After what you
told him from me, how could he think of going to ask her?”
“I cannot take surprize to myself on that head. You bid me
be surprized on your friend’s account, and therefore I am; but
as for my brother, his conduct in the business, I must own,
has been no more than I believed him perfectly equal to. The
fairness of your friend was an open attraction; her firmness,
you know, could only be understood by yourself.”
“You are laughing; but, I assure you, Isabella is very firm
in general.”
“It is as much as should be said of any one. To be always
firm must be to be often obstinate. When properly to relax is
the trial of judgment; and, without reference to my brother, I
really think Miss Thorpe has by no means chosen ill in fixing
on the present hour.”
The friends were not able to get together for any confiden-
tial discourse till all the dancing was over; but then, as they
walked about the room arm in arm, Isabella thus explained
herself:—”I do not wonder at your surprize; and I am really
fatigued to death. He is such a rattle!—Amusing enough, if
my mind had been disengaged; but I would have given the
world to sit still.”
“Then why did not you?”
“Oh! my dear! it would have looked so particular; and you
know how I abhor doing that. I refused him as long as I
possibly could, but he would take no denial. You have no
idea how he pressed me. I begged him to excuse me, and
get some other partner—but no, not he; after aspiring to my
136
hand, there was nobody else in the room he could bear to

think of; and it was not that he wanted merely to dance, he
wanted to be with me. Oh! such nonsense!—I told him he had
taken a very unlikely way to prevail upon me; for, of all things
in the world, I hated fine speeches and compliments;—and
so——and so then I found there would be no peace if I did not
stand up. Besides, I thought Mrs. Hughes, who introduced
him, might take it ill if I did not; and your dear brother, I
am sure he would have been miserable if I had sat down the
whole evening. I am so glad it is over! My spirits are quite
jaded with listening to his nonsense: and then,—being such
a smart young fellow, I saw every eye was upon us.”
“He is very handsome indeed.”
“Handsome!—Yes, I suppose he may. I dare say people
would admire him in general; but he is not at all in my style
of beauty. I hate a florid complexion and dark eyes in a man.
However, he is very well. Amazingly conceited, I am sure. I
took him down several times you know in my way.”
When the young ladies next met, they had a far more
interesting subject to discuss. James Morland’s second let-
ter was then received, and the kind intentions of his father
fully explained. A living, of which Mr. Morland was himself
patron and incumbent, of about four hundred pounds yearly
value, was to be resigned3 to his son as soon as he should be
old enough to take it; no trifling deduction from the family
income, no niggardly assignment to one of ten children. An
estate of at least equal value, moreover, was assured as his
future inheritance.
James expressed himself on the occasion with becoming
gratitude; and the necessity of waiting between two and three
years4 before they could marry, being, however unwelcome,
no more than he had expected, was born by him without dis-
content. Catherine, whose expectations had been as unfixed
137
as her ideas of her father’s income, and whose judgment was

now entirely led by her brother, felt equally well satisfied,
and heartily congratulated Isabella on having every thing so
pleasantly settled.
“It is very charming indeed,” said Isabella, with a grave face.
“Mr. Morland has behaved vastly handsome indeed,” said the
gentle Mrs. Thorpe, looking anxiously at her daughter. “I only
wish I could do as much. One could not expect more from
him you know. If he finds he can do more by and bye, I dare
say he will, for I am sure he must be an excellent good hearted
man. Four hundred is but a small income to begin on indeed,
but your wishes, my dear Isabella, are so moderate, you do
not consider how little you ever want, my dear.”
“It is not on my own account I wish for more; but I cannot
bear to be the means of injuring my dear Morland, making
him sit down upon an income hardly enough to find one in
the common necessaries of life. For myself, it is nothing; I
never think of myself.”
“I know you never do, my dear; and you will always find
your reward in the affection it makes every body feel for you.
There never was a young woman so beloved as you are by
every body that knows you; and I dare say when Mr. Mor-
land sees you, my dear child—but do not let us distress our
dear Catherine by talking of such things. Mr. Morland has
behaved so very handsome you know. I always heard he was
a most excellent man; and you know, my dear, we are not to
suppose but what, if you had had a suitable fortune, he would
have come down with something more, for I am sure he must
be a most liberal-minded man.”
“Nobody can think better of Mr. Morland than I do, I am
sure. But every body has their failing you know, and every
body has right to do what they like with their own money.”
Catherine was hurt by these insinuations. “I am very sure,”
138
said she, “that my father has promised to do as much as he

can afford.”
Isabella recollected herself. “As to that, my sweet Cather-
ine, there cannot be a doubt, and you know me well enough
to be sure that a much smaller income would satisfy me. It is
not the want of more money that makes me just at present a
little out of spirits; I hate money; and if our union could take
place now upon only fifty pounds a year, I should not have a
wish unsatisfied. Ah! my Catherine, you have found me out.
There’s the sting. The long, long, endless two years and a half
that are to pass before your brother can hold the living.”
“Yes, yes, my darling Isabella,” said Mrs. Thorpe, “we per-
fectly see into your heart. You have no disguise. We perfectly
understand the present vexation; and every body must love
you the better for such a noble honest affection.”
Catherine’s uncomfortable feelings began to lessen. She
endeavoured to believe that the delay of the marriage was
the only source of Isabella’s regret; and when she saw her at
their next interview as cheerful and amiable as ever, endeav-
oured to forget that she had for a minute thought otherwise.
James soon followed his letter, and was received with the most
gratifying kindness.
139
Chapter 2
T h e Allens had now entered on the sixth week of their stay

in Bath; and whether it should be the last, was for some
time a question, to which Catherine listened with a beat-
ing heart. To have her acquaintance with the Tilneys end so
soon, was an evil which nothing could counterbalance. Her
whole happiness seemed at stake, while the affair was in sus-
pense, and everything secured when it was determined that
the lodgings should be taken for another fortnight. What this
additional fortnight was to produce to her beyond the pleasure
of sometimes seeing Henry Tilney, made but a small part of
Catherine’s speculation. Once or twice indeed, since James’s
engagement had taught her what could be done, she had got
so far as to indulge in a secret “perhaps,” but in general the
felicity of being with him for the present bounded her views:
the present was now comprised in another three weeks, and
her happiness being certain for that period, the rest of her life
was at such a distance as to excite but little interest. In the
course of the morning which saw this business arranged, she
visited Miss Tilney, and poured forth her joyful feelings. It
was doomed to be a day of trial. No sooner had she expressed
her delight in Mr. Allen’s lengthened stay, than Miss Tilney
told of her father’s having just determined upon quitting Bath
by the end of another week. Here was a blow! The past sus-
pense of the morning had been ease and quiet to the present
disappointment. Catherine’s countenance fell, and in a voice
140
of most sincere concern she echoed Miss Tilney’s concluding

words, “By the end of another week!”
“Yes, my father can seldom be prevailed on to give the
waters what I think a fair trial. He has been disappointed of
some friends’ arrival whom he expected to meet here, and as
he is now pretty well, is in a hurry to get home.”
“I am very sorry for it,” said Catherine dejectedly, “if I had
known this before—”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Tilney in an embarrassed manner,
“you would be so good—it would make me very happy if—”
The entrance of her father put a stop to the civility, which
Catherine was beginning to hope might introduce a desire
of their corresponding. After addressing her with his usual
politeness, he turned to his daughter and said, “Well, Eleanor,
may I congratulate you on being successful in your application
to your fair friend?”
“I was just beginning to make the request, sir, as you came
in.”
“Well, proceed by all means. I know how much your heart
is in it. My daughter, Miss Morland,” he continued, without
leaving his daughter time to speak, “has been forming a very
bold wish. We leave Bath, as she has perhaps told you, on
Saturday se’nnight.1 A letter from my steward tells me that
my presence is wanted at home; and being disappointed in
my hope of seeing the Marquis of Longtown and General
Courteney here, some of my very old friends, there is noth-
ing to detain me longer in Bath. And could we carry our
selfish point with you, we should leave it without a single
regret. Can you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene
of public triumph and oblige your friend Eleanor with your
company in Gloucestershire? I am almost ashamed to make
the request, though its presumption would certainly appear
141
greater to every creature in Bath than yourself. Modesty such

as your’s—but not for the world would I pain it by open
praise. If you can be induced to honour us with a visit, you
will make us happy beyond expression. ’Tis true, we can offer
you nothing like the gaieties of this lively place; we can tempt
you neither by amusement nor splendour, for our mode of liv-
ing, as you see, is plain and unpretending; yet no endeavours
shall be wanting on our side to make Northanger Abbey not
wholly disagreeable.”
Northanger Abbey!—These were thrilling words, and
wound up Catherine’s feelings to the highest point of extasy.
Her grateful and gratified heart could hardly restrain its
expressions within the language of tolerable calmness. To
receive so flattering an invitation! To have her company so
warmly solicited! Every thing honourable and soothing, every
present enjoyment, and every future hope was contained in
it; and her acceptance, with only the saving clause of papa
and mamma’s approbation was eagerly given.—“I will write
home directly,” said she, “and if they do not object, as I dare
say they will not”—
General Tilney was not less sanguine, having already
waited on her excellent friends in Pulteney-street, and
obtained their sanction of his wishes. “Since they can consent
to part with you,” said he, “we may expect philosophy from
all the world.”
Miss Tilney was earnest, though gentle, in her secondary
civilities, and the affair became in a few minutes as nearly
settled, as this necessary reference to Fullerton would allow.
The circumstances of the morning had led Catherine’s
feelings through the varieties of suspense, security, and
disappointment; but they were now safely lodged in perfect
bliss; and with spirits elated to rapture, with Henry at her
heart, and Northanger Abbey on her lips, she hurried home to
142
write her letter. Mr. and Mrs. Morland, relying on the discre-
tion of the friends to whom they had already entrusted their
daughter, felt no doubt of the propriety of an acquaintance
which had been formed under their eye, and sent therefore
by return of post their ready consent to her visit in Glouces-
tershire. This indulgence, though not more than Catherine
had hoped for, completed her conviction of being favoured
beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune,
circumstance and chance. Every thing seemed to co-operate
for her advantage. By the kindness of her first friends the
Allens, she had been introduced into scenes, where pleasures
of every kind had met her. Her feelings, her preferences had
each known the happiness of a return. Wherever she felt
attachment, she had been able to create it. The affection of
Isabella was to be secured to her in a sister. The Tilneys, they,
by whom above all, she desired to be favourably thought of,
outstripped even her wishes in the flattering measures by
which their intimacy was to be continued. She was to be
their chosen visitor, she was to be for weeks under the same
roof with the person whose society she mostly prized—and,
in addition to all the rest, this roof was to be the roof of an
abbey!—Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to
her passion for Henry Tilney—and castles and abbies made
usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not
fill. To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the
one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a
darling wish, though to be more than the visitor of an hour,
had seemed too nearly impossible for desire. And yet, this
was to happen. With all the chances against her of house,
hall, place, park, court, and cottage, Northanger turned up
an abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long, damp pas-
sages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within
her daily reach, and she could not entirely subdue the hope of
143
some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured

and ill-fated nun.2
It was wonderful that her friends should seem so little
elated by the possession of such a home; that the conscious-
ness of it should be so meekly born. The power of early habit
only could account for it. A distinction to which they had
been born gave no pride. Their superiority of abode was no
more to them than their superiority of person.
Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss
Tilney; but so active were her thoughts, that when these
inquiries were answered, she was hardly more assured than
before, of Northanger Abbey having been a richly-endowed
convent at the time of the Reformation,3 of its having fallen
into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on its dissolution,
of a large portion of the ancient building still making a part
of the present dwelling although the rest was decayed, or of
its standing low in a valley, sheltered from the north and east
by rising woods of oak.
144
Chapter 3
Wi th a mind thus full of happiness, Catherine was hardly

aware that two or three days had passed away, without her
seeing Isabella for more than a few minutes together. She
began first to be sensible of this, and to sigh for her conver-
sation, as she walked along the Pump-room one morning, by
Mrs. Allen’s side, without any thing to say or to hear; and
scarcely had she felt a five minutes’ longing of friendship,
before the object of it appeared, and inviting her to a secret
conference, led the way to a seat. “This is my favourite place,”
said she, as they sat down on a bench between the doors,
which commanded a tolerable view of every body entering at
either, “it is so out of the way.”
Catherine, observing that Isabella’s eyes were continually
bent towards one door or the other, as in eager expectation,
and remembering how often she had been falsely accused of
being arch, thought the present a fine opportunity for being
really so; and therefore gaily said, “Do not be uneasy, Isabella.
James will soon be here.”
“Psha! my dear creature,” she replied, “do not think me
such a simpleton as to be always wanting to confine him to my
elbow. It would be hideous to be always together; we should be
the jest of the place. And so you are going to Northanger!—I
am amazingly glad of it. It is one of the finest old places in
England, I understand. I shall depend upon a most particular
description of it.”
145
“You shall certainly have the best in my power to give. But

who are you looking for? Are your sisters coming?”
“I am not looking for any body. One’s eyes must be some-
where, and you know what a foolish trick I have of fixing
mine, when my thoughts are an hundred miles off. I am
amazingly absent; I believe I am the most absent creature in
the world. Tilney says it is always the case with minds of a
certain stamp.”1
“But I thought, Isabella, you had something in particular
to tell me?”
“Oh! yes, and so I have. But here is a proof of what I was
saying. My poor head! I had quite forgot it. Well, the thing
is this, I have just had a letter from John;—you can guess the
contents.”
“No, indeed, I cannot.”
“My sweet love, do not be so abominably affected. What
can he write about, but yourself ? You know he is over head
and ears in love with you.”
“With me, dear Isabella!”
“Nay, my sweetest Catherine, this is being quite absurd!
Modesty, and all that, is very well in its way, but really a little
common honesty is sometimes quite as becoming. I have no
idea of being so overstrained! It is fishing for compliments.
His attentions were such as a child must have noticed. And it
was but half an hour before he left Bath, that you gave him the
most positive encouragement. He says so in this letter, says
that he as good as made you an offer, and that you received
his advances in the kindest way; and now he wants me to urge
his suit, and say all manner of pretty things to you. So it is in
vain to affect ignorance.”
Catherine, with all the earnestness of truth, expressed her
astonishment at such a charge, protesting her innocence of
every thought of Mr. Thorpe’s being in love with her, and
146
the consequent impossibility of her having ever intended

to encourage him. “As to any attentions on his side, I do
declare, upon my honour, I never was sensible of them for
a moment—except just his asking me to dance the first day
of his coming. And as to making me an offer, or any thing
like it, there must be some unaccountable mistake. I could
not have misunderstood a thing of that kind, you know!—
and, as I ever wish to be believed, I solemnly protest that
no syllable of such a nature ever passed between us. The last
half hour before he went away!—It must be all and com-
pletely a mistake—for I did not see him once that whole
morning.”
“But that you certainly did, for you spent the whole morn-
ing in Edgar’s Buildings—it was the day your father’s consent
came—and I am pretty sure that you and John were alone in
the parlour, some time before you left the house.”
“Are you?—Well, if you say it, it was so, I dare say—but
for the life of me, I cannot recollect it.—I do remember now
being with you, and seeing him as well as the rest—but that
we were ever alone for five minutes—However, it is not worth
arguing about, for whatever might pass on his side, you must
be convinced, by my having no recollection of it, that I never
thought, nor expected, nor wished for any thing of the kind
from him. I am excessively concerned that he should have any
regard for me—but indeed it has been quite unintentional on
my side, I never had the smallest idea of it. Pray undeceive
him as soon as you can, and tell him I beg his pardon—
that is—I do not know what I ought to say—but make him
understand what I mean, in the properest way. I would not
speak disrespectfully of a brother of your’s, Isabella, I am sure;
but you know very well that if I could think of one man more
than another —he is not the person.” Isabella was silent. “My
dear friend, you must not be angry with me. I cannot suppose
147
your brother cares so very much about me. And, you know,
we shall still be sisters.”
“Yes, yes,” (with a blush) “there are more ways than one of
our being sisters.—But where am I wandering to?—Well, my
dear Catherine, the case seems to be, that you are determined
against poor John—is not it so?”
“I certainly cannot return his affection, and as certainly
never meant to encourage it.”
“Since that is the case, I am sure I shall not tease you any
further. John desired me to speak to you on the subject, and
therefore I have. But I confess, as soon as I read his letter, I
thought it a very foolish, imprudent business, and not likely
to promote the good of either; for what were you to live
upon, supposing you came together? You have both of you
something to be sure, but it is not a trifle that will support
a family now-a-days; and after all that romancers may say,
there is no doing without money.2 I only wonder John could
think of it; he could not have received my last.”
“You do acquit me then of any thing wrong?—You are
convinced that I never meant to deceive your brother, never
suspected him of liking me till this moment?”
“Oh! as to that,” answered Isabella laughingly, “I do not
pretend to determine what your thoughts and designs in time
past may have been. All that is best known to yourself. A little
harmless flirtation or so will occur, and one is often drawn on
to give more encouragement than one wishes to stand by. But
you may be assured that I am the last person in the world to
judge you severely. All those things should be allowed for in
youth and high spirits. What one means one day, you know,
one may not mean the next. Circumstances change, opinions
alter.”
“But my opinion of your brother never did alter; it was
always the same. You are describing what never happened.”
148
“My dearest Catherine,” continued the other without at

all listening to her, “I would not for all the world be the
means of hurrying you into an engagement before you knew
what you were about. I do not think any thing would justify
me in wishing you to sacrifice all your happiness merely to
oblige my brother, because he is my brother, and who per-
haps after all, you know, might be just as happy without you,
for people seldom know what they would be at, young men
especially, they are so amazingly changeable and inconstant.
What I say is, why should a brother’s happiness be dearer to
me than a friend’s? You know I carry my notions of friend-
ship pretty high. But, above all things, my dear Catherine,
do not be in a hurry. Take my word for it, that if you are in
too great a hurry, you will certainly live to repent it. Tilney
says, there is nothing people are so often deceived in, as the
state of their own affections, and I believe he is very right.
Ah! here he comes; never mind, he will not see us, I am
sure.”
Catherine, looking up, perceived Captain Tilney; and
Isabella, earnestly fixing her eye on him as she spoke, soon
caught his notice. He approached immediately, and took the
seat to which her movements invited him. His first address
made Catherine start. Though spoken low, she could distin-
guish, “What! always to be watched, in person or by proxy!”
“Psha, nonsense!” was Isabella’s answer in the same half
whisper. “Why do you put such things into my head? If I
could believe it—my spirit, you know, is pretty independent.”
“I wish your heart were independent. That would be
enough for me.”
“My heart, indeed! What can you have to do with hearts?
You men have none of you any hearts.”
“If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us
torment enough.”
149
“Do they? I am sorry for it; I am sorry they find any thing
so disagreeable in me. I will look another way. I hope this
pleases you, (turning her back on him,) I hope your eyes are
not tormented now.”
“Never more so; for the edge of a blooming cheek is still
in view—at once too much and too little.”
Catherine heard all this, and quite out of countenance
could listen no longer. Amazed that Isabella could endure it,
and jealous for her brother, she rose up, and saying she should
join Mrs. Allen, proposed their walking. But for this Isabella
shewed no inclination. She was so amazingly tired, and it was
so odious to parade about the Pump-room; and if she moved
from her seat she should miss her sisters, she was expecting
her sisters every moment; so that her dearest Catherine must
excuse her, and must sit quietly down again. But Catherine
could be stubborn too; and Mrs. Allen just then coming up to
propose their returning home, she joined her and walked out
of the Pump-room, leaving Isabella still sitting with Captain
Tilney. With much uneasiness did she thus leave them. It
seemed to her that Captain Tilney was falling in love with
Isabella, and Isabella unconsciously encouraging him; uncon-
sciously it must be, for Isabella’s attachment to James was as
certain and well acknowledged as her engagement. To doubt
her truth or good intentions was impossible; and yet, during
the whole of their conversation her manner had been odd.
She wished Isabella had talked more like her usual self, and
not so much about money; and had not looked so well pleased
at the sight of Captain Tilney. How strange that she should
not perceive his admiration! Catherine longed to give her a
hint of it, to put her on her guard, and prevent all the pain
which her too lively behaviour might otherwise create both
for him and her brother.
150
The compliment of John Thorpe’s affection did not make

amends for this thoughtlessness in his sister. She was almost
as far from believing as from wishing it to be sincere; for she
had not forgotten that he could mistake, and his assertion
of the offer and of her encouragement convinced her that
his mistakes could sometimes be very egregious. In vanity
therefore she gained but little, her chief profit was in wonder.
That he should think it worth his while to fancy himself in
love with her, was a matter of lively astonishment. Isabella
talked of his attentions; she had never been sensible of any;
but Isabella had said many things which she hoped had been
spoken in haste, and would never be said again; and upon this
she was glad to rest altogether for present ease and comfort.
151
Chapter 4
A f e w days passed away, and Catherine, though not allow-

ing herself to suspect her friend, could not help watching
her closely. The result of her observations was not agree-
able. Isabella seemed an altered creature. When she saw
her indeed surrounded only by their immediate friends in
Edgar’s Buildings or Pulteney-street, her change of manners
was so trifling that, had it gone no farther, it might have
passed unnoticed. A something of languid indifference, or
of that boasted absence of mind which Catherine had never
heard of before, would occasionally come across her; but had
nothing worse appeared, that might only have spread a new
grace and inspired a warmer interest. But when Catherine
saw her in public, admitting Captain Tilney’s attentions as
readily as they were offered, and allowing him almost an
equal share with James in her notice and smiles, the alter-
ation became too positive to be past over. What could be
meant by such unsteady conduct, what her friend could be at,
was beyond her comprehension. Isabella could not be aware
of the pain she was inflicting; but it was a degree of wil-
ful thoughtlessness which Catherine could not but resent.
James was the sufferer. She saw him grave and uneasy; and
however careless of his present comfort the woman might
be who had given him her heart, to her it was always an
object. For poor Captain Tilney too she was greatly con-
cerned. Though his looks did not please her, his name was
a passport to her good will, and she thought with sincere
152
compassion of his approaching disappointment; for, in spite

of what she had believed herself to overhear in the Pump-
room, his behaviour was so incompatible with a knowledge
of Isabella’s engagement, that she could not, upon reflection,
imagine him aware of it. He might be jealous of her brother
as a rival, but if more had seemed implied, the fault must
have been in her misapprehension. She wished, by a gentle
remonstrance, to remind Isabella of her situation, and make
her aware of this double unkindness; but for remonstrance,
either opportunity or comprehension was always against her.
If able to suggest a hint, Isabella could never understand it.
In this distress, the intended departure of the Tilney family
became her chief consolation; their journey into Glouces-
tershire was to take place within a few days, and Captain
Tilney’s removal would at least restore peace to every heart
but his own. But Captain Tilney had at present no intention
of removing; he was not to be of the party to Northanger,
he was to continue at Bath. When Catherine knew this, her
resolution was directly made. She spoke to Henry Tilney
on the subject, regretting his brother’s evident partiality for
Miss Thorpe, and entreating him to make known her prior
engagement.
“My brother does know it,” was Henry’s answer.
“Does he?—then why does he stay here?”
He made no reply, and was beginning to talk of some-
thing else; but she eagerly continued, “Why do not you per-
suade him to go away? The longer he stays, the worse it
will be for him at last. Pray advise him for his own sake,
and for every body’s sake, to leave Bath directly. Absence
will in time make him comfortable again; but he can have
no hope here, and it is only staying to be miserable.” Henry
smiled and said, “I am sure my brother would not wish to do
that.”
153
“Then you will persuade him to go away?”

“Persuasion is not at command; but pardon me, if I cannot
even endeavour to persuade him. I have myself told him that
Miss Thorpe is engaged. He knows what he is about, and
must be his own master.”
“No, he does not know what he is about,” cried Catherine;
“he does not know the pain he is giving my brother. Not
that James has ever told me so, but I am sure he is very
uncomfortable.”
“And are you sure it is my brother’s doing?”
“Yes, very sure.”
“Is it my brother’s attentions to Miss Thorpe, or Miss
Thorpe’s admission of them, that gives the pain?”
“Is not it the same thing?”
“I think Mr. Morland would acknowledge a difference. No
man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman
he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.”
Catherine blushed for her friend, and said, “Isabella is
wrong. But I am sure she cannot mean to torment, for she is
very much attached to my brother. She has been in love with
him ever since they first met, and while my father’s consent
was uncertain, she fretted herself almost into a fever. You
know she must be attached to him.”
“I understand: she is in love with James, and flirts with
Frederick.”
“Oh! no, not flirts. A woman in love with one man cannot
flirt with another.”
“It is probable that she will neither love so well, nor flirt
so well, as she might do either singly. The gentlemen must
each give up a little.”
After a short pause, Catherine resumed with “Then you
do not believe Isabella so very much attached to my brother?”
“I can have no opinion on that subject.”
154
“But what can your brother mean? If he knows her engage-

ment, what can he mean by his behaviour?”
“You are a very close questioner.”
“Am I?—I only ask what I want to be told.”
“But do you only ask what I can be expected to tell?”
“Yes, I think so; for you must know your brother’s heart.”
“My brother’s heart, as you term it, on the present occasion,
I assure you I can only guess at.”
“Well?”
“Well!—Nay, if it is to be guess-work, let us all guess for
ourselves. To be guided by second-hand conjecture is pitiful.
The premises are before you. My brother is a lively, and per-
haps sometimes a thoughtless young man; he has had about a
week’s acquaintance with your friend, and he has known her
engagement almost as long as he has known her.”
“Well,” said Catherine, after some moments’ considera-
tion, “you may be able to guess at your brother’s intentions
from all this; but I am sure I cannot. But is not your father
uncomfortable about it?—Does not he want Captain Tilney
to go away?—Sure, if your father were to speak to him, he
would go.”
“My dear Miss Morland,” said Henry, “in this amiable
solicitude for your brother’s comfort, may you not be a lit-
tle mistaken? Are you not carried a little too far? Would he
thank you, either on his own account or Miss Thorpe’s, for
supposing that her affection, or at least her good-behaviour,
is only to be secured by her seeing nothing of Captain Tilney?
Is he safe only in solitude?—or, is her heart constant to him
only when unsolicited by any one else?—He cannot think
this—and you may be sure that he would not have you think
it. I will not say, ‘Do not be uneasy,’ because I know that
you are so, at this moment; but be as little uneasy as you
can. You have no doubt of the mutual attachment of your
155
brother and your friend; depend upon it therefore, that real

jealousy never can exist between them; depend upon it that
no disagreement between them can be of any duration. Their
hearts are open to each other, as neither heart can be to you;
they know exactly what is required and what can be borne;
and you may be certain, that one will never tease the other
beyond what is known to be pleasant.”
Perceiving her still to look doubtful and grave, he added,
“Though Frederick does not leave Bath with us, he will prob-
ably remain but a very short time, perhaps only a few days
behind us. His leave of absence will soon expire, and he
must return to his regiment.—And what will then be their
acquaintance?—The mess-room will drink Isabella Thorpe1
for a fortnight, and she will laugh with your brother over poor
Tilney’s passion for a month.”
Catherine would contend no longer against comfort. She
had resisted its approaches during the whole length of a
speech, but it now carried her captive. Henry Tilney must
know best. She blamed herself for the extent of her fears, and
resolved never to think so seriously on the subject again.
Her resolution was supported by Isabella’s behaviour in
their parting interview. The Thorpes spent the last evening
of Catherine’s stay in Pulteney-street, and nothing passed
between the lovers to excite her uneasiness, or make her
quit them in apprehension. James was in excellent spirits,
and Isabella most engagingly placid. Her tenderness for her
friend seemed rather the first feeling of her heart; but that at
such a moment was allowable; and once she gave her lover
a flat contradiction, and once she drew back her hand; but
Catherine remembered Henry’s instructions, and placed it all
to judicious affection. The embraces, tears, and promises of
the parting fair ones may be fancied.
156
Chapter 5
Mr. a n d Mrs. A l l e n were sorry to lose their young

friend, whose good-humour and cheerfulness had made her
a valuable companion, and in the promotion of whose enjoy-
ment their own had been gently increased. Her happiness in
going with Miss Tilney, however, prevented their wishing it
otherwise; and, as they were to remain only one more week
in Bath themselves, her quitting them now would not long
be felt. Mr. Allen attended her to Milsom-street, where she
was to breakfast, and saw her seated with the kindest wel-
come among her new friends; but so great was her agitation
in finding herself as one of the family, and so fearful was she
of not doing exactly what was right, and of not being able to
preserve their good opinion, that, in the embarrassment of
the first five minutes, she could almost have wished to return
with him to Pulteney-street.
Miss Tilney’s manners and Henry’s smile soon did away
some of her unpleasant feelings; but still she was far from
being at ease; nor could the incessant attentions of the
General himself entirely reassure her. Nay, perverse as it
seemed, she doubted whether she might not have felt less, had
she been less attended to. His anxiety for her comfort—his
continual solicitations that she would eat, and his often-
expressed fears of her seeing nothing to her taste—though
never in her life before had she beheld half such variety on
a breakfast-table—made it impossible for her to forget for a
moment that she was a visitor. She felt utterly unworthy of
157
such respect, and knew not how to reply to it. Her tranquillity
was not improved by the General’s impatience for the appea-
rance of his eldest son, nor by the displeasure he expressed
at his laziness when Captain Tilney at last came down. She
was quite pained by the severity of his father’s reproof, which
seemed disproportionate to the offence; and much was her
concern increased, when she found herself the principal cause
of the lecture; and that his tardiness was chiefly resented
from being disrepectful to her. This was placing her in a very
uncomfortable situation, and she felt great compassion for
Captain Tilney, without being able to hope for his good-will.
He listened to his father in silence, and attempted not any
defence, which confirmed her in fearing, that the inquietude
of his mind, on Isabella’s account, might, by keeping him
long sleepless, have been the real cause of his rising late.—It
was the first time of her being decidedly in his company, and
she had hoped to be now able to form her opinion of him; but
she scarcely heard his voice while his father remained in the
room; and even afterwards, so much were his spirits affected,
she could distinguish nothing but these words, in a whisper
to Eleanor, “How glad I shall be when you are all off.”
The bustle of going was not pleasant.—The clock struck
ten while the trunks were carrying down, and the General
had fixed to be out of Milsom-street by that hour. His great
coat, instead of being brought for him to put on directly,
was spread out in the curricle in which he was to accompany
his son. The middle seat of the chaise was not drawn out,1
though there were three people to go in it, and his daugh-
ter’s maid had so crowded it with parcels, that Miss Morland
would not have room to sit; and, so much was he influenced
by this apprehension when he handed her in, that she had
some difficulty in saving her own new writing-desk2 from
being thrown out into the street.—At last, however, the door
158
was closed upon the three females, and they set off at the
sober pace in which the handsome, highly-fed four horses
of a gentleman usually perform a journey of thirty miles:
such was the distance of Northanger from Bath, to be now
divided into two equal stages.3 Catherine’s spirits revived as
they drove from the door; for with Miss Tilney she felt no
restraint; and, with the interest of a road entirely new to her,
of an abbey before, and a curricle behind, she caught the
last view of Bath without any regret, and met with every
mile-stone before she expected it. The tediousness of a two
hours’ bait at Petty-France,4 in which there was nothing to
be done but to eat without being hungry, and loiter about
without any thing to see, next followed—and her admira-
tion of the style in which they travelled, of the fashionable
chaise-and-four—postilions handsomely liveried,5 rising so
regularly in their stirrups, and numerous out-riders properly
mounted, sunk a little under this consequent inconvenience.6
Had their party been perfectly agreeable, the delay would
have been nothing; but General Tilney, though so charming
a man, seemed always a check upon his children’s spirits, and
scarcely any thing was said but by himself; the observation of
which, with his discontent at whatever the inn afforded, and
his angry impatience at the waiters, made Catherine grow
every moment more in awe of him, and appeared to lengthen
the two hours into four.—At last, however, the order of
release was given; and much was Catherine then surprized by
the General’s proposal of her taking his place in his son’s cur-
ricle for the rest of the journey:—“the day was fine, and he
was anxious for her seeing as much of the country as possible.”
The remembrance of Mr. Allen’s opinion, respecting
young men’s open carriages, made her blush at the men-
tion of such a plan, and her first thought was to decline it;
but her second was of greater deference for General Tilney’s
159
judgment; he could not propose any thing improper for her;

and, in the course of a few minutes, she found herself with
Henry in the curricle, as happy a being as ever existed. A
very short trial convinced her that a curricle was the prettiest
equipage in the world; the chaise-and-four wheeled off with
some grandeur, to be sure, but it was a heavy and troublesome
business, and she could not easily forget its having stopped
two hours at Petty-France. Half the time would have been
enough for the curricle, and so nimbly were the light horses
disposed to move, that, had not the General chosen to have
his own carriage lead the way, they could have passed it with
ease in half a minute. But the merit of the curricle did not all
belong to the horses;—Henry drove so well,—so quietly—
without making any disturbance, without parading to her,
or swearing at them; so different from the only gentleman-
coachman whom it was in her power to compare him with!—
And then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes of his
great coat looked so becomingly important!—To be driven
by him, next to being dancing with him, was certainly the
greatest happiness in the world. In addition to every other
delight, she had now that of listening to her own praise; of
being thanked at least, on his sister’s account, for her kind-
ness in thus becoming her visitor; of hearing it ranked as
real friendship, and described as creating real gratitude. His
sister, he said, was uncomfortably circumstanced—she had
no female companion—and, in the frequent absence of her
father, was sometimes without any companion at all.
“But how can that be?” said Catherine, “are not you with
her?”
“Northanger is not more than half my home; I have an
establishment at my own house in Woodston, which is nearly
twenty miles from my father’s, and some of my time is nec-
essarily spent there.”
160
“How sorry you must be for that!”

“I am always sorry to leave Eleanor.”
“Yes; but besides your affection for her, you must be so fond
of the abbey!—After being used to such a home as the abbey,
an ordinary parsonage-house must be very disagreeable.”
He smiled, and said, “You have formed a very favourable
idea of the abbey.”
“To be sure I have. Is not it a fine old place, just like what
one reads about?”
“And are you prepared to encounter all the horrors that
a building such as ‘what one reads about’ may produce?—
Have you a stout heart?—Nerves fit for sliding pannels and
tapestry?”
“Oh! yes—I do not think I should be easily frightened,
because there would be so many people in the house—and
besides, it has never been uninhabited and left deserted for
years, and then the family come back to it unawares, without
giving any notice, as generally happens.”
“No, certainly.—We shall not have to explore our way into
a hall dimly lighted by the expiring embers of a wood fire—
nor be obliged to spread our beds on the floor of a room
without windows, doors, or furniture. But you must be aware
that when a young lady is (by whatever means) introduced
into a dwelling of this kind, she is always lodged apart from
the rest of the family.7 While they snugly repair to their own
end of the house, she is formally conducted by Dorothy8 the
ancient housekeeper up a different staircase, and along many
gloomy passages, into an apartment never used since some
cousin or kin died in it about twenty years before. Can you
stand such a ceremony as this? Will not your mind misgive
you, when you find yourself in this gloomy chamber—too
lofty and extensive for you, with only the feeble rays of a
single lamp to take in its size—its walls hung with tapestry
161
exhibiting figures as large as life, and the bed, of dark green

stuff or purple velvet,9 presenting even a funereal appearance.
Will not your heart sink within you?”
“Oh! but this will not happen to me, I am sure.”
“How fearfully will you examine the furniture of your
apartment!—And what will you discern?—Not tables, toi-
lettes,10 wardrobes, or drawers, but on one side perhaps the
remains of a broken lute, on the other a ponderous chest11
which no efforts can open, and over the fire-place the portrait
of some handsome warrior, whose features will so incompre-
hensibly strike you, that you will not be able to withdraw
your eyes from it. Dorothy meanwhile, no less struck by your
appearance, gazes on you in great agitation, and drops a few
unintelligible hints. To raise your spirits, moreover, she gives
you reason to suppose that the part of the abbey you inhabit is
undoubtedly haunted, and informs you that you will not have
a single domestic within call. With this parting cordial12 she
curtseys off—you listen to the sound of her receding foot-
steps as long as the last echo can reach you—and when, with
fainting spirits, you attempt to fasten your door, you discover,
with increased alarm, that it has no lock.”
“Oh! Mr. Tilney, how frightful!—This is just like a book!—
But it cannot really happen to me. I am sure your housekeeper
is not really Dorothy.—Well, what then?”
“Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first
night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the
bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours’ unquiet slum-
ber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your
arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thun-
der so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation
will roll round the neighbouring mountains—and during the
frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably
think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part
162
of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable

of course to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment
for indulging it, you will instantly arise, and throwing your
dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine this mys-
tery. After a very short search, you will discover a division
in the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the min-
utest inspection, and on opening it, a door will immediately
appear—which door being only secured by massy13 bars and
a padlock, you will, after a few efforts, succeed in opening,—
and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through it into a
small vaulted room.”
“No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any
such thing.”
“What! not when Dorothy has given you to understand
that there is a secret subterraneous communication between
your apartment and the chapel of St. Anthony, scarcely two
miles off—Could you shrink from so simple an adventure?
No, no, you will proceed into this small vaulted room, and
through this into several others, without perceiving any thing
very remarkable in either. In one perhaps there may be a dag-
ger, in another a few drops of blood, and in a third the remains
of some instrument of torture; but there being nothing in all
this out of the common way, and your lamp being nearly
exhausted, you will return towards your own apartment. In
repassing through the small vaulted room, however, your eyes
will be attracted towards a large, old-fashioned cabinet of
ebony and gold, which, though narrowly examining the fur-
niture before, you had passed unnoticed. Impelled by an irre-
sistible presentiment, you will eagerly advance to it, unlock its
folding doors, and search into every drawer;—but for some
time without discovering any thing of importance—perhaps
nothing but a considerable hoard of diamonds. At last, how-
ever, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will
163
open—a roll of paper appears:—you seize it—it contains

many sheets of manuscript—you hasten with the precious
treasure into your own chamber, but scarcely have you been
able to decipher ‘Oh! thou—whomsoever thou mayst be, into
whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may
fall’—when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and
leaves you in total darkness.”14
“Oh! no, no—do not say so. Well, go on.”
But Henry was too much amused by the interest he had
raised, to be able to carry it farther; he could no longer com-
mand solemnity either of subject or voice, and was obliged to
entreat her to use her own fancy in the perusal of Matilda’s
woes. Catherine, recollecting herself, grew ashamed of her
eagerness, and began earnestly to assure him that her atten-
tion had been fixed without the smallest apprehension of
really meeting with what he related. “Miss Tilney, she was
sure, would never put her into such a chamber as he had
described!—She was not at all afraid.”
As they drew near the end of their journey, her impa-
tience for a sight of the abbey—for some time suspended by
his conversation on subjects very different—returned in full
force, and every bend in the road was expected with solemn
awe to afford a glimpse of its massy walls of grey stone, ris-
ing amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of
the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic
windows. But so low did the building stand, that she found
herself passing through the great gates of the lodge into the
very grounds of Northanger, without having discerned even
an antique chimney.
She knew not that she had any right to be surprized, but
there was a something in this mode of approach which she
certainly had not expected. To pass between lodges of a mod-
ern appearance, to find herself with such ease in the very
164
precincts of the abbey, and driven so rapidly along a smooth,

level road of fine gravel, without obstacle, alarm or solemnity
of any kind, struck her as odd and inconsistent. She was not
long at leisure however for such considerations. A sudden
scud of rain driving full in her face, made it impossible for
her to observe any thing further, and fixed all her thoughts on
the welfare of her new straw bonnet:—and she was actually
under the Abbey walls, was springing, with Henry’s assis-
tance, from the carriage, was beneath the shelter of the old
porch, and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend
and the General were waiting to welcome her, without feel-
ing one aweful foreboding of future misery to herself, or one
moment’s suspicion of any past scenes of horror being acted
within the solemn edifice.15 The breeze had not seemed to
waft the sighs of the murdered to her; it had wafted nothing
worse than a thick mizzling rain;16 and having given a good
shake to her habit,17 she was ready to be shewn into the com-
mon drawing-room,18 and capable of considering where she
was.
An abbey!—yes, it was delightful to be really in an abbey!—
but she doubted, as she looked round the room, whether any
thing within her observation, would have given her the con-
sciousness. The furniture was in all the profusion and elegance
of modern taste.19 The fire-place, where she had expected the
ample width and ponderous carving of former times, was con-
tracted to a Rumford,20 with slabs of plain though handsome
marble, and ornaments over it of the prettiest English china.
The windows, to which she looked with peculiar dependence,
from having heard the General talk of his preserving them
in their Gothic form with reverential care, were yet less what
her fancy had portrayed. To be sure, the pointed arch was
preserved—the form of them was Gothic—they might be
even casements—but every pane was so large, so clear, so
165
light! To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest

divisions, and the heaviest stone-work, for painted glass, dirt
and cobwebs, the difference was very distressing.
The General, perceiving how her eye was employed, began
to talk of the smallness of the room and simplicity of the fur-
niture, where every thing being for daily use, pretended only
to comfort, &c.; flattering himself however that there were
some apartments in the Abbey not unworthy her notice—and
was proceeding to mention the costly gilding of one in par-
ticular, when taking out his watch, he stopped short to pro-
nounce it with surprize within twenty minutes of five! This
seemed the word of separation, and Catherine found herself
hurried away by Miss Tilney in such a manner as convinced
her that the strictest punctuality to the family hours would
be expected at Northanger.
Returning through the large and lofty hall, they ascended
a broad staircase of shining oak, which, after many flights
and many landing-places, brought them upon a long wide
gallery. On one side it had a range of doors, and it was lighted
on the other by windows which Catherine had only time to
discover looked into a quadrangle, before Miss Tilney led the
way into a chamber, and scarcely staying to hope she would
find it comfortable, left her with an anxious entreaty that she
would make as little alteration as possible in her dress.
166
Chapter 6
A mo m e nt ’ s glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that

her apartment was very unlike the one which Henry had
endeavoured to alarm her by the description of.—It was by no
means unreasonably large, and contained neither tapestry nor
velvet.—The walls were papered, the floor was carpeted; the
windows were neither less perfect, nor more dim than those
of the drawing-room below; the furniture, though not of the
latest fashion, was handsome and comfortable, and the air of
the room altogether far from uncheerful. Her heart instan-
taneously at ease on this point, she resolved to lose no time
in particular examination of anything, as she greatly dreaded
disobliging the General by any delay. Her habit therefore
was thrown off with all possible haste, and she was prepar-
ing to unpin the linen package,1 which the chaise-seat had
conveyed for her immediate accommodation, when her eye
suddenly fell on a large high chest, standing back in a deep
recess on one side of the fire-place.2 The sight of it made her
start; and, forgetting every thing else, she stood gazing on it
in motionless wonder, while these thoughts crossed her:—
“This is strange indeed! I did not expect such a sight as
this!—An immense heavy chest!—What can it hold?—Why
should it be placed here? —Pushed back too, as if meant to be
out of sight!—I will look into it—cost me what it may, I will
look into it—and directly too—by day-light.—If I stay till
evening my candle may go out.” She advanced and examined
it closely: it was of cedar, curiously3 inlaid with some darker
167
wood, and raised, about a foot from the ground, on a carved

stand of the same. The lock was silver, though tarnished from
age; at each end were the imperfect remains of handles also of
silver, broken perhaps prematurely by some strange violence;
and, on the centre of the lid, was a mysterious cypher, in the
same metal. Catherine bent over it intently, but without being
able to distinguish any thing with certainty. She could not, in
whatever direction she took it, believe the last letter to be a
T ; and yet that it should be any thing else in that house was
a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment.
If not originally their’s, by what strange events could it have
fallen into the Tilney family?
Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater;
and seizing, with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she
resolved at all hazards to satisfy herself at least as to its con-
tents. With difficulty, for something seemed to resist her
efforts, she raised the lid a few inches; but at that moment
a sudden knocking at the door of the room made her, start-
ing, quit her hold, and the lid closed with alarming violence.
This ill-timed intruder was Miss Tilney’s maid, sent by her
mistress to be of use to Miss Morland; and though Cather-
ine immediately dismissed her, it recalled her to the sense of
what she ought to be doing, and forced her, in spite of her
anxious desire, to penetrate this mystery, to proceed in her
dressing without further delay. Her progress was not quick,
for her thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object so
well calculated to interest and alarm; and though she dared
not waste a moment upon a second attempt, she could not
remain many paces from the chest. At length, however, hav-
ing slipped one arm into her gown, her toilette seemed so
nearly finished, that the impatience of her curiosity might
safely be indulged. One moment surely might be spared;
and, so desperate should be the exertion of her strength, that,
168
unless secured by supernatural means, the lid in one moment

should be thrown back. With this spirit she sprang forward,
and her confidence did not deceive her. Her resolute effort
threw back the lid, and gave to her astonished eyes the view
of a white cotton counterpane, properly folded, reposing at
one end of the chest in undisputed possession!
She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprize, when
Miss Tilney, anxious for her friend’s being ready, entered the
room, and to the rising shame of having harboured for some
minutes an absurd expectation, was then added the shame of
being caught in so idle a search. “That is a curious old chest,
is not it?” said Miss Tilney, as Catherine hastily closed it and
turned away to the glass. “It is impossible to say how many
generations it has been here. How it came to be first put in
this room I know not, but I have not had it moved, because
I thought it might sometimes be of use in holding hats and
bonnets. The worst of it is that its weight makes it difficult
to open. In that corner, however, it is at least out of the way.”
Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing,
tying her gown, and forming wise resolutions with the most
violent dispatch. Miss Tilney gently hinted her fear of being
late; and in half a minute they ran down stairs together, in an
alarm not wholly unfounded, for General Tilney was pacing
the drawing-room, his watch in his hand, and having, on the
very instant of their entering, pulled the bell with violence,
ordered “Dinner to be on table directly!”
Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke,
and sat pale and breathless, in a most humble mood, con-
cerned for his children, and detesting old chests; and the
General recovering his politeness as he looked at her, spent
the rest of his time in scolding his daughter, for so foolishly
hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out of breath
from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry
169
in the world: but Catherine could not at all get over the dou-
ble distress of having involved her friend in a lecture and been
a great simpleton herself, till they were happily seated at the
dinner-table, when the General’s complacent smiles, and a
good appetite of her own, restored her to peace. The dining-
parlour was a noble room, suitable in its dimensions to a much
larger drawing-room than the one in common use, and fitted
up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on
the unpractised eye of Catherine, who saw little more than
its spaciousness and the number of their attendants. Of the
former, she spoke aloud her admiration; and the General,
with a very gracious countenance, acknowledged that it was
by no means an ill-sized room; and further confessed, that,
though as careless on such subjects as most people, he did
look upon a tolerably large eating-room as one of the neces-
saries of life; he supposed, however, “that she must have been
used to much better sized apartments at Mr. Allen’s?”
“No, indeed,” was Catherine’s honest assurance; “Mr.
Allen’s dining-parlour was not more than half as large:” and
she had never seen so large a room as this in her life. The
General’s good-humour increased.—Why, as he had such
rooms, he thought it would be simple not to make use of
them; but, upon his honour, he believed there might be more
comfort in rooms of only half their size. Mr. Allen’s house,
he was sure, must be exactly of the true size for rational
happiness.
The evening passed without any further disturbance, and,
in the occasional absence of General Tilney, with much pos-
itive cheerfulness. It was only in his presence that Catherine
felt the smallest fatigue from her journey; and even then, even
in moments of languor or restraint, a sense of general hap-
piness preponderated, and she could think of her friends in
Bath without one wish of being with them.
170
The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals
the whole afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it
blew and rained violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall,
listened to the tempest with sensations of awe; and, when she
heard it rage round a corner of the ancient building and close
with sudden fury a distant door, felt for the first time that
she was really in an Abbey.—Yes, these were characteristic
sounds;—they brought to her recollection a countless variety
of dreadful situations and horrid scenes, which such buildings
had witnessed, and such storms ushered in; and most heartily
did she rejoice in the happier circumstances attending her
entrance within walls so solemn!—She had nothing to dread
from midnight assassins or drunken gallants.4 Henry had cer-
tainly been only in jest in what he had told her that morning.
In a house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have noth-
ing to explore or to suffer; and might go to her bedroom as
securely as if it had been her own chamber at Fullerton. Thus
wisely fortifying her mind, as she proceeded up stairs, she
was enabled, especially on perceiving that Miss Tilney slept
only two doors from her, to enter her room with a tolerably
stout heart; and her spirits were immediately assisted by the
cheerful blaze of a wood fire. “How much better is this,” said
she, as she walked to the fender—“how much better to find a
fire ready lit, than to have to wait shivering in the cold till all
the family are in bed, as so many poor girls have been obliged
to do, and then to have a faithful old servant frightening one
by coming in with a faggot! How glad I am that Northanger
is what it is! If it had been like some other places, I do not
know that, in such a night as this, I could have answered for
my courage:—but now, to be sure, there is nothing to alarm
one.”
She looked round the room. The window curtains seemed
in motion. It could be nothing but the violence of the wind
171
penetrating through the divisions of the shutters;5 and she

stept boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune, to assure
herself of its being so, peeped courageously behind each cur-
tain, saw nothing on either low window seat to scare her,
and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt the strongest
conviction of the wind’s force. A glance at the old chest,
as she turned away from this examination, was not without
its use; she scorned the causeless fears of an idle fancy, and
began with a most happy indifference to prepare herself for
bed. “She should take her time; she should not hurry herself;
she did not care if she were the last person up in the house.
But she would not make up her fire; that would seem cow-
ardly, as if she wished for the protection of light after she
were in bed.” The fire therefore died away, and Catherine,
having spent the best part of an hour in her arrangements,
was beginning to think of stepping into bed, when, on giv-
ing a parting glance round the room, she was struck by the
appearance of a high, old-fashioned black cabinet, which,
though in a situation conspicuous enough, had never caught
her notice before. Henry’s words, his description of the ebony
cabinet which was to escape her observation at first, imme-
diately rushed across her; and though there could be nothing
really in it, there was something whimsical, it was certainly a
very remarkable coincidence! She took her candle and looked
closely at the cabinet. It was not absolutely ebony and gold;
but it was Japan,6 black and yellow Japan of the handsomest
kind; and as she held her candle, the yellow had very much
the effect of gold. The key was in the door, and she had a
strange fancy to look into it; not however with the small-
est expectation of finding any thing, but it was so very odd,
after what Henry had said. In short, she could not sleep till
she had examined it. So, placing the candle with great cau-
tion on a chair, she seized the key with a very tremulous
172
hand and tried to turn it; but it resisted her utmost strength.
Alarmed, but not discouraged, she tried it another way; a bolt
flew, and she believed herself successful; but how strangely
mysterious!—the door was still immoveable. She paused a
moment in breathless wonder. The wind roared down the
chimney, the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and
every thing seemed to speak the awfulness7 of her situation.
To retire to bed, however, unsatisfied on such a point, would
be vain, since sleep must be impossible with the conscious-
ness of a cabinet so mysteriously closed in her immediate
vicinity. Again therefore she applied herself to the key, and
after moving it in every possible way for some instants with
the determined celerity of hope’s last effort, the door sud-
denly yielded to her hand: her heart leaped with exultation
at such a victory, and having thrown open each folding door,
the second being secured only by bolts of less wonderful con-
struction than the lock, though in that her eye could not
discern any thing unusual, a double range of small drawers
appeared in view, with some larger drawers above and below
them; and in the centre, a small door, closed also with a lock
and key, secured in all probability a cavity of importance.
Catherine’s heart beat quick, but her courage did not fail
her. With a cheek flushed by hope, and an eye straining with
curiosity, her fingers grasped the handle of a drawer and drew
it forth. It was entirely empty. With less alarm and greater
eagerness she seized a second, a third, a fourth; each was
equally empty. Not one was left unsearched, and in not one
was any thing found. Well read in the art of concealing a
treasure, the possibility of false linings to the drawers did
not escape her, and she felt round each with anxious acute-
ness in vain. The place in the middle alone remained now
unexplored; and though she had “never from the first had the
smallest idea of finding any thing in any part of the cabinet,
173
and was not in the least disappointed at her ill success thus
far, it would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly while
she was about it.” It was some time however before she could
unfasten the door, the same difficulty occurring in the man-
agement of this inner lock as of the outer; but at length it did
open; and not vain, as hitherto, was her search; her quick eyes
directly fell on a roll of paper pushed back into the further
part of the cavity, apparently for concealment, and her feel-
ings at that moment were indescribable. Her heart fluttered,
her knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale. She seized,
with an unsteady hand, the precious manuscript, for half a
glance sufficed to ascertain written characters; and while she
acknowledged with awful sensations this striking exempli-
fication of what Henry had foretold, resolved instantly to
peruse every line before she attempted to rest.
The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her
turn to it with alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden
extinction, it had yet some hours to burn; and that she might
not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writ-
ing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily
snuffed it. Alas ! it was snuffed and extinguished in one. A
lamp could not have expired with more awful effect. Cather-
ine, for a few moments, was motionless with horror. It was
done completely; not a remnant of light in the wick could
give hope to the rekindling breath.8 Darkness impenetra-
ble and immoveable filled the room. A violent gust of wind,
rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment.
Catherine trembled from head to foot. In the pause which
succeeded, a sound like receding footsteps and the closing of
a distant door struck on her affrighted ear. Human nature
could support no more. A cold sweat stood on her forehead,
the manuscript fell from her hand, and groping her way to
the bed, she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension
174
of agony by creeping far underneath the clothes. To close her

eyes in sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the
question. With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings
in every way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossi-
ble. The storm too abroad so dreadful!—She had not been
used to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast seemed
fraught with awful intelligence. The manuscript so won-
derfully found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning’s
prediction, how was it to be accounted for?—What could it
contain?—to whom could it relate?—by what means could
it have been so long concealed?—and how singularly strange
that it should fall to her lot to discover it! Till she had made
herself mistress of its contents, however, she could have nei-
ther repose nor comfort; and with the sun’s first rays she was
determined to peruse it. But many were the tedious hours
which must yet intervene. She shuddered, tossed about in
her bed, and envied every quiet sleeper. The storm still raged,
and various were the noises, more terrific even than the wind,
which struck at intervals on her startled ear. The very curtains
of her bed seemed at one moment in motion, and at another
the lock of her door was agitated, as if by the attempt of
somebody to enter. Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along
the gallery, and more than once her blood was chilled by
the sound of distant moans. Hour after hour passed away,
and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed by all
the clocks in the house, before the tempest subsided, or she
unknowingly fell fast asleep.
175
Chapter 7
T h e housemaid’s folding back her window-shutters at eight

o’clock the next day, was the sound which first roused
Catherine; and she opened her eyes, wondering that they
could ever have been closed, on objects of cheerfulness; her
fire was already burning, and a bright morning had succeeded
the tempest of the night. Instantaneously with the conscious-
ness of existence, returned her recollection of the manuscript;
and springing from the bed in the very moment of the maid’s
going away, she eagerly collected every scattered sheet which
had burst from the roll on its falling to the ground, and flew
back to enjoy the luxury of their perusal on her pillow. She
now plainly saw that she must not expect a manuscript of
equal length with the generality of what she had shuddered
over in books, for the roll, seeming to consist entirely of small
disjointed sheets, was altogether but of trifling size, and much
less than she had supposed it to be at first.
Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started
at its import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses
play her false?—An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern
characters, seemed all that was before her! If the evidence of
sight might be trusted, she held a washing-bill1 in her hand.
She seized another sheet, and saw the same articles with little
variation; a third, a fourth, and a fifth presented nothing new.
Shirts, stockings, cravats and waistcoats faced her in each.
Two others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure
scarcely more interesting, in letters, hair-powder, shoe-string
176
and breeches-ball.2 And the larger sheet, which had inclosed

the rest, seemed by its first cramp line,3 “To poultice chesnut
mare,”—a farrier’s bill! Such was the collection of papers,
(left perhaps, as she could then suppose, by the negligence
of a servant in the place whence she had taken them,) which
had filled her with expectation and alarm, and robbed her
of half her night’s rest! She felt humbled to the dust. Could
not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A
corner of it catching her eye as she lay, seemed to rise up in
judgment against her. Nothing could now be clearer than the
absurdity of her recent fancies. To suppose that a manuscript
of many generations back could have remained undiscovered
in a room such as that, so modern, so habitable!—or that she
should be the first to possess the skill of unlocking a cabinet,
the key of which was open to all!
How could she have so imposed on herself ?—Heaven for-
bid that Henry Tilney should ever know her folly! And it
was in a great measure his own doing, for had not the cab-
inet appeared so exactly to agree with his description of her
adventures, she should never have felt the smallest curiosity
about it. This was the only comfort that occurred. Impa-
tient to get rid of those hateful evidences of her folly, those
detestable papers then scattered over the bed, she rose directly,
and folding them up as nearly as possible in the same shape
as before, returned them to the same spot within the cabi-
net, with a very hearty wish that no untoward accident might
ever bring them forward again, to disgrace her even with
herself.
Why the locks should have been so difficult to open how-
ever, was still something remarkable, for she could now man-
age them with perfect ease. In this there was surely something
mysterious, and she indulged in the flattering suggestion for
half a minute, till the possibility of the door’s having been at
177
first unlocked, and of being herself its fastener, darted into

her head, and cost her another blush.
She got away as soon as she could from a room in which
her conduct produced such unpleasant reflections, and found
her way with all speed to the breakfast-parlour, as it had
been pointed out to her by Miss Tilney the evening before.
Henry was alone in it; and his immediate hope of her hav-
ing been undisturbed by the tempest, with an arch reference
to the character of the building they inhabited, was rather
distressing. For the world would she not have her weak-
ness suspected; and yet, unequal to an absolute falsehood,
was constrained to acknowledge that the wind had kept her
awake a little. “But we have a charming morning after it,”
she added, desiring to get rid of the subject; “and storms and
sleeplessness are nothing when they are over. What beautiful
hyacinths!—I have just learnt to love a hyacinth.”4
“And how might you learn?—By accident or argument?”
“Your sister taught me; I cannot tell how. Mrs. Allen used
to take pains, year after year, to make me like them; but I
never could, till I saw them the other day in Milsom-street;
I am naturally indifferent about flowers.”
“But now you love a hyacinth. So much the better. You
have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have
as many holds upon happiness as possible. Besides, a taste for
flowers is always desirable in your sex, as a means of getting
you out of doors, and tempting you to more frequent exercise
than you would otherwise take. And though the love of a
hyacinth may be rather domestic, who can tell, the sentiment
once raised, but you may in time come to love a rose?”
“But I do not want any such pursuit to get me out of doors.
The pleasure of walking and breathing fresh air is enough for
me, and in fine weather I am out more than half my time.—
Mamma says, I am never within.”
178
“At any rate, however, I am pleased that you have learnt to

love a hyacinth. The mere habit of learning to love is the thing;
and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great
blessing.—Has my sister a pleasant mode of instruction?”
Catherine was saved the embarrassment of attempting
an answer, by the entrance of the General, whose smiling
compliments announced a happy state of mind, but whose
gentle hint of sympathetic early rising did not advance her
composure.
The elegance of the breakfast set forced itself on Cather-
ine’s notice when they were seated at table; and, luckily, it had
been the General’s choice. “He5 was enchanted by her appro-
bation of his taste, confessed it to be neat and simple, thought
it right to encourage the manufacture of his country; and for
his part, to his uncritical palate, the tea was as well flavoured
from the clay of Staffordshire, as from that of Dresden or
Sêve.6 But this was quite an old set, purchased two years ago.
The manufacture was much improved since that time; he had
seen some beautiful specimens when last in town, and had
he not been perfectly without vanity of that kind, might have
been tempted to order a new set. He trusted, however, that an
opportunity might ere long occur of selecting one—though
not for himself.” Catherine was probably the only one of the
party who did not understand him.
Shortly after breakfast Henry left them for Woodston,
where business required and would keep him two or three
days. They all attended in the hall to see him mount his
horse, and immediately on re-entering the breakfast room,
Catherine walked to a window in the hope of catching
another glimpse of his figure. “This is a somewhat heavy
call upon your brother’s fortitude,” observed the General
to Eleanor. “Woodston will make but a sombre appearance
to-day.”
179
“Is it a pretty place?” asked Catherine.

“What say you, Eleanor?—speak your opinion, for ladies
can best tell the taste of ladies in regard to places as well as
men. I think it would be acknowledged by the most impar-
tial eye to have many recommendations. The house stands
among fine meadows facing the south-east, with an excellent
kitchen-garden in the same aspect; the walls surrounding
which I built and stocked myself about ten years ago, for the
benefit of my son. It is a family living, Miss Morland; and
the property in the place being chiefly my own, you may
believe I take care that it shall not be a bad one. Did Henry’s
income depend solely on this living, he would not be ill
provided for. Perhaps it may seem odd, that with only two
younger children, I should think any profession necessary for
him; and certainly there are moments when we could all wish
him disengaged from every tie of business. But though I may
not exactly make converts of you young ladies, I am sure your
father, Miss Morland, would agree with me in thinking it
expedient to give every young man some employment.7 The
money is nothing, it is not an object, but employment is the
thing. Even Frederick, my eldest son, you see, who will per-
haps inherit as considerable a landed property as any private
man in the county, has his profession.”
The imposing effect of this last argument was equal to his
wishes. The silence of the lady proved it to be unanswerable.
Something had been said the evening before of her being
shewn over the house, and he now offered himself as her
conductor; and though Catherine had hoped to explore it
accompanied only by his daughter, it was a proposal of too
much happiness in itself, under any circumstances, not to be
gladly accepted; for she had been already eighteen hours in
the Abbey, and had seen only a few of its rooms. The netting-
box,8 just leisurely drawn forth, was closed with joyful haste,
180
and she was ready to attend him in a moment. “And when

they had gone over the house, he promised himself moreover
the pleasure of accompanying her into the shrubberies and
garden.” She curtsied her acquiescence. “But perhaps it might
be more agreeable to her to make those her first object. The
weather was at present favourable, and at this time of year
the uncertainty was very great of its continuing so.—Which
would she prefer? He was equally at her service.—Which did
his daughter think would most accord with her fair friend’s
wishes?—But he thought he could discern.—Yes, he cer-
tainly read in Miss Morland’s eyes a judicious desire of mak-
ing use of the present smiling weather.—But when did she
judge amiss?—The Abbey would be always safe and dry.—
He yielded implicitly, and would fetch his hat and attend
them in a moment.” He left the room, and Catherine, with a
disappointed, anxious face, began to speak of her unwilling-
ness that he should be taking them out of doors against his
own inclination, under a mistaken idea of pleasing her; but
she was stopt by Miss Tilney’s saying, with a little confusion,
“I believe it will be wisest to take the morning while it is so
fine; and do not be uneasy on my father’s account, he always
walks out at this time of day.”
Catherine did not exactly know how this was to be under-
stood. Why was Miss Tilney embarrassed? Could there be
any unwillingness on the General’s side to shew her over the
Abbey? The proposal was his own. And was not it odd that
he should always take his walk so early? Neither her father
nor Mr. Allen did so. It was certainly very provoking. She
was all impatience to see the house, and had scarcely any
curiosity about the grounds. If Henry had been with them
indeed!—but now she should not know what was picturesque
when she saw it. Such were her thoughts, but she kept them
to herself, and put on her bonnet in patient discontent.
181
She was struck however, beyond her expectation, by the

grandeur of the Abbey, as she saw it for the first time from
the lawn. The whole building enclosed a large court; and two
sides of the quadrangle, rich in Gothic ornaments,9 stood for-
ward for admiration. The remainder was shut off by knolls of
old trees, or luxuriant plantations, and the steep woody hills
rising behind to give it shelter, were beautiful even in the leaf-
less month of March. Catherine had seen nothing to compare
with it; and her feelings of delight were so strong, that without
waiting for any better authority, she boldly burst forth in won-
der and praise. The General listened with assenting gratitude;
and it seemed as if his own estimation of Northanger had
waited unfixed till that hour.
The kitchen-garden was to be next admired, and he led
the way to it across a small portion of the park.
The number of acres contained in this garden was such
as Catherine could not listen to without dismay, being more
than double the extent of all Mr. Allen’s, as well her father’s,
including church-yard and orchard. The walls seemed count-
less in number, endless in length; a village of hot-houses10
seemed to arise among them, and a whole parish to be at work
within the inclosure. The General was flattered by her looks
of surprize, which told him almost as plainly, as he soon forced
her to tell him in words, that she had never seen any gardens
at all equal to them before;—and he then modestly owned
that, “without any ambition of that sort himself—without
any solicitude about it,—he did believe them to be unrivalled
in the kingdom. If he had a hobby-horse,11 it was that. He
loved a garden. Though careless enough in most matters of
eating, he loved good fruit—or if he did not, his friends and
children did. There were great vexations however attending
such a garden as his. The utmost care could not always secure
the most valuable fruits. The pinery12 had yielded only one
182
hundred in the last year. Mr. Allen, he supposed, must feel

these inconveniences as well as himself.”
“No, not at all. Mr. Allen did not care about the garden,
and never went into it.”
With a triumphant smile of self-satisfaction, the General
wished he could do the same, for he never entered his, without
being vexed in some way or other, by its falling short of his
plan.
“How were Mr. Allen’s succession-houses13 worked?”
describing the nature of his own as they entered them.
“Mr. Allen had only one small hot-house, which Mrs.
Allen had the use of for her plants in winter, and there was a
fire in it now and then.”
“He is a happy man!” said the General, with a look of very
happy contempt.
Having taken her into every division, and led her under
every wall, till she was heartily weary of seeing and wonder-
ing, he suffered the girls at last to seize the advantage of an
outer door, and then expressing his wish to examine the effect
of some recent alterations about the tea-house,14 proposed it
as no unpleasant extension of their walk, if Miss Morland
were not tired. “But where are you going, Eleanor?—Why
do you chuse that cold, damp path to it? Miss Morland will
get wet. Our best way is across the park.”
“This is so favourite a walk of mine,” said Miss Tilney,
“that I always think it the best and nearest way. But perhaps
it may be damp.”
It was a narrow winding path through a thick grove of
old Scotch firs; and Catherine, struck by its gloomy aspect,
and eager to enter it, could not, even by the General’s dis-
approbation, be kept from stepping forward. He perceived
her inclination, and having again urged the plea of health in
vain, was too polite to make further opposition. He excused
183
himself however from attending them:—“The rays of the sun

were not too cheerful for him, and he would meet them by
another course.” He turned away; and Catherine was shocked
to find how much her spirits were relieved by the separation.
The shock however being less real than the relief, offered
it no injury; and she began to talk with easy gaiety of the
delightful melancholy which such a grove inspired.
“I am particularly fond of this spot,” said her companion,
with a sigh. “It was my mother’s favourite walk.”
Catherine had never heard Mrs. Tilney mentioned in the
family before, and the interest excited by this tender remem-
brance, shewed itself directly in her altered countenance, and
in the attentive pause with which she waited for something
more.
“I used to walk here so often with her!” added Eleanor;
“though I never loved it then, as I have loved it since. At that
time indeed I used to wonder at her choice. But her memory
endears it now.”
“And ought it not,” reflected Catherine, “to endear it to her
husband? Yet the General would not enter it.” Miss Tilney
continuing silent, she ventured to say, “Her death must have
been a great affliction!”
“A great and increasing one,” replied the other, in a low
voice. “I was only thirteen when it happened; and though I
felt my loss perhaps as strongly as one so young could feel
it, I did not, I could not then know what a loss it was.” She
stopped for a moment, and then added, with great firmness,
“I have no sister, you know—and though Henry—though my
brothers are very affectionate, and Henry is a great deal here,
which I am most thankful for, it is impossible for me not to
be often solitary.”
“To be sure you must miss him very much.”
184
“A mother would have been always present. A mother

would have been a constant friend; her influence would have
been beyond all other.”
“Was she a very charming woman? Was she handsome?
Was there any picture of her in the Abbey? And why had
she been so partial to that grove? Was it from dejection
of spirits?”—were questions now eagerly poured forth;—
the first three received a ready affirmative, the two others
were passed by; and Catherine’s interest in the deceased
Mrs. Tilney augmented with every question, whether
answered or not. Of her unhappiness in marriage, she felt
persuaded. The General certainly had been an unkind hus-
band. He did not love her walk:—could he therefore have
loved her? And besides, handsome as he was, there was a
something in the turn of his features which spoke his not
having behaved well to her.
“Her picture, I suppose,” blushing at the consummate art
of her own question, “hangs in your father’s room?”
“No;—it was intended for the drawing-room; but my
father was dissatisfied with the painting, and for some time
it had no place. Soon after her death I obtained it for my
own, and hung it in my bed-chamber—where I shall be
happy to shew it you;—it is very like.”—Here was another
proof. A portrait15 —very like—of a departed wife, not val-
ued by the husband!—He must have been dreadfully cruel to
her!
Catherine attempted no longer to hide from herself the
nature of the feelings which, in spite of all his attentions, he
had previously excited; and what had been terror and dislike
before, was now absolute aversion. Yes, aversion! His cruelty
to such a charming woman made him odious to her. She had
often read of such characters; characters, which Mr. Allen
185
had been used to call unnatural and overdrawn; but here was
proof positive of the contrary.
She had just settled this point, when the end of the path
brought them directly upon the General; and in spite of all
her virtuous indignation, she found herself again obliged to
walk with him, listen to him, and even to smile when he
smiled. Being no longer able however to receive pleasure
from the surrounding objects, she soon began to walk with
lassitude; the General perceived it, and with a concern for
her health, which seemed to reproach her for her opinion of
him, was most urgent for returning with his daughter to the
house. He would follow them in a quarter of an hour. Again
they parted—but Eleanor was called back in half a minute
to receive a strict charge against taking her friend round the
Abbey till his return. This second instance of his anxiety to
delay what she so much wished for, struck Catherine as very
remarkable.
186
Chapter 8
An hour passed away before the General came in, spent, on

the part of his young guest, in no very favourable considera-
tion of his character.—“This lengthened absence, these soli-
tary rambles,1 did not speak a mind at ease, or a conscience
void of reproach.”—At length he appeared; and, whatever
might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could
still smile with them. Miss Tilney, understanding in part her
friend’s curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject;
and her father being, contrary to Catherine’s expectations,
unprovided with any pretence for further delay, beyond that
of stopping five minutes to order refreshments to be in the
room by their return, was at last ready to escort them.
They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air, a digni-
fied step, which caught the eye, but could not shake the
doubts of the well-read Catherine, he led the way across
the hall, through the common drawing-room and one use-
less anti-chamber, into a room magnificent both in size
and furniture—the real drawing-room, used only with com-
pany of consequence.—It was very noble—very grand—very
charming!—was all that Catherine had to say, for her indis-
criminating eye scarcely discerned the colour of the satin;2
and all minuteness of praise, all praise that had much mean-
ing, was supplied by the General: the costliness or elegance of
any room’s fitting-up could be nothing to her; she cared for no
furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century.
When the General had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close
187
examination of every well-known ornament, they proceeded

into the library, an apartment, in its way, of equal magnif-
icence, exhibiting a collection of books, on which an hum-
ble man might have looked with pride.—Catherine heard,
admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than
before—gathered all that she could from this storehouse of
knowledge, by running over the titles of half a shelf, and was
ready to proceed. But suites of apartments did not spring up
with her wishes.—Large as was the building, she had already
visited the greatest part; though, on being told that, with the
addition of the kitchen, the six or seven rooms she had now
seen surrounded three sides of the court, she could scarcely
believe it, or overcome the suspicion of there being many
chambers secreted. It was some relief, however, that they were
to return to the rooms in common use, by passing through a
few of less importance, looking into the court, which, with
occasional passages, not wholly unintricate, connected the
different sides;—and she was further soothed in her progress,
by being told, that she was treading what had once been
a cloister, having traces of cells3 pointed out, and observ-
ing several doors, that were neither opened nor explained to
her;—by finding herself successively in a billiard-room, and
in the General’s private apartment, without comprehending
their connexion, or being able to turn aright when she left
them; and lastly, by passing through a dark little room, own-
ing Henry’s authority, and strewed with his litter of books,
guns, and great coats.
From the dining-room of which, though already seen, and
always to be seen at five o’clock, the General could not forego
the pleasure of pacing out the length, for the more certain
information of Miss Morland, as to what she neither doubted
nor cared for, they proceeded by quick communication to
the kitchen—the ancient kitchen of the convent, rich in the
188
massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and
hot closets4 of the present. The General’s improving hand
had not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate
the labour of the cooks, had been adopted within this, their
spacious theatre; and, when the genius of others had failed, his
own had often produced the perfection wanted. His endow-
ments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him
high among the benefactors of the convent.5
With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the
Abbey; the fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account
of its decaying state, been removed by the General’s father,
and the present erected in its place. All that was venerable
ceased here. The new building was not only new, but declared
itself to be so; intended only for offices,6 and enclosed
behind by stable-yards, no uniformity of architecture had
been thought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the
hand which had swept away what must have been beyond
the value of all the rest, for the purposes of mere domestic
economy; and would willingly have been spared the morti-
fication of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the General
allowed it; but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of
his offices; and as he was convinced, that, to a mind like Miss
Morland’s, a view of the accommodations and comforts, by
which the labours of her inferiors were softened, must always
be gratifying, he should make no apology for leading her on.
They took a slight survey of all; and Catherine was impressed,
beyond her expectation, by their multiplicity and their conve-
nience. The purposes for which a few shapeless pantries and
a comfortless scullery7 were deemed sufficient at Fullerton,
were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious
and roomy. The number of servants continually appearing,
did not strike her less than the number of their offices. Wher-
ever they went, some pattened girl stopped to curtsey, or some
189
footman in dishabille8 sneaked off. Yet this was an Abbey!—

How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements
from such as she had read about—from abbeys and castles,
in which, though certainly larger than Northanger, all the
dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female
hands at the utmost. How they could get through it all, had
often amazed Mrs. Allen; and, when Catherine saw what was
necessary here, she began to be amazed herself.
They returned to the hall, that the chief stair-case might be
ascended, and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments of rich
carving might be pointed out: having gained the top, they
turned in an opposite direction from the gallery in which her
room lay, and shortly entered one on the same plan, but supe-
rior in length and breadth. She was here shewn successively
into three large bed-chambers, with their dressing-rooms,
most completely and handsomely fitted up; every thing that
money and taste could do, to give comfort and elegance to
apartments, had been bestowed on these; and, being fur-
nished within the last five years, they were perfect in all that
would be generally pleasing, and wanting in all that could
give pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last,
the General, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished
characters, by whom they had at times been honoured, turned
with a smiling countenance to Catherine, and ventured to
hope, that henceforward some of their earliest tenants might
be “our friends from Fullerton.” She felt the unexpected com-
pliment, and deeply regretted the impossibility of thinking
well of a man so kindly disposed towards herself, and so full
of civility to all her family.
The gallery was terminated by folding doors,9 which Miss
Tilney, advancing, had thrown open, and passed through, and
seemed on the point of doing the same by the first door to
the left, in another long reach of gallery, when the General,
190
coming forwards, called her hastily, and, as Catherine

thought, rather angrily back, demanding whither she were
going?—And what was there more to be seen?—Had not
Miss Morland already seen all that could be worth her
notice?—And did she not suppose her friend might be glad of
some refreshment after so much exercise? Miss Tilney drew
back directly, and the heavy doors were closed upon the mor-
tified Catherine, who, having seen, in a momentary glance
beyond them, a narrower passage, more numerous openings,
and symptoms of a winding stair-case, believed herself at last
within the reach of something worth her notice; and felt,
as she unwillingly paced back the gallery, that she would
rather be allowed to examine that end of the house, than see
all the finery of all the rest.—The General’s evident desire
of preventing such an examination was an additional stim-
ulant. Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy,
though it had trespassed lately once or twice, could not mis-
lead her here; and what that something was, a short sentence
of Miss Tilney’s, as they followed the General at some dis-
tance down stairs, seemed to point out:—“I was going to take
you into what was my mother’s room—the room in which
she died——” were all her words; but few as they were, they
conveyed pages of intelligence to Catherine. It was no won-
der that the General should shrink from the sight of such
objects as that room must contain; a room in all probabil-
ity never entered by him since the dreadful scene had passed,
which released his suffering wife, and left him to the stings of
conscience.
She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, to express
her wish of being permitted to see it, as well as all the rest
of that side of the house; and Eleanor promised to attend
her there, whenever they should have a convenient hour.
Catherine understood her:—the General must be watched
191
from home, before that room could be entered. “It remains

as it was, I suppose?” said she, in a tone of feeling.
“Yes, entirely.”
“And how long ago may it be that your mother died?”
“She has been dead these nine years.” And nine years,
Catherine knew was a trifle of time, compared with what
generally elapsed after the death of an injured wife, before
her room was put to rights.
“You were with her, I suppose, to the last?”
“No,” said Miss Tilney, sighing; “I was unfortunately from
home.—Her illness was sudden and short; and, before I
arrived it was all over.”
Catherine’s blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions
which naturally sprang from these words. Could it be possi-
ble?—Could Henry’s father?——And yet how many were
the examples to justify even the blackest suspicions!—And,
when she saw him in the evening, while she worked10 with her
friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together
in silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eyes and contracted
brow, she felt secure from all possibility of wronging him. It
was the air and attitude of a Montoni!11 —What could more
plainly speak the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead
to every sense of humanity, in its fearful review of past scenes
of guilt? Unhappy man!—And the anxiousness of her spirits
directed her eyes towards his figure so repeatedly, as to catch
Miss Tilney’s notice. “My father,” she whispered, “often walks
about the room in this way; it is nothing unusual.”
“So much the worse!” thought Catherine; such ill-timed
exercise was of a piece with the strange unseasonableness of
his morning walks, and boded nothing good.
After an evening, the little variety and seeming length of
which made her peculiarly sensible of Henry’s importance
among them, she was heartily glad to be dismissed; though it
192
was a look from the General not designed for her observation
which sent his daughter to the bell. When the butler would
have lit his master’s candle, however, he was forbidden. The
latter was not going to retire. “I have many pamphlets to
finish,” said he to Catherine, “before I can close my eyes; and
perhaps may be poring over the affairs of the nation12 for
hours after you are asleep. Can either of us be more meetly13
employed? My eyes will be blinding for the good of others;
and yours preparing by rest for future mischief.”
But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent com-
pliment, could win Catherine from thinking, that some very
different object must occasion so serious a delay of proper
repose. To be kept up for hours, after the family were in
bed, by stupid pamphlets, was not very likely. There must be
some deeper cause: something was to be done which could
be done only while the household slept; and the probability
that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and
receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a nightly
supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessar-
ily followed. Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better
than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course of
things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her
reputed illness; the absence of her daughter, and probably
of her other children, at the time—all favoured the supposi-
tion of her imprisonment.—Its origin—jealousy perhaps, or
wanton cruelty—was yet to be unravelled.
In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it sud-
denly struck her as not unlikely, that she might that morning
have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman’s
confinement—might have been within a few paces of the cell
in which she languished out her days; for what part of the
Abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which
yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched
193
passage, paved with stone, which already she had trodden

with peculiar awe, she well remembered the doors of which
the General had given no account. To what might not those
doors lead? In support of the plausibility of this conjecture, it
further occurred to her, that the forbidden gallery, in which
lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be,
as certainly as her memory could guide her, exactly over this
suspected range of cells, and the staircase by the side of those
apartments of which she had caught a transient glimpse, com-
municating by some secret means with those cells, might
well have favoured the barbarous proceedings of her hus-
band. Down that staircase she had perhaps been conveyed in
a state of well-prepared insensibility!14
Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her own
surmises, and sometimes hoped or feared that she had gone
too far; but they were supported by such appearances as made
their dismissal impossible.
The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed the
guilty scene to be acting, being, according to her belief, just
opposite her own, it struck her that, if judiciously watched,
some rays of light15 from the General’s lamp might glimmer
through the lower windows, as he passed to the prison of his
wife; and, twice before she stepped into bed, she stole gently
from her room to the corresponding window in the gallery,
to see if it appeared; but all abroad was dark, and it must yet
be too early. The various ascending noises convinced her that
the servants must still be up. Till midnight, she supposed it
would be in vain to watch; but then, when the clock had struck
twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not quite appalled by
darkness, steal out and look once more. The clock struck
twelve—and Catherine had been half an hour asleep.
194
Chapter 9
The next day afforded no opportunity for the proposed exam-

ination of the mysterious apartments. It was Sunday, and
the whole time between morning and afternoon service was
required by the General in exercise abroad or eating cold
meat1 at home; and great as was Catherine’s curiosity, her
courage was not equal to a wish of exploring them after din-
ner, either by the fading light of the sky between six and seven
o’clock, or by the yet more partial though stronger illumina-
tion of a treacherous lamp. The day was unmarked therefore
by any thing to interest her imagination beyond the sight of
a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs. Tilney,2
which immediately fronted the family pew. By that her eye
was instantly caught and long retained; and the perusal of the
highly-strained epitaph, in which every virtue was ascribed
to her by the inconsolable husband, who must have been in
some way or other her destroyer, affected her even to tears.
That the General, having erected such a monument,
should be able to face it, was not perhaps very strange, and yet
that he could sit so boldly collected within its view, maintain
so elevated an air, look so fearlessly around, nay, that he should
even enter the church, seemed wonderful to Catherine. Not
however that many instances of beings equally hardened in
guilt might not be produced. She could remember dozens
who had persevered in every possible vice, going on from
crime to crime, murdering whomsoever they chose, without
any feeling of humanity or remorse; till a violent death or a
195
religious retirement closed their black career. The erection of

the monument itself could not in the smallest degree affect
her doubts of Mrs. Tilney’s actual decease. Were she even
to descend into the family vault where her ashes3 were sup-
posed to slumber, were she to behold the coffin in which they
were said to be enclosed—what could it avail in such a case?
Catherine had read too much not to be perfectly aware of the
ease with which a waxen figure might be introduced, and a
supposititious funeral4 carried on.
The succeeding morning promised something better. The
General’s early walk, ill-timed as it was in every other view,
was favourable here; and when she knew him to be out of the
house, she directly proposed to Miss Tilney the accomplish-
ment of her promise. Eleanor was ready to oblige her; and
Catherine reminding her as they went of another promise,
their first visit in consequence was to the portrait in her bed-
chamber. It represented a very lovely woman, with a mild and
pensive countenance, justifying, so far, the expectations of its
new observer; but they were not in every respect answered,
for Catherine had depended upon meeting with features, air,
complexion that should be the very counterpart, the very
image, if not of Henry’s, of Eleanor’s;—the only portraits of
which she had been in the habit of thinking, bearing always
an equal resemblance of mother and child. A face once taken
was taken for generations.5 But here she was obliged to look
and consider and study for a likeness. She contemplated it,
however, in spite of this drawback, with much emotion; and,
but for a yet stronger interest, would have left it unwillingly.
Her agitation as they entered the great gallery was too
much for any endeavour at discourse; she could only look
at her companion. Eleanor’s countenance was dejected, yet
sedate; and its composure spoke her enured6 to all the gloomy
objects to which they were advancing. Again she passed
196
through the folding-doors, again her hand was upon the

important lock, and Catherine, hardly able to breathe, was
turning to close the former with fearful caution, when the fig-
ure, the dreaded figure of the General himself at the further
end of the gallery, stood before her! The name of “Eleanor”
at the same moment, in his loudest tone, resounded through
the building, giving to his daughter the first intimation of his
presence, and to Catherine terror upon terror. An attempt
at concealment had been her first instinctive movement on
perceiving him, yet she could scarcely hope to have escaped
his eye; and when her friend, who with an apologizing look
darted hastily by her, had joined and disappeared with him,
she ran for safety to her own room, and, locking herself in,
believed that she should never have courage to go down
again. She remained there at least an hour, in the greatest
agitation, deeply commiserating the state of her poor friend,
and expecting a summons herself from the angry General
to attend him in his own apartment. No summons how-
ever arrived; and at last, on seeing a carriage drive up to the
Abbey, she was emboldened to descend and meet him under
the protection of visitors. The breakfast-room was gay with
company; and she was named to them by the General, as
the friend of his daughter, in a complimentary style, which
so well concealed his resentful ire, as to make her feel secure
at least of life for the present. And Eleanor, with a com-
mand of countenance which did honour to her concern for
his character, taking an early occasion of saying to her, “My
father only wanted me to answer a note,” she began to hope
that she had either been unseen by the General, or that from
some consideration of policy she should be allowed to suppose
herself so. Upon this trust she dared still to remain in his pres-
ence, after the company left them, and nothing occurred to
disturb it.
197
In the course of this morning’s reflections, she came to a

resolution of making her next attempt on the forbidden door
alone. It would be much better in every respect that Eleanor
should know nothing of the matter. To involve her in the
danger of a second detection, to court her into an apartment
which must wring her heart, could not be the office of a
friend. The General’s utmost anger could not be to herself
what it might be to a daughter; and, besides, she thought the
examination itself would be more satisfactory if made without
any companion. It would be impossible to explain to Eleanor
the suspicions, from which the other had, in all likelihood,
been hitherto happily exempt; nor could she therefore, in
her presence, search for those proofs of the General’s cruelty,
which however they might yet have escaped discovery, she
felt confident of somewhere drawing forth, in the shape of
some fragmented journal, continued to the last gasp. Of the
way to the apartment she was now perfectly mistress; and
as she wished to get it over before Henry’s return, who was
expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost. The
day was bright, her courage high; at four o’clock, the sun was
now two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her
retiring to dress half an hour earlier than usual.
It was done; and Catherine found herself alone in the
gallery before the clocks had ceased to strike. It was no time
for thought; she hurried on, slipped with the least possible
noise through the folding doors, and without stopping to
look or breathe, rushed forward to the one in question. The
lock yielded to her hand, and, luckily, with no sullen sound7
that could alarm a human being. On tiptoe she entered; the
room was before her; but it was some minutes before she
could advance another step. She beheld what fixed her to
the spot and agitated every feature.—She saw a large, well-
proportioned apartment, an handsome dimity8 bed, arranged
198
as unoccupied with an housemaid’s care, a bright Bath stove,9

mahogany wardrobes and neatly-painted chairs, on which
the warm beams of a western sun gaily poured through two
sash windows! Catherine had expected to have her feelings
worked, and worked they were. Astonishment and doubt first
seized them; and a shortly succeeding ray of common sense
added some bitter emotions of shame. She could not be mis-
taken as to the room; but how grossly mistaken in every thing
else!—in Miss Tilney’s meaning, in her own calculation! This
apartment, to which she had given a date so ancient, a posi-
tion so awful, proved to be one end of what the General’s
father had built. There were two other doors in the chamber,
leading probably into dressing-closets; but she had no incli-
nation to open either. Would the veil in which Mrs. Tilney
had last walked, or the volume in which she had last read,
remain to tell what nothing else was allowed to whisper? No:
whatever might have been the General’s crimes, he had cer-
tainly too much wit to let them sue for detection. She was sick
of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her own room, with
her own heart only privy to its folly; and she was on the point
of retreating as softly as she had entered, when the sound
of footsteps, she could hardly tell where, made her pause
and tremble. To be found there, even by a servant, would be
unpleasant; but by the General, (and he seemed always at
hand when least wanted,) much worse!—She listened—the
sound had ceased; and resolving not to lose a moment, she
passed through and closed the door. At that instant a door
underneath was hastily opened; some one seemed with swift
steps to ascend the stairs, by the head of which she had yet
to pass before she could gain the gallery. She had no power
to move. With a feeling of terror not very definable, she
fixed her eyes on the staircase, and in a few moments it gave
Henry to her view. “Mr. Tilney!” she exclaimed in a voice
199
of more than common astonishment. He looked astonished

too. “Good God!” she continued, not attending to his address,
“how came you here?—how came you up that staircase?”
“How came I up that staircase!” he replied, greatly sur-
prized. “Because it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to
my own chamber; and why should I not come up it?”
Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say
no more. He seemed to be looking in her countenance for
that explanation which her lips did not afford. She moved
on towards the gallery. “And may I not, in my turn,” said
he, as he pushed back the folding doors, “ask how you came
here?—This passage is at least as extraordinary a road from
the breakfast-parlour to your apartment, as that staircase can
be from the stables to mine.”
“I have been,” said Catherine, looking down, “to see your
mother’s room.”
“My mother’s room!—Is there any thing extraordinary to
be seen there?”
“No, nothing at all.—I thought you did not mean to come
back till to-morrow.”
“I did not expect to be able to return sooner, when I went
away; but three hours ago I had the pleasure of finding noth-
ing to detain me.—You look pale.—I am afraid I alarmed
you by running so fast up those stairs. Perhaps you did not
know—you were not aware of their leading from the offices
in common use?”
“No, I was not.—You have had a very fine day for your
ride.”
“Very;—and does Eleanor leave you to find your way into
all the rooms in the house by yourself ?”
“Oh! no; she shewed me over the greatest part on
Saturday—and we were coming here to these rooms—but
only—(dropping her voice)—your father was with us.”
200
“And that prevented you;” said Henry, earnestly regarding

her.—“Have you looked into all the rooms in that passage?”
“No, I only wanted to see——Is not it very late? I must go
and dress.”
“It is only a quarter past four, (shewing his watch) and you
are not now in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for.
Half an hour at Northanger must be enough.”
She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself
to be detained, though her dread of further questions made
her, for the first time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him.
They walked slowly up the gallery. “Have you had any letter
from Bath since I saw you?”
“No, and I am very much surprized. Isabella promised so
faithfully to write directly.”
“Promised so faithfully!—A faithful promise!—That puz-
zles me.—I have heard of a faithful performance. But a faith-
ful promise—the fidelity of promising! It is a power little
worth knowing however, since it can deceive and pain you.
My mother’s room is very commodious, is it not? Large and
cheerful-looking, and the dressing closets so well disposed!
It always strikes me as the most comfortable apartment in
the house, and I rather wonder that Eleanor should not take
it for her own. She sent you to look at it, I suppose?”
“No.”
“It has been your own doing entirely?”—Catherine said
nothing—After a short silence, during which he had closely
observed her, he added, “As there is nothing in the room in
itself to raise curiosity, this must have proceeded from a sen-
timent of respect for my mother’s character, as described by
Eleanor, which does honour to her memory. The world, I
believe, never saw a better woman. But it is not often that
virtue can boast an interest such as this. The domestic, unpre-
tending merits of a person never known, do not often create
201
that kind of fervent, venerating tenderness which would

prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose, has talked of
her a great deal?”
“Yes, a great deal. That is—no, not much, but what she did
say, was very interesting. Her dying so suddenly,” (slowly, and
with hesitation it was spoken,) “and you—none of you being
at home—and your father, I thought—perhaps had not been
very fond of her.”
“And from these circumstances,” he replied (his quick eye
fixed on her’s), “you infer perhaps the probability of some
negligence—some—(involuntarily she shook her head)—or
it may be—of something still less pardonable.” She raised her
eyes towards him more fully than she had ever done before.
“My mother’s illness,” he continued, “the seizure which ended
in her death was sudden. The malady itself, one from which
she had often suffered, a bilious fever10 —its cause therefore
constitutional. On the third day, in short as soon as she could
be prevailed on, a physician attended her, a very respectable
man, and one in whom she had always placed great confi-
dence. Upon his opinion of her danger, two others were called
in the next day, and remained in almost constant attendance
for four-and-twenty hours. On the fifth day she died. During
the progress of her disorder, Frederick and I (we were both at
home) saw her repeatedly; and from our own observation can
bear witness to her having received every possible attention
which could spring from the affection of those about her,
or which her situation in life could command. Poor Eleanor
was absent, and at such a distance as to return only to see her
mother in her coffin.”
“But your father,” said Catherine, “was he afflicted?”
“For a time, greatly so. You have erred in supposing him
not attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as
it was possible for him to—We have not all, you know, the
202
same tenderness of disposition—and I will not pretend to say

that while she lived, she might not often have had much to
bear, but though his temper injured her, his judgment never
did. His value of her was sincere; and, if not permanently, he
was truly afflicted by her death.”
“I am very glad of it,” said Catherine, “it would have been
very shocking!”——
“If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of
such horror as I have hardly words to——Dear Miss Mor-
land, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have
entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember
the country and the age in which we live. Remember that
we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own
understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own
observation of what is passing around you—Does our edu-
cation prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at
them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a
country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on
such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neigh-
bourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers
lay every thing open?11 Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas
have you been admitting?”
They had reached the end of the gallery; and with tears of
shame she ran off to her own room.
203
Chapter 10
T h e visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely

awakened. Henry’s address, short as it had been, had more
thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late
fancies than all their several disappointments had done. Most
grievously was she humbled. Most bitterly did she cry. It was
not only with herself that she was sunk—but with Henry.
Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed
to him, and he must despise her for ever. The liberty which
her imagination had dared to take with the character of his
father, could he ever forgive it? The absurdity of her curiosity
and her fears, could they ever be forgotten? She hated herself
more than she could express. He had—she thought he had,
once or twice before this fatal morning, shewn something
like affection for her.—But now—in short, she made herself
as miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down
when the clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could
scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanor’s inquiry, if she
was well. The formidable Henry soon followed her into the
room, and the only difference in his behaviour to her, was
that he paid her rather more attention than usual. Catherine
had never wanted comfort more, and he looked as if he was
aware of it.
The evening wore away with no abatement of this soothing
politeness; and her spirits were gradually raised to a modest
tranquillity. She did not learn either to forget or defend the
past; but she learned to hope that it would never transpire
204
farther, and that it might not cost her Henry’s entire regard.
Her thoughts being still chiefly fixed on what she had with
such causeless terror felt and done, nothing could shortly be
clearer, than that it had been all a voluntary, self-created delu-
sion, each trifling circumstance receiving importance from
an imagination resolved on alarm, and every thing forced to
bend to one purpose by a mind which, before she entered
the Abbey, had been craving to be frightened. She remem-
bered with what feelings she had prepared for a knowledge
of Northanger. She saw that the infatuation had been cre-
ated, the mischief settled long before her quitting Bath, and
it seemed as if the whole might be traced to the influence of
that sort of reading which she had there indulged.
Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and charm-
ing even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not
in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the mid-
land counties of England, was to be looked for. Of the Alps
and Pyrenees, with their pine forests and their vices, they
might give a faithful delineation; and Italy, Switzerland, and
the South of France,1 might be as fruitful in horrors as they
were there represented. Catherine dared not doubt beyond
her own country, and even of that, if hard pressed, would
have yielded the northern and western extremities. But in
the central part of England there was surely some security
for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of
the land, and the manners of the age. Murder was not toler-
ated, servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping
potions to be procured, like rhubarb,2 from every druggist.
Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed
characters.3 There, such as were not as spotless as an angel,
might have the dispositions of a fiend. But in England it was
not so; among the English, she believed, in their hearts and
habits, there was a general though unequal mixture of good
205
and bad. Upon this conviction, she would not be surprized if

even in Henry and Eleanor Tilney, some slight imperfection
might hereafter appear; and upon this conviction she need
not fear to acknowledge some actual specks in the character
of their father, who, though cleared from the grossly injurious
suspicions which she must ever blush to have entertained, she
did believe, upon serious consideration, to be not perfectly
amiable.
Her mind made up on these several points, and her res-
olution formed, of always judging and acting in future with
the greatest good sense, she had nothing to do but to forgive
herself and be happier than ever; and the lenient hand of
time did much for her by insensible gradations in the course
of another day. Henry’s astonishing generosity and nobleness
of conduct, in never alluding in the slightest way to what had
passed, was of the greatest assistance to her; and sooner than
she could have supposed it possible in the beginning of her
distress, her spirits became absolutely comfortable, and capa-
ble, as heretofore, of continual improvement by any thing he
said. There were still some subjects indeed, under which she
believed they must always tremble;—the mention of a chest
or a cabinet, for instance—and she did not love the sight of
japan in any shape: but even she could allow, that an occa-
sional memento of past folly, however painful, might not be
without use.
The anxieties of common life began soon to succeed to the
alarms of romance. Her desire of hearing from Isabella grew
every day greater. She was quite impatient to know how the
Bath world went on, and how the Rooms were attended; and
especially was she anxious to be assured of Isabella’s having
matched some fine netting-cotton, on which she had left her
intent; and of her continuing on the best terms with James.
Her only dependence for information of any kind was on
206
Isabella. James had protested against writing to her till his

return to Oxford; and Mrs. Allen had given her no hopes
of a letter till she had got back to Fullerton.—But Isabella
had promised and promised again; and when she promised a
thing, she was so scrupulous in performing it! this made it so
particularly strange!
For nine successive mornings, Catherine wondered over
the repetition of a disappointment, which each morning
became more severe: but, on the tenth, when she entered
the breakfast-room, her first object was a letter, held out by
Henry’s willing hand. She thanked him as heartily as if he had
written it himself. “ ’Tis only from James, however,” as she
looked at the direction. She opened it; it was from Oxford;
and to this purpose:—
“Dear Catherine,
“Though, God knows, with little inclination for writ-
ing, I think it my duty to tell you, that every thing is at an end
between Miss Thorpe and me.4 —I left her and Bath yester-
day, never to see either again. I shall not enter into particulars,
they would only pain you more. You will soon hear enough
from another quarter to know where lies the blame; and I
hope will acquit your brother of every thing but the folly of
too easily thinking his affection returned. Thank God! I am
undeceived in time! But it is a heavy blow!—After my father’s
consent had been so kindly given—but no more of this. She
has made me miserable for ever! Let me soon hear from you,
dear Catherine; you are my only friend; your love I do build
upon. I wish your visit at Northanger may be over before
Captain Tilney makes his engagement known, or you will be
uncomfortably circumstanced.—Poor Thorpe is in town: I
dread the sight of him; his honest heart would feel so much.
I have written to him and my father. Her duplicity hurts me
207
more than all; till the very last, if I reasoned with her, she
declared herself as much attached to me as ever, and laughed
at my fears. I am ashamed to think how long I bore with it;
but if ever man had reason to believe himself loved, I was
that man. I cannot understand even now what she would be
at, for there could be no need of my being played off to make
her secure of Tilney. We parted at last by mutual consent—
happy for me had we never met! I can never expect to know
such another woman! Dearest Catherine, beware how you
give your heart.
“Believe me,” &c.
Catherine had not read three lines before her sudden

change of countenance, and short exclamations of sorrow-
ing wonder, declared her to be receiving unpleasant news;
and Henry, earnestly watching her through the whole let-
ter, saw plainly that it ended no better than it began. He
was prevented, however, from even looking his surprize by
his father’s entrance. They went to breakfast directly; but
Catherine could hardly eat any thing. Tears filled her eyes,
and even ran down her cheeks as she sat. The letter was
one moment in her hand, then in her lap, and then in her
pocket; and she looked as if she knew not what she did.
The General, between his cocoa and his newspaper,5 had
luckily no leisure for noticing her; but to the other two her
distress was equally visible. As soon as she dared leave the
table she hurried away to her own room; but the house-
maids were busy in it, and she was obliged to come down
again. She turned into the drawing-room for privacy, but
Henry and Eleanor had likewise retreated thither, and were at
that moment deep in consultation about her. She drew back,
trying to beg their pardon, but was, with gentle violence,
forced to return; and the others withdrew, after Eleanor had
208
affectionately expressed a wish of being of use or comfort to

her.
After half an hour’s free indulgence of grief and reflection,
Catherine felt equal to encountering her friends; but whether
she should make her distress known to them was another
consideration. Perhaps, if particularly questioned, she might
just give an idea—just distantly hint at it—but not more. To
expose a friend, such a friend as Isabella had been to her—
and then their own brother so closely concerned in it!—She
believed she must wave the subject6 altogether. Henry and
Eleanor were by themselves in the breakfast-room; and each,
as she entered it, looked at her anxiously. Catherine took her
place at the table, and, after a short silence, Eleanor said, “No
bad news from Fullerton, I hope? Mr. and Mrs. Morland—
your brothers and sisters—I hope they are none of them ill?”
“No, I thank you,” (sighing as she spoke,) “they are all very
well. My letter was from my brother at Oxford.”
Nothing further was said for a few minutes; and then
speaking through her tears, she added, “I do not think I shall
ever wish for a letter again!”
“I am sorry,” said Henry, closing the book he had just
opened; “if I had suspected the letter of containing any
thing unwelcome, I should have given it with very different
feelings.”
“It contained something worse than any body could
suppose!—Poor James is so unhappy!—You will soon know
why.”
“To have so kind-hearted, so affectionate a sister,” replied
Henry, warmly, “must be a comfort to him under any distress.”
“I have one favour to beg,” said Catherine, shortly after-
wards, in an agitated manner, “that, if your brother should
be coming here, you will give me notice of it, that I may go
away.”
209
“Our brother!—Frederick!”
“Yes; I am sure I should be very sorry to leave you so soon,
but something has happened that would make it very dreadful
for me to be in the same house with Captain Tilney.”
Eleanor’s work was suspended while she gazed with
increasing astonishment; but Henry began to suspect the
truth, and something, in which Miss Thorpe’s name was
included, passed his lips.
“How quick you are!” cried Catherine: “you have guessed
it, I declare!—And yet, when we talked about it in Bath, you
little thought of its ending so. Isabella—no wonder now I
have not heard from her—Isabella has deserted my brother,
and is to marry your’s! Could you have believed there had
been such inconstancy and fickleness, and every thing that is
bad in the world?”
“I hope, so far as concerns my brother, you are misin-
formed. I hope he has not had any material share in bring-
ing on Mr. Morland’s disappointment. His marrying Miss
Thorpe is not probable. I think you must be deceived so far.
I am very sorry for Mr. Morland—sorry that any one you
love should be unhappy; but my surprize would be greater at
Frederick’s marrying her, than at any other part of the story.”
“It is very true, however; you shall read James’s letter
yourself.—Stay——there is one part——” recollecting with
a blush the last line.
“Will you take the trouble of reading to us the passages
which concern my brother?”
“No, read it yourself,” cried Catherine, whose second
thoughts were clearer. “I do not know what I was thinking
of,” (blushing again that she had blushed before,)—“James
only means to give me good advice.”
He gladly received the letter; and, having read it through,
with close attention, returned it saying, “Well, if it is to be
210
so, I can only say that I am sorry for it. Frederick will not be
the first man who has chosen a wife with less sense than his
family expected. I do not envy his situation, either as a lover
or a son.”
Miss Tilney, at Catherine’s invitation, now read the letter
likewise; and, having expressed also her concern and sur-
prize, began to inquire into Miss Thorpe’s connexions and
fortune.
“Her mother is a very good sort of woman,” was Catherine’s
answer.
“What was her father?”
“A lawyer, I believe.—They live at Putney.”
“Are they a wealthy family?”
“No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at
all: but that will not signify in your family.—Your father is
so very liberal! He told me the other day, that he only val-
ued money as it allowed him to promote the happiness of his
children.” The brother and sister looked at each other. “But,”
said Eleanor, after a short pause, “would it be to promote his
happiness, to enable him to marry such a girl?—She must be
an unprincipled one, or she could not have used your brother
so.—And how strange an infatuation on Frederick’s side! A
girl who, before his eyes, is violating an engagement volun-
tarily entered into with another man! Is not it inconceivable,
Henry? Frederick too, who always wore his heart so proudly!
who found no woman good enough to be loved!”
“That is the most unpromising circumstance, the strongest
presumption against him. When I think of his past declara-
tions, I give him up.—Moreover, I have too good an opinion
of Miss Thorpe’s prudence, to suppose that she would part
with one gentleman before the other was secured. It is all
over with Frederick indeed! He is a deceased man—defunct
in understanding. Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and
211
such a sister-in-law as you must delight in!—Open, candid,7

artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming
no pretensions, and knowing no disguise.”
“Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in,” said
Eleanor, with a smile.
“But perhaps,” observed Catherine, “though she has beha-
ved so ill by our family, she may behave better by your’s. Now
she has really got the man she likes, she may be constant.”
“Indeed I am afraid she will,” replied Henry; “I am afraid
she will be very constant, unless a baronet should come in
her way; that is Frederick’s only chance.—I will get the Bath
paper, and look over the arrivals.”
“You think it is all for ambition then?—And, upon my
word, there are some things that seem very like it. I cannot
forget, that, when she first knew what my father would do for
them, she seemed quite disappointed that it was not more. I
never was so deceived in any one’s character in my life before.”
“Among all the great variety that you have known and
studied.”
“My own disappointment and loss in her is very great; but,
as for poor James, I suppose he will hardly ever recover it.”
“Your brother is certainly very much to be pitied at present;
but we must not, in our concern for his sufferings, undervalue
your’s. You feel, I suppose, that, in losing Isabella, you lose
half yourself: you feel a void in your heart which nothing
else can occupy. Society is becoming irksome; and as for the
amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath, the
very idea of them without her is abhorrent. You would not,
for instance, now go to a ball for the world. You feel that
you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with
unreserve; on whose regard you can place dependence; or
whose counsel, in any difficulty, you could rely on. You feel
all this?”
212
“No,” said Catherine, after a few moments’ reflection, “I

do not—ought I? To say the truth, though I am hurt and
grieved, that I cannot still love her, that I am never to hear
from her, perhaps never to see her again, I do not feel so very,
very much afflicted as one would have thought.”
“You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of
human nature.—Such feelings ought to be investigated, that
they may know themselves.”
Catherine, by some chance or other, found her spirits so
very much relieved by this conversation, that she could not
regret her being led on, though so unaccountably, to mention
the circumstance which had produced it.
213
Chapter 11
Fro m this time, the subject was frequently canvassed by

the three young people; and Catherine found, with some
surprize, that her two young friends were perfectly agreed in
considering Isabella’s want of consequence and fortune 1 as
likely to throw great difficulties in the way of her marrying
their brother. Their persuasion that the General would, upon
this ground alone, independent of the objection that might
be raised against her character, oppose the connexion, turned
her feelings moreover with some alarm towards herself. She
was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless as Isabella;
and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and
wealth enough in himself, at what point of interest were the
demands of his younger brother to rest? The very painful
reflections to which this thought led, could only be dispersed
by a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality,
which, as she was given to understand by his words as well as
his actions, she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite
in the General; and by a recollection of some most generous
and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money, which
she had more than once heard him utter, and which tempted
her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood
by his children.
They were so fully convinced, however, that their brother
would not have the courage to apply in person for his father’s
consent, and so repeatedly assured her that he had never
in his life been less likely to come to Northanger than at
214
the present time, that she suffered her mind to be at ease

as to the necessity of any sudden removal of her own. But
as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney, whenever
he made his application, would give his father any just idea
of Isabella’s conduct, it occurred to her as highly expedient
that Henry should lay the whole business before him as it
really was, enabling the General by that means to form a cool
and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections on a fairer
ground than inequality of situations. She proposed it to him
accordingly; but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly
as she had expected. “No,” said he, “my father’s hands need
not be strengthened, and Frederick’s confession of folly need
not be forestalled. He must tell his own story.”
“But he will tell only half of it.”
“A quarter would be enough.”
A day or two passed away and brought no tidings of
Captain Tilney. His brother and sister knew not what to
think. Sometimes it appeared to them as if his silence would
be the natural result of the suspected engagement, and at
others that it was wholly incompatible with it. The General,
meanwhile, though offended every morning by Frederick’s
remissness in writing, was free from any real anxiety about
him; and had no more pressing solicitude than that of mak-
ing Miss Morland’s time at Northanger pass pleasantly. “He
often expressed his uneasiness on this head, feared the same-
ness of every day’s society and employments would disgust
her with the place, wished the Lady Frasers had been in the
country, talked every now and then of having a large party to
dinner, and once or twice began even to calculate the number
of young dancing people in the neighbourhood. But then it
was such a dead time of year, no wild-fowl, no game, and the
Lady Frasers were not in the country.” And it all ended, at last,
in his telling Henry one morning, that when he next went to
215
Woodston, they would take him by surprize there some day

or other, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was greatly
honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted
with the scheme. “And when do you think, sir, I may look for-
ward to this pleasure?—I must be at Woodston on Monday
to attend the parish meeting,2 and shall probably be obliged
to stay two or three days.”
“Well, well, we will take our chance some one of those days.
There is no need to fix. You are not to put yourself at all out
of your way. Whatever you may happen to have in the house
will be enough. I think I can answer for the young ladies
making allowance for a bachelor’s table. Let me see; Monday
will be a busy day with you, we will not come on Monday; and
Tuesday will be a busy one with me. I expect my surveyor from
Brockham with his report in the morning; and afterwards I
cannot in decency fail attending the club.3 I really could not
face my acquaintance if I staid away now; for, as I am known
to be in the country, it would be taken exceedingly amiss; and
it is a rule with me, Miss Morland, never to give offence to
any of my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of time and attention
can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy men. They have
half a buck from Northanger twice a year;4 and I dine with
them whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore, we may say is out
of the question. But on Wednesday, I think, Henry, you may
expect us; and we shall be with you early, that we may have
time to look about us. Two hours and three quarters will carry
us to Woodston, I suppose; we shall be in the carriage by ten;
so, about a quarter before one on Wednesday, you may look
for us.”
A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Cather-
ine than this little excursion, so strong was her desire to be
acquainted with Woodston; and her heart was still bounding
with joy, when Henry, about an hour afterwards, came booted
216
and great coated into the room where she and Eleanor were
sitting, and said, “I am come, young ladies, in a very mor-
alizing strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world are
always to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at
a great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual happiness
for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured. Witness
myself, at this present hour. Because I am to hope for the
satisfaction of seeing you at Woodston on Wednesday, which
bad weather, or twenty other causes may prevent, I must go
away directly, two days before I intended it.”
“Go away!” said Catherine, with a very long face; “and
why?”
“Why!—How can you ask the question?—Because no time
is to be lost in frightening my old housekeeper out of her
wits,—because I must go and prepare a dinner for you to be
sure.”
“Oh! not seriously!”
“Aye, and sadly too—for I had much rather stay.”
“But how can you think of such a thing, after what the
General said? when he so particularly desired you not to give
yourself any trouble, because any thing would do.”
Henry only smiled. “I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon
your sister’s account and mine. You must know it to be so;
and the General made such a point of your providing nothing
extraordinary:—besides, if he had not said half so much as
he did, he has always such an excellent dinner at home, that
sitting down to a middling one for one day could not signify.”
“I wish I could reason like you, for his sake and my own.
Good bye. As to-morrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not
return.”
He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler opera-
tion to Catherine to doubt her own judgment than Henry’s,
she was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right,
217
however disagreeable to her his going. But the inexplicability

of the General’s conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That
he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unas-
sisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say
one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was
most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be
understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of what
his father was at?
From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now
to be without Henry. This was the sad finale of every
reflection:—and Captain Tilney’s letter would certainly come
in his absence; and Wednesday she was very sure would be
wet. The past, present, and future, were all equally in gloom.
Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and
Eleanor’s spirits always affected by Henry’s absence! What
was there to interest or amuse her? She was tired of the woods
and the shrubberies—always so smooth and so dry; and the
Abbey in itself was no more to her now than any other house.
The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped to nour-
ish and perfect, was the only emotion which could spring
from a consideration of the building. What a revolution in
her ideas! she, who had so longed to be in an abbey! Now,
there was nothing so charming to her imagination as the
unpretending comfort of a well-connected5 Parsonage, some-
thing like Fullerton, but better: Fullerton had its faults, but
Woodston probably had none.—If Wednesday should ever
come!
It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably
looked for. It came—it was fine—and Catherine trod on air.
By ten o’clock, the chaise-and-four conveyed the two from
the Abbey; and, after an agreeable drive of almost twenty
miles, they entered Woodston, a large and populous village,
in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was ashamed to say
218
how pretty she thought it, as the General seemed to think

an apology necessary for the flatness of the country, and the
size of the village; but in her heart she preferred it to any
place she had ever been at, and looked with great admiration
at every neat house above the rank of a cottage, and at all
the little chandler’s shops which they passed. At the further
end of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of
it, stood the Parsonage, a new-built substantial stone house,
with its semi-circular sweep and green gates;6 and, as they
drove up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude,
a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers,7 was
ready to receive and make much of them.
Catherine’s mind was too full, as she entered the house, for
her either to observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by
the General for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the
room in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it then,
she perceived in a moment that it was the most comfortable
room in the world; but she was too guarded to say so, and the
coldness of her praise disappointed him.
“We are not calling it a good house,” said he.—“We are
not comparing it with Fullerton and Northanger—We are
considering it as a mere Parsonage, small and confined, we
allow, but decent perhaps, and habitable; and altogether not
inferior to the generality;—or, in other words, I believe there
are few country parsonages in England half so good. It may
admit of improvement, however. Far be it from me to say
otherwise; and any thing in reason—a bow thrown out,
perhaps—though, between ourselves, if there is one thing
more than another my aversion, it is a patched-on bow.”8
Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to under-
stand or be pained by it; and other subjects being studiously
brought forward and supported by Henry, at the same time
that a tray full of refreshments was introduced by his servant,
219
the General was shortly restored to his complacency, and

Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits.
The room in question was of a commodious, well-
proportioned size, and handsomely fitted up as a dining
parlour; and on their quitting it to walk round the grounds,
she was shewn, first into a smaller apartment, belonging pecu-
liarly to the master of the house, and made unusually tidy on
the occasion; and afterwards into what was to be the drawing-
room, with the appearance of which, though unfurnished,
Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy the Gen-
eral. It was a prettily-shaped room, the windows reaching to
the ground, and the view from them pleasant, though only
over green meadows; and she expressed her admiration at the
moment with all the honest simplicity with which she felt it.
“Oh! why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a
pity not to have it fitted up! It is the prettiest room I ever
saw;—it is the prettiest room in the world!”
“I trust,” said the General, with a most satisfied smile,
“that it will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a
lady’s taste!”
“Well, if it was my house, I should never sit any where else.
Oh! what a sweet little cottage there is among the trees—
apple trees too! It is the prettiest cottage!”—
“You like it—you approve it as an object;—it is enough.
Henry, remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The
cottage remains.”9
Such a compliment recalled all Catherine’s consciousness,
and silenced her directly; and, though pointedly applied to by
the General for her choice of the prevailing colour of the paper
and hangings,10 nothing like an opinion on the subject could
be drawn from her. The influence of fresh objects and fresh air,
however, was of great use in dissipating these embarrassing
associations; and, having reached the ornamental part of the
220
premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow,

on which Henry’s genius had begun to act about half a year
ago, she was sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any
pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there
was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in the
corner.
A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the
village, with a visit to the stables to examine some improve-
ments, and a charming game of play with a litter of puppies
just able to roll about, brought them to four o’clock, when
Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At four they
were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never had
any day passed so quickly!
She could not but observe that the abundance of the din-
ner did not seem to create the smallest astonishment in the
General; nay, that he was even looking at the side-table for
cold meat which was not there. His son and daughter’s obser-
vations were of a different kind. They had seldom seen him
eat so heartily at any table but his own; and never before
known him so little disconcerted by the melted butter’s being
oiled.11
At six o’clock, the General having taken his coffee, the
carriage again received them; and so gratifying had been
the tenor of his conduct throughout the whole visit, so well
assured was her mind on the subject of his expectations, that,
could she have felt equally confident of the wishes of his son,
Catherine would have quitted Woodston with little anxiety
as to the How or the When she might return to it.
221
Chapter 12
T h e next morning brought the following very unexpected

letter from Isabella:—
Bath, April ——
My dearest Catherine,
I received your two kind letters with the greatest delight,
and have a thousand apologies to make for not answering
them sooner. I really am quite ashamed of my idleness; but
in this horrid place one can find time for nothing. I have
had my pen in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every
day since you left Bath, but have always been prevented by
some silly trifler or other. Pray write to me soon, and direct
to my own home. Thank God! we leave this vile place to-
morrow. Since you went away, I have had no pleasure in it—
the dust is beyond any thing; and every body one cares for
is gone. I believe if I could see you I should not mind the
rest, for you are dearer to me than any body can conceive. I
am quite uneasy about your dear brother, not having heard
from him since he went to Oxford; and am fearful of some
misunderstanding. Your kind offices will set all right:—he is
the only man I ever did or could love, and I trust you will
convince him of it. The spring fashions are partly down;1
and the hats the most frightful you can imagine. I hope you
spend your time pleasantly, but am afraid you never think of
me. I will not say all that I could of the family you are with,
222
because I would not be ungenerous, or set you against those

you esteem; but it is very difficult to know whom to trust,
and young men never know their minds two days together.
I rejoice to say, that the young man whom, of all others, I
particularly abhor, has left Bath. You will know, from this
description, I must mean Captain Tilney, who, as you may
remember, was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me,
before you went away. Afterwards he got worse, and became
quite my shadow. Many girls might have been taken in, for
never were such attentions; but I knew the fickle sex too well.
He went away to his regiment two days ago, and I trust I shall
never be plagued with him again. He is the greatest coxcomb
I ever saw, and amazingly disagreeable. The last two days he
was always by the side of Charlotte Davis: I pitied his taste,
but took no notice of him. The last time we met was in Bath-
street,2 and I turned directly into a shop that he might not
speak to me;—I would not even look at him. He went into
the Pump-room afterwards; but I would not have followed
him for all the world. Such a contrast between him and your
brother!—pray send me some news of the latter—I am quite
unhappy about him, he seemed so uncomfortable when he
went away, with a cold, or something that affected his spirits.
I would write to him myself, but have mislaid his direction;
and, as I hinted above, am afraid he took something in my
conduct amiss. Pray explain every thing to his satisfaction;
or, if he still harbours any doubt, a line from himself to me,
or a call at Putney when next in town, might set all to rights.
I have not been to the Rooms this age, nor to the Play, except
going in last night with the Hodges’s, for a frolic, at half-
price:3 they teased me into it; and I was determined they
should not say I shut myself up because Tilney was gone.
We happened to sit by the Mitchells, and they pretended
223
to be quite surprized to see me out. I knew their spite:—at

one time they could not be civil to me, but now they are
all friendship; but I am not such a fool as to be taken in by
them. You know I have a pretty good spirit of my own. Anne
Mitchell had tried to put on a turban4 like mine, as I wore
it the week before at the Concert, but made wretched work
of it—it happened to become my odd face I believe, at least
Tilney told me so at the time, and said every eye was upon
me; but he is the last man whose word I would take. I wear
nothing but purple now: I know I look hideous in it, but
no matter—it is your dear brother’s favourite colour. Lose no
time, my dearest, sweetest Catherine, in writing to him and to
me,
Who ever am, &c.
Such a strain of shallow artifice could not impose even upon

Catherine. Its inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehood,
struck her from the very first. She was ashamed of Isabella,
and ashamed of having ever loved her. Her professions of
attachment were now as disgusting as her excuses were empty,
and her demands impudent. “Write to James on her behalf !—
No, James should never hear Isabella’s name mentioned by
her again.”
On Henry’s arrival from Woodston, she made known to
him and Eleanor their brother’s safety, congratulating them
with sincerity on it, and reading aloud the most material
passages of her letter with strong indignation. When she had
finished it,—“So much for Isabella,” she cried, “and for all our
intimacy! She must think me an idiot, or she could not have
written so; but perhaps this has served to make her character
better known to me than mine is to her. I see what she has
been about. She is a vain coquette, and her tricks have not
224
answered. I do not believe she had ever any regard either for
James or for me, and I wish I had never known her.”
“It will soon be as if you never had,” said Henry.
“There is but one thing that I cannot understand. I see
that she has had designs on Captain Tilney, which have not
succeeded; but I do not understand what Captain Tilney
has been about all this time. Why should he pay her such
attentions as to make her quarrel with my brother, and then
fly off himself?”
“I have very little to say for Frederick’s motives, such as I
believe them to have been. He has his vanities as well as Miss
Thorpe, and the chief difference is, that, having a stronger
head, they have not yet injured himself. If the effect of his
behaviour does not justify him with you, we had better not
seek after the cause.”
“Then you do not suppose he ever really cared about her?”
“I am persuaded that he never did.”
“And only made believe to do so for mischief ’s sake?”
Henry bowed his assent.
“Well, then, I must say that I do not like him at all. Though
it has turned out so well for us, I do not like him at all. As it
happens, there is no great harm done, because I do not think
Isabella has any heart to lose. But, suppose he had made her
very much in love with him?”
“But we must first suppose Isabella to have had a heart to
lose,—consequently to have been a very different creature;
and, in that case, she would have met with very different
treatment.”
“It is very right that you should stand by your brother.”
“And if you would stand by your’s, you would not be much
distressed by the disappointment of Miss Thorpe. But your
mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity,
225
and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family

partiality, or a desire of revenge.”
Catherine was complimented out of further bitterness.
Frederick could not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry
made himself so agreeable. She resolved on not answering
Isabella’s letter; and tried to think no more of it.
226
Chapter 13
So o n after this, the General found himself obliged to go to

London for a week; and he left Northanger earnestly regret-
ting that any necessity should rob him even for an hour of
Miss Morland’s company, and anxiously recommending the
study of her comfort and amusement to his children as their
chief object in his absence. His departure gave Catherine the
first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a
gain. The happiness with which their time now passed, every
employment voluntary, every laugh indulged, every meal a
scene of ease and good-humour, walking where they liked and
when they liked, their hours, pleasures and fatigues at their
own command, made her thoroughly sensible of the restraint
which the General’s presence had imposed, and most thank-
fully feel their present release from it. Such ease and such
delights made her love the place and the people more and
more every day; and had it not been for a dread of its soon
becoming expedient to leave the one, and an apprehension
of not being equally beloved by the other, she would at each
moment of each day have been perfectly happy; but she was
now in the fourth week of her visit; before the General came
home, the fourth week would be turned, and perhaps it might
seem an intrusion if she staid much longer.1 This was a painful
consideration whenever it occurred; and eager to get rid of
such a weight on her mind, she very soon resolved to speak to
Eleanor about it at once, propose going away, and be guided
227
in her conduct by the manner in which her proposal might

be taken.
Aware that if she gave herself much time, she might feel it
difficult to bring forward so unpleasant a subject, she took the
first opportunity of being suddenly alone with Eleanor, and
of Eleanor’s being in the middle of a speech about something
very different, to start forth her obligation of going away
very soon. Eleanor looked and declared herself much con-
cerned. She had “hoped for the pleasure of her company for a
much longer time—had been misled (perhaps by her wishes)
to suppose that a much longer visit had been promised—
and could not but think that if Mr. and Mrs. Morland were
aware of the pleasure it was to her to have her there, they
would be too generous to hasten her return.”—Catherine
explained.— “Oh! as to that, papa and mamma were in no
hurry at all. As long as she was happy, they would always be
satisfied.”
“Then why, might she ask, in such a hurry herself to leave
them?”
“Oh! because she had been there so long.”
“Nay, if you can use such a word, I can urge you no farther.
If you think it long—”
“Oh! no, I do not indeed. For my own pleasure, I could stay
with you as long again.”—And it was directly settled that, till
she had, her leaving them was not even to be thought of.
In having this cause of uneasiness so pleasantly removed,
the force of the other was likewise weakened. The kindness,
the earnestness of Eleanor’s manner in pressing her to stay,
and Henry’s gratified look on being told that her stay was
determined, were such sweet proofs of her importance with
them, as left her only just so much solicitude as the human
mind can never do comfortably without. She did—almost
always—believe that Henry loved her, and quite always that
228
his father and sister loved and even wished her to belong
to them; and believing so far, her doubts and anxieties were
merely sportive irritations.
Henry was not able to obey his father’s injunction of
remaining wholly at Northanger in attendance on the ladies,
during his absence in London; the engagements of his curate2
at Woodston obliging him to leave them on Saturday for a
couple of nights. His loss was not now what it had been
while the General was at home; it lessened their gaiety, but
did not ruin their comfort; and the two girls agreeing in
occupation, and improving in intimacy, found themselves so
well-sufficient for the time to themselves, that it was eleven
o’clock, rather a late hour at the Abbey, before they quitted
the supper-room on the day of Henry’s departure. They had
just reached the head of the stairs, when it seemed, as far as
the thickness of the walls would allow them to judge, that
a carriage was driving up to the door, and the next moment
confirmed the idea by the loud noise of the house-bell. After
the first perturbation of surprize had passed away, in a “Good
Heaven! what can be the matter?” it was quickly decided by
Eleanor to be her eldest brother, whose arrival was often as
sudden, if not quite so unseasonable, and accordingly she
hurried down to welcome him.
Catherine walked on to her chamber, making up her mind
as well as she could, to a further acquaintance with Captain
Tilney, and comforting herself under the unpleasant impres-
sion his conduct had given her, and the persuasion of his
being by far too fine a gentleman to approve of her, that at
least they should not meet under such circumstances as would
make their meeting materially painful. She trusted he would
never speak of Miss Thorpe; and indeed, as he must by this
time be ashamed of the part he had acted, there could be no
danger of it; and as long as all mention of Bath scenes were
229
avoided, she thought she could behave to him very civilly.

In such considerations time passed away, and it was certainly
in his favour that Eleanor should be so glad to see him, and
have so much to say, for half an hour was almost gone since
his arrival, and Eleanor did not come up.
At that moment Catherine thought she heard her step
in the gallery, and listened for its continuance; but all was
silent. Scarcely, however, had she convicted her fancy of error,
when the noise of something moving close to her door made
her start; it seemed as if some one was touching the very
doorway—and in another moment a slight motion of the
lock proved that some hand must be on it. She trembled a
little at the idea of any one’s approaching so cautiously; but
resolving not to be again overcome by trivial appearances of
alarm, or misled by a raised imagination, she stepped quietly
forward, and opened the door. Eleanor, and only Eleanor,
stood there. Catherine’s spirits however were tranquillized
but for an instant, for Eleanor’s cheeks were pale, and her
manner greatly agitated. Though evidently intending to come
in, it seemed an effort to enter the room, and a still greater
to speak when there. Catherine, supposing some uneasiness
on Captain Tilney’s account, could only express her concern
by silent attention; obliged her to be seated, rubbed her tem-
ples with lavender-water, and hung over her with affectionate
solicitude. “My dear Catherine, you must not—you must not
indeed—” were Eleanor’s first connected words. “I am quite
well. This kindness distracts me—I cannot bear it—I come
to you on such an errand!”
“Errand!—to me!”
“How shall I tell you!—Oh! how shall I tell you!”
A new idea now darted into Catherine’s mind, and turning
as pale as her friend, she exclaimed, “ ’Tis a messenger from
Woodston!”
230
“You are mistaken, indeed,” returned Eleanor, looking at

her most compassionately—“it is no one from Woodston.
It is my father himself.” Her voice faltered, and her eyes
were turned to the ground as she mentioned his name. His
unlooked-for return was enough in itself to make Cather-
ine’s heart sink, and for a few moments she hardly supposed
there were any thing worse to be told. She said nothing; and
Eleanor endeavouring to collect herself and speak with firm-
ness, but with eyes still cast down, soon went on. “You are
too good, I am sure, to think the worse of me for the part I
am obliged to perform. I am indeed a most unwilling mes-
senger. After what has so lately passed, so lately been settled
between us—how joyfully, how thankfully on my side!—as to
your continuing here as I hoped for many, many weeks longer,
how can I tell you that your kindness is not to be accepted—
and that the happiness your company has hitherto given us is
to be repaid by——but I must not trust myself with words.
My dear Catherine, we are to part. My father has recollected
an engagement that takes our whole family away on Mon-
day. We are going to Lord Longtown’s, near Hereford,3 for
a fortnight. Explanation and apology are equally impossible.
I cannot attempt either.”
“My dear Eleanor,” cried Catherine, suppressing her feel-
ings as well as she could, “do not be so distressed. A second
engagement must give way to a first. I am very, very sorry
we are to part—so soon, and so suddenly too; but I am not
offended, indeed I am not. I can finish my visit here you know
at any time; or I hope you will come to me. Can you, when
you return from this lord’s, come to Fullerton?”
“It will not be in my power, Catherine.”
“Come when you can, then.”—
Eleanor made no answer; and Catherine’s thoughts recur-
ring to something more directly interesting, she added,
231
thinking aloud, “Monday—so soon as Monday;—and you

all go. Well, I am certain of——I shall be able to take leave
however. I need not go till just before you do, you know. Do
not be distressed, Eleanor, I can go on Monday very well.
My father and mother’s having no notice of it is of very little
consequence. The General will send a servant with me, I dare
say, half the way—and then I shall soon be at Salisbury, and
then I am only nine miles from home.”
“Ah, Catherine! were it settled so, it would be somewhat
less intolerable, though in such common attentions you would
have received but half what you ought. But—how can I tell
you?—To-morrow morning is fixed for your leaving us, and
not even the hour is left to your choice; the very carriage is
ordered, and will be here at seven o’clock, and no servant will
be offered you.”
Catherine sat down, breathless and speechless. “I could
hardly believe my senses, when I heard it;—and no displea-
sure, no resentment that you can feel at this moment, how-
ever justly great, can be more than I myself——but I must
not talk of what I felt. Oh! that I could suggest any thing in
extenuation! Good God! what will your father and mother
say! After courting you from the protection of real friends to
this—almost double distance from your home, to have you
driven out of the house, without the considerations even of
decent civility! Dear, dear Catherine, in being the bearer of
such a message, I seem guilty myself of all its insult; yet, I
trust you will acquit me, for you must have been long enough
in this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress of it,
that my real power is nothing.”
“Have I offended the General?” said Catherine in a falter-
ing voice.
“Alas! for my feelings as a daughter, all that I know, all that
I answer for is, that you can have given him no just cause
232
of offence. He certainly is greatly, very greatly discomposed;

I have seldom seen him more so. His temper is not happy,
and something has now occurred to ruffle it in an uncommon
degree; some disappointment, some vexation, which just at
this moment seems important; but which I can hardly sup-
pose you to have any concern in, for how is it possible?”
It was with pain that Catherine could speak at all; and
it was only for Eleanor’s sake that she attempted it. “I am
sure,” said she, “I am very sorry if I have offended him. It
was the last thing I would willingly have done. But do not be
unhappy, Eleanor. An engagement you know must be kept. I
am only sorry it was not recollected sooner, that I might have
written home. But it is of very little consequence.”
“I hope, I earnestly hope that to your real safety it will be of
none; but to every thing else it is of the greatest consequence;
to comfort, appearance, propriety, to your family, to the
world. Were your friends, the Allens, still in Bath, you might
go to them with comparative ease; a few hours would take
you there; but a journey of seventy miles, to be taken post by
you, at your age, alone, unattended!”4
“Oh, the journey is nothing. Do not think about that.
And if we are to part, a few hours sooner or later, you know,
makes no difference. I can be ready by seven. Let me be
called in time.” Eleanor saw that she wished to be alone;
and believing it better for each that they should avoid any
further conversation, now left her with “I shall see you in the
morning.”
Catherine’s swelling heart needed relief. In Eleanor’s pres-
ence friendship and pride had equally restrained her tears,
but no sooner was she gone than they burst forth in torrents.
Turned from the house, and in such a way!—Without any
reason that could justify, any apology that could atone for the
abruptness, the rudeness, nay, the insolence of it. Henry at
233
a distance—not able even to bid him farewell. Every hope,

every expectation from him suspended, at least, and who
could say how long?—Who could say when they might meet
again?—And all this by such a man as General Tilney, so
polite, so well-bred, and heretofore so particularly fond of
her! It was as incomprehensible as it was mortifying and
grievous. From what it could arise, and where it would end,
were considerations of equal perplexity and alarm. The man-
ner in which it was done so grossly uncivil; hurrying her away
without any reference to her own convenience, or allowing
her even the appearance of choice as to the time or mode of
her travelling; of two days, the earliest fixed on, and of that
almost the earliest hour, as if resolved to have her gone before
he was stirring in the morning, that he might not be obliged
even to see her. What could all this mean but an intentional
affront? By some means or other she must have had the mis-
fortune to offend him. Eleanor had wished to spare her from
so painful a notion, but Catherine could not believe it possible
that any injury or any misfortune could provoke such ill-will
against a person not connected, or, at least, not supposed to
be connected with it.
Heavily past the night. Sleep, or repose that deserved the
name of sleep, was out of the question. That room, in which
her disturbed imagination had tormented her on her first
arrival, was again the scene of agitated spirits and unquiet
slumbers. Yet how different now the source of her inqui-
etude from what it had been then—how mournfully supe-
rior in reality and substance! Her anxiety had foundation in
fact, her fears in probability; and with a mind so occupied
in the contemplation of actual and natural evil, the solitude
of her situation, the darkness of her chamber, the antiquity
of the building were felt and considered without the smallest
emotion; and though the wind was high, and often produced
234
strange and sudden noises throughout the house, she heard

it all as she lay awake, hour after hour, without curiosity or
terror.
Soon after six Eleanor entered her room, eager to show
attention or give assistance where it was possible; but very
little remained to be done. Catherine had not loitered; she
was almost dressed, and her packing almost finished. The
possibility of some conciliatory message from the General
occurred to her as his daughter appeared. What so natural, as
that anger should pass away and repentance succeed it? and
she only wanted to know how far, after what had passed, an
apology might properly be received by her. But the knowledge
would have been useless here, it was not called for; neither
clemency nor dignity was put to the trial—Eleanor brought
no message. Very little passed between them on meeting;
each found her greatest safety in silence, and few and triv-
ial were the sentences exchanged while they remained up
stairs, Catherine in busy agitation completing her dress, and
Eleanor with more good-will than experience intent upon fill-
ing the trunk. When every thing was done they left the room,
Catherine lingering only half a minute behind her friend to
throw a parting glance on every well-known cherished object,
and went down to the breakfast-parlour, where breakfast was
prepared. She tried to eat, as well to save herself from the
pain of being urged, as to make her friend comfortable; but
she had no appetite, and could not swallow many mouthfuls.
The contrast between this and her last breakfast in that room,
gave her fresh misery, and strengthened her distaste for every
thing before her. It was not four-and-twenty hours ago since
they had met there to the same repast, but in circumstances
how different! With what cheerful ease, what happy, though
false security, had she then looked around her, enjoying every
thing present, and fearing little in future, beyond Henry’s
235
going to Woodston for a day! Happy, happy breakfast! for

Henry had been there, Henry had sat by her and helped
her. These reflections were long indulged undisturbed by any
address from her companion, who sat as deep in thought as
herself; and the appearance of the carriage was the first thing
to startle and recall them to the present moment. Catherine’s
colour rose at the sight of it; and the indignity with which she
was treated striking at that instant on her mind with peculiar
force, made her for a short time sensible only of resentment.
Eleanor seemed now impelled into resolution and speech.
“You must write to me, Catherine,” she cried, “you must
let me hear from you as soon as possible. Till I know you to
be safe at home, I shall not have an hour’s comfort. For one
letter, at all risks, all hazards, I must entreat. Let me have
the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe at Fullerton,
and have found your family well, and then, till I can ask for
your correspondence as I ought to do, I will not expect more.
Direct to me at Lord Longtown’s, and, I must ask it, under
cover to Alice.”5
“No, Eleanor, if you are not allowed to receive a letter from
me, I am sure I had better not write. There can be no doubt
of my getting home safe.”
Eleanor only replied, “I cannot wonder at your feelings. I
will not importune you. I will trust to your own kindness of
heart when I am at a distance from you.” But this, with the
look of sorrow accompanying it, was enough to melt Cather-
ine’s pride in a moment, and she instantly said, “Oh, Eleanor,
I will write to you indeed.”
There was yet another point which Miss Tilney was anx-
ious to settle, though somewhat embarrassed in speaking of.
It had occurred to her, that after so long an absence from
home, Catherine might not be provided with money enough
for the expenses of her journey, and, upon suggesting it to her
236
with most affectionate offers of accommodation, it proved to

be exactly the case. Catherine had never thought on the sub-
ject till that moment;6 but, upon examining her purse, was
convinced that but for this kindness of her friend, she might
have been turned from the house without even the means of
getting home; and the distress in which she must have been
thereby involved filling the minds of both, scarcely another
word was said by either during the time of their remaining
together. Short, however, was that time. The carriage was
soon announced to be ready; and Catherine, instantly ris-
ing, a long and affectionate embrace supplied the place of
language in bidding each other adieu; and, as they entered
the hall, unable to leave the house without some mention
of one whose name had not yet been spoken by either, she
paused a moment, and with quivering lips just made it intel-
ligible that she left “her kind remembrance for her absent
friend.” But with this approach to his name ended all possi-
bility of restraining her feelings; and, hiding her face as well
as she could with her handkerchief, she darted across the hall,
jumped into the chaise, and in a moment was driven from
the door.
237
Chapter 14
Ca th e r i n e was too wretched to be fearful. The journey

in itself had no terrors for her; and she began it without
either dreading its length, or feeling its solitariness. Leaning
back in one corner of the carriage, in a violent burst of tears,
she was conveyed some miles beyond the walls of the Abbey
before she raised her head; and the highest point of ground
within the park was almost closed from her view before she
was capable of turning her eyes towards it. Unfortunately,
the road she now travelled was the same which only ten days
ago she had so happily passed along in going to and from
Woodston; and, for fourteen miles, every bitter feeling was
rendered more severe by the review of objects on which she
had first looked under impressions so different. Every mile, as
it brought her nearer Woodston, added to her sufferings, and
when within the distance of five, she passed the turning which
led to it, and thought of Henry, so near, yet so unconscious,
her grief and agitation were excessive.
The day which she had spent at that place had been one of
the happiest of her life. It was there, it was on that day that
the General had made use of such expressions with regard
to Henry and herself, had so spoken and so looked as to
give her the most positive conviction of his actually wishing
their marriage. Yes, only ten days ago had he elated her by
his pointed regard—had he even confused her by his too
significant reference! And now—what had she done, or what
had she omitted to do, to merit such a change?
238
The only offence against him of which she could accuse

herself, had been such as was scarcely possible to reach his
knowledge. Henry and her own heart only were privy to the
shocking suspicions which she had so idly entertained; and
equally safe did she believe her secret with each. Designedly,
at least, Henry could not have betrayed her. If, indeed, by
any strange mischance his father should have gained intel-
ligence of what she had dared to think and look for, of her
causeless fancies and injurious examinations, she could not
wonder at any degree of his indignation. If aware of her
having viewed him as a murderer, she could not wonder at
his even turning her from his house. But a justification so
full of torture to herself, she trusted would not be in his
power.
Anxious as were all her conjectures on this point, it was
not, however, the one on which she dwelt most. There was a
thought yet nearer, a more prevailing, more impetuous con-
cern. How Henry would think, and feel, and look, when he
returned on the morrow to Northanger and heard of her being
gone, was a question of force and interest to rise over every
other, to be never ceasing, alternately irritating and soothing;
it sometimes suggested the dread of his calm acquiescence,
and at others was answered by the sweetest confidence in his
regret and resentment. To the General, of course, he would
not dare to speak; but to Eleanor—what might he not say to
Eleanor about her?
In this unceasing recurrence of doubts and inquiries, on
any one article of which her mind was incapable of more
than momentary repose, the hours passed away, and her jour-
ney advanced much faster than she looked for. The pressing
anxieties of thought, which prevented her from noticing any
thing before her, when once beyond the neighbourhood of
Woodston, saved her at the same time from watching her
239
progress; and though no object on the road could engage a

moment’s attention, she found no stage of it tedious. From
this, she was preserved too by another cause, by feeling no
eagerness for her journey’s conclusion; for to return in such a
manner to Fullerton was almost to destroy the pleasure of a
meeting with those she loved best, even after an absence such
as her’s—an eleven weeks absence. What had she to say that
would not humble herself and pain her family; that would not
increase her own grief by the confession of it, extend an use-
less resentment, and perhaps involve the innocent with the
guilty in undistinguishing ill-will? She could never do jus-
tice to Henry and Eleanor’s merit; she felt it too strongly for
expression; and should a dislike be taken against them, should
they be thought of unfavourably, on their father’s account, it
would cut her to the heart.
With these feelings, she rather dreaded than sought for the
first view of that well-known spire1 which would announce
her within twenty miles of home. Salisbury she had known to
be her point on leaving Northanger; but after the first stage
she had been indebted to the post-masters2 for the names
of the places which were then to conduct her to it; so great
had been her ignorance of her route. She met with nothing,
however, to distress or frighten her. Her youth, civil manners
and liberal pay, procured her all the attention that a traveller
like herself could require; and stopping only to change horses,
she travelled on for about eleven hours without accident or
alarm, and between six and seven o’clock in the evening found
herself entering Fullerton.
A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native
village, in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the
dignity of a countess, with a long train of noble relations in
their several phaetons, and three waiting-maids in a travelling
240
chaise-and-four, behind her, is an event on which the pen of

the contriver may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to
every conclusion, and the author must share in the glory she
so liberally bestows.—3 But my affair is widely different; I
bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace;
and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness. A
heroine in a hack post-chaise,4 is such a blow upon sentiment,
as no attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand. Swiftly
therefore shall her post-boy5 drive through the village, amid
the gaze of Sunday groups, and speedy shall be her descent
from it.
But, whatever might be the distress of Catherine’s mind, as
she thus advanced towards the Parsonage, and whatever the
humiliation of her biographer in relating it, she was prepar-
ing enjoyment of no every-day nature for those to whom she
went; first, in the appearance of her carriage—and secondly,
in herself. The chaise of a traveller being a rare sight in Fuller-
ton, the whole family were immediately at the window; and to
have it stop at the sweep-gate was a pleasure to brighten every
eye and occupy every fancy—a pleasure quite unlooked for by
all but the two youngest children, a boy and girl of six and four
years old, who expected a brother or sister in every carriage.
Happy the glance that first distinguished Catherine!—Happy
the voice that proclaimed the discovery!—But whether such
happiness were the lawful property of George or Harriet
could never be exactly understood.
Her father, mother, Sarah, George, and Harriet, all assem-
bled at the door, to welcome her with affectionate eagerness,
was a sight to awaken the best feelings of Catherine’s heart;
and in the embrace of each, as she stepped from the car-
riage, she found herself soothed beyond any thing that she
had believed possible. So surrounded, so caressed, she was
241
even happy! In the joyfulness of family love every thing for

a short time was subdued, and the pleasure of seeing her,
leaving them at first little leisure for calm curiosity, they
were all seated round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland
had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveller, whose
pale and jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any
inquiry so direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed
to her.
Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then begin
what might perhaps, at the end of half an hour, be termed
by the courtesy of her hearers, an explanation; but scarcely,
within that time, could they at all discover the cause, or col-
lect the particulars of her sudden return. They were far from
being an irritable race; far from any quickness in catching, or
bitterness in resenting affronts:—but here, when the whole
was unfolded, was an insult not to be overlooked, nor, for the
first half hour, to be easily pardoned. Without suffering any
romantic6 alarm, in the consideration of their daughter’s long
and lonely journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland could not but feel
that it might have been productive of much unpleasantness
to her; that it was what they could never have voluntarily
suffered; and that, in forcing her on such a measure, General
Tilney had acted neither honourably nor feelingly—neither
as a gentleman nor as a parent. Why he had done it, what
could have provoked him to such a breach of hospitality, and
so suddenly turned all his partial regard for their daughter
into actual ill-will, was a matter which they were at least as
far from divining as Catherine herself; but it did not oppress
them by any means so long; and, after a due course of useless
conjecture, that, “it was a strange business, and that he must
be a very strange man,” grew enough for all their indigna-
tion and wonder; though Sarah indeed still indulged in the
sweets of incomprehensibility, exclaiming and conjecturing
242
with youthful ardour.—“My dear, you give yourself a great

deal of needless trouble,” said her mother at last; “depend
upon it, it is something not at all worth understanding.”
“I can allow for his wishing Catherine away, when he rec-
ollected this engagement,” said Sarah, “but why not do it
civilly?”
“I am sorry for the young people,” returned Mrs. Morland;
“they must have a sad time of it; but as for any thing else, it is
no matter now; Catherine is safe at home, and our comfort
does not depend upon General Tilney.” Catherine sighed.
“Well,” continued her philosophic mother, “I am glad I did
not know of your journey at the time; but now it is all over
perhaps there is no great harm done. It is always good for
young people to be put upon exerting themselves; and you
know, my dear Catherine, you always were a sad little shatter-
brained creature; but now you must have been forced to have
your wits about you, with so much changing of chaises and
so forth; and I hope it will appear that you have not left any
thing behind you in any of the pockets.”
Catherine hoped so too, and tried to feel an interest in
her own amendment, but her spirits were quite worn down;
and, to be silent and alone becoming soon her only wish, she
readily agreed to her mother’s next counsel of going early to
bed. Her parents seeing nothing in her ill-looks and agitation
but the natural consequence of mortified feelings, and of the
unusual exertion and fatigue of such a journey, parted from
her without any doubt of their being soon slept away; and
though, when they all met the next morning, her recovery was
not equal to their hopes, they were still perfectly unsuspicious
of there being any deeper evil. They never once thought of her
heart, which, for the parents of a young lady of seventeen,
just returned from her first excursion from home, was odd
enough!
243
As soon as breakfast was over, she sat down to fulfil her

promise to Miss Tilney, whose trust in the effect of time and
distance on her friend’s disposition was already justified, for
already did Catherine reproach herself with having parted
from Eleanor coldly; with having never enough valued her
merits or kindness; and never enough commiserated her for
what she had been yesterday left to endure. The strength of
these feelings, however, was far from assisting her pen; and
never had it been harder for her to write than in addressing
Eleanor Tilney. To compose a letter which might at once
do justice to her sentiments and her situation, convey grati-
tude without servile regret, be guarded without coldness, and
honest without resentment—a letter which Eleanor might
not be pained by the perusal of —and, above all, which she
might not blush herself, if Henry should chance to see, was an
undertaking to frighten away all her powers of performance;
and, after long thought and much perplexity, to be very brief
was all that she could determine on with any confidence of
safety. The money therefore which Eleanor had advanced
was inclosed with little more than grateful thanks, and the
thousand good wishes of a most affectionate heart.
“This has been a strange acquaintance,” observed Mrs.
Morland, as the letter was finished; “soon made and soon
ended.—I am sorry it happens so, for Mrs. Allen thought
them very pretty kind of 7 young people; and you were sadly
out of luck too in your Isabella. Ah! poor James! Well, we
must live and learn; and the next new friends you make I
hope will be better worth keeping.”
Catherine coloured as she warmly answered, “No friend
can be better worth keeping than Eleanor.”
“If so, my dear, I dare say you will meet again some time
or other; do not be uneasy. It is ten to one but you are thrown
244
together again in the course of a few years; and then what a

pleasure it will be!”
Mrs. Morland was not happy in her attempt at conso-
lation. The hope of meeting again in the course of a few
years could only put into Catherine’s head what might hap-
pen within that time to make a meeting dreadful to her. She
could never forget Henry Tilney, or think of him with less
tenderness than she did at that moment; but he might for-
get her; and in that case to meet!——Her eyes filled with
tears as she pictured her acquaintance so renewed; and her
mother, perceiving her comfortable suggestions to have had
no good effect, proposed, as another expedient for restoring
her spirits, that they should call on Mrs. Allen.
The two houses were only a quarter of a mile apart; and,
as they walked, Mrs. Morland quickly dispatched all that she
felt on the score of James’s disappointment. “We are sorry
for him,” said she; “but otherwise there is no harm done in
the match going off; for it could not be a desirable thing to
have him engaged to a girl whom we had not the smallest
acquaintance with, and who was so entirely without fortune;
and now, after such behaviour, we cannot think at all well of
her. Just at present it comes hard to poor James; but that will
not last for ever; and I dare say he will be a discreeter man all
his life, for the foolishness of his first choice.”
This was just such a summary view of the affair as
Catherine could listen to; another sentence might have
endangered her complaisance, and made her reply less
rational; for soon were all her thinking powers swallowed
up in the reflection of her own change of feelings and spirits
since last she had trodden that well-known road. It was not
three months ago since, wild with joyful expectation, she had
there run backwards and forwards some ten times a-day, with
245
an heart light, gay, and independent; looking forward to plea-

sures untasted and unalloyed, and free from the apprehension
of evil as from the knowledge of it. Three months ago had
seen her all this; and now, how altered a being did she return!8
She was received by the Allens with all the kindness
which her unlooked-for appearance, acting on a steady affec-
tion, would naturally call forth; and great was their sur-
prize, and warm their displeasure, on hearing how she had
been treated,—though Mrs. Morland’s account of it was no
inflated representation, no studied appeal to their passions.
“Catherine took us quite by surprize yesterday evening,” said
she. “She travelled all the way post by herself, and knew noth-
ing of coming till Saturday night; for General Tilney, from
some odd fancy or other, all of a sudden grew tired of hav-
ing her there, and almost turned her out of the house. Very
unfriendly, certainly; and he must be a very odd man;—but
we are so glad to have her amongst us again! And it is a great
comfort to find that she is not a poor helpless creature, but
can shift very well for herself.”
Mr. Allen expressed himself on the occasion with the
reasonable resentment of a sensible friend; and Mrs. Allen
thought his expressions quite good enough to be immediately
made use of again by herself. His wonder, his conjectures, and
his explanations, became in succession her’s, with the addi-
tion of this single remark—“I really have not patience with
the General”—to fill up every accidental pause. And, “I really
have not patience with the General,” was uttered twice after
Mr. Allen left the room, without any relaxation of anger,
or any material digression of thought. A more considerable
degree of wandering attended the third repetition; and, after
completing the fourth, she immediately added, “Only think,
my dear, of my having got that frightful great rent in my best
Mechlin9 so charmingly mended, before I left Bath, that one
246
can hardly see where it was. I must shew it you some day or
other. Bath is a nice place, Catherine, after all. I assure you
I did not above half like coming away. Mrs. Thorpe’s being
there was such a comfort to us, was not it? You know you and
I were quite forlorn at first.”
“Yes, but that did not last long,” said Catherine, her eyes
brightening at the recollection of what had first given spirit
to her existence there.
“Very true: we soon met with Mrs. Thorpe, and then we
wanted for nothing. My dear, do not you think these silk
gloves wear very well? I put them on new the first time of
our going to the Lower Rooms, you know, and I have worn
them a great deal since. Do you remember that evening?”
“Do I! Oh! perfectly.”
“It was very agreeable, was not it? Mr. Tilney drank tea
with us, and I always thought him a great addition, he is so
very agreeable. I have a notion you danced with him, but am
not quite sure. I remember I had my favourite gown on.”
Catherine could not answer; and, after a short trial of other
subjects, Mrs. Allen again returned to—“I really have not
patience with the General! Such an agreeable, worthy man as
he seemed to be! I do not suppose, Mrs. Morland, you ever
saw a better-bred man in your life. His lodgings were taken
the very day after he left them, Catherine. But no wonder;
Milsom-street you know.”—
As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured
to impress on her daughter’s mind the happiness of having
such steady well-wishers as Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and the
very little consideration which the neglect or unkindness of
slight acquaintance like the Tilneys ought to have with her,
while she could preserve the good opinion and affection of her
earliest friends. There was a great deal of good sense in all this;
but there are some situations of the human mind in which
247
good sense has very little power; and Catherine’s feelings

contradicted almost every position her mother advanced. It
was upon the behaviour of these very slight acquaintance that
all her present happiness depended; and while Mrs. Morland
was successfully confirming her own opinions by the justness
of her own representations, Catherine was silently reflecting
that now Henry must have arrived at Northanger; now he
must have heard of her departure; and now, perhaps, they
were all setting off for Hereford.
248
Chapter 15
Ca th e r i n e ’ s disposition was not naturally sedentary, nor

had her habits been ever very industrious; but whatever might
hitherto have been her defects of that sort, her mother could
not but perceive them now to be greatly increased. She could
neither sit still, nor employ herself for ten minutes together,
walking round the garden and orchard again and again, as
if nothing but motion was voluntary; and it seemed as if
she could even walk about the house rather than remain
fixed for any time in the parlour. Her loss of spirits was a
yet greater alteration. In her rambling and her idleness she
might only be a caricature of herself; but in her silence and
sadness she was the very reverse of all that she had been
before.
For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass even without
a hint; but when a third night’s rest had neither restored her
cheerfulness, improved her in useful activity, nor given her
a greater inclination for needle-work, she could no longer
refrain from the gentle reproof of, “My dear Catherine, I am
afraid you are growing quite a fine lady. I do not know when
poor Richard’s cravats would be done, if he had no friend but
you. Your head runs too much upon Bath; but there is a time
for every thing—a time for balls and plays, and a time for
work. You have had a long run of amusement, and now you
must try to be useful.”
Catherine took up her work directly saying, in a dejected
voice, that “her head did not run upon Bath——much.”
249
“Then you are fretting about General Tilney, and that

is very simple of you; for ten to one whether you ever see
him again. You should never fret about trifles.” After a short
silence—“I hope, my Catherine, you are not getting out of
humour with home because it is not so grand as Northanger.
That would be turning your visit into an evil indeed. Wher-
ever you are you should always be contented, but especially at
home, because there you must spend the most of your time.
I did not quite like, at breakfast, to hear you talk so much
about the French-bread1 at Northanger.”
“I am sure I do not care about the bread. It is all the same
to me what I eat.”
“There is a very clever Essay in one of the books up
stairs upon much such a subject, about young girls that have
been spoilt for home by great acquaintance—‘The Mirror,’2
I think. I will look it out for you some day or other, because
I am sure it will do you good.”
Catherine said no more and with an endeavour to do right,
applied to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again,
without knowing it herself, into languor and listlessness,
moving herself in her chair, from the irritation of weariness,
much oftener than she moved her needle.—Mrs. Morland
watched the progress of this relapse; and seeing, in her daugh-
ter’s absent and dissatisfied look, the full proof of that repin-
ing spirit to which she had now begun to attribute her want
of cheerfulness, hastily left the room to fetch the book in
question, anxious to lose no time in attacking so dreadful
a malady. It was some time before she could find what she
looked for; and other family matters occurring to detain her,
a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere she returned down stairs
with the volume from which so much was hoped. Her avo-
cations above having shut out all noise but what she created
herself, she knew not that a visitor had arrived within the last
250
few minutes, till, on entering the room, the first object she
beheld was a young man whom she had never seen before.
With a look of much respect, he immediately rose, and being
introduced to her by her conscious daughter as “Mr. Henry
Tilney,” with the embarrassment of real sensibility began to
apologise for his appearance there, acknowledging that after
what had passed he had little right to expect a welcome at
Fullerton, and stating his impatience to be assured of Miss
Morland’s having reached her home in safety, as the cause
of his intrusion. He did not address himself to an uncandid
judge or a resentful heart. Far from comprehending him or
his sister in their father’s misconduct, Mrs. Morland had been
always kindly disposed towards each, and instantly, pleased
by his appearance, received him with the simple professions
of unaffected benevolence; thanking him for such an atten-
tion to her daughter, assuring him that the friends of her
children were always welcome there, and intreating him to
say not another word of the past.
He was not ill inclined to obey this request, for, though
his heart was greatly relieved by such unlooked-for mildness,
it was not just at that moment in his power to say any thing
to the purpose. Returning in silence to his seat, therefore, he
remained for some minutes most civilly answering all Mrs.
Morland’s common remarks about the weather and roads.
Catherine meanwhile,—the anxious, agitated, happy, fever-
ish Catherine,—said not a word; but her glowing cheek and
brightened eye made her mother trust that this good-natured
visit would at least set her heart at ease for a time, and gladly
therefore did she lay aside the first volume of the Mirror for
a future hour.
Desirous of Mr. Morland’s assistance, as well in giving
encouragement, as in finding conversation for her guest,
whose embarrassment on his father’s account she earnestly
251
pitied, Mrs. Morland had very early dispatched one of the

children to summon him; but Mr. Morland was from home—
and being thus without any support, at the end of a quarter
of an hour she had nothing to say. After a couple of min-
utes unbroken silence, Henry, turning to Catherine for the
first time since her mother’s entrance, asked her, with sudden
alacrity, if Mr. and Mrs. Allen were now at Fullerton? and on
developing, from amidst all her perplexity of words in reply,
the meaning, which one short syllable would have given,
immediately expressed his intention of paying his respects
to them, and, with a rising colour, asked her if she would
have the goodness to shew him the way. “You may see the
house from this window, sir,” was information on Sarah’s
side, which produced only a bow of acknowledgment from
the gentleman, and a silencing nod from her mother; for Mrs.
Morland, thinking it probable, as a secondary consideration
in his wish of waiting on their worthy neighbours, that he
might have some explanation to give of his father’s behaviour,
which it must be more pleasant for him to communicate only
to Catherine, would not on any account prevent her accom-
panying him. They began their walk, and Mrs. Morland was
not entirely mistaken in his object in wishing it. Some expla-
nation on his father’s account he had to give; but his first
purpose was to explain himself, and before they reached Mr.
Allen’s grounds he had done it so well, that Catherine did
not think it could ever be repeated too often. She was assured
of his affection; and that heart in return was solicited, which,
perhaps, they pretty equally knew was already entirely his
own; for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her,
though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her
character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his
affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in
other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had
252
been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a

new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully
derogatory of an heroine’s dignity; but if it be as new in com-
mon life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all
my own.3
A very short visit to Mrs. Allen, in which Henry talked
at random, without sense or connection, and Catherine,
wrapt in the contemplation of her own unutterable happi-
ness, scarcely opened her lips, dismissed them to the extasies
of another tête-à-tête; and before it was suffered to close, she
was enabled to judge how far he was sanctioned by parental
authority in his present application. On his return from
Woodston, two days before, he had been met near the Abbey
by his impatient father, hastily informed in angry terms of
Miss Morland’s departure, and ordered to think of her no
more.4
Such was the permission upon which he had now offered
her his hand. The affrighted Catherine, amidst all the terrors
of expectation, as she listened to this account, could not but
rejoice in the kind caution with which Henry had saved her
from the necessity of a conscientious rejection, by engaging
her faith before he mentioned the subject; and as he pro-
ceeded to give the particulars, and explain the motives of his
father’s conduct, her feelings soon hardened into even a tri-
umphant delight. The General had had nothing to accuse
her of, nothing to lay to her charge, but her being the invol-
untary, unconscious object of a deception which his pride
could not pardon, and which a better pride would have been
ashamed to own. She was guilty only of being less rich than
he had supposed her to be. Under a mistaken persuasion of
her possessions and claims, he had courted her acquaintance
in Bath, solicited her company at Northanger, and designed
her for his daughter in law. On discovering his error, to turn
253
her from the house seemed the best, though to his feelings
an inadequate proof of his resentment towards herself, and
his contempt of her family.
John Thorpe had first misled him. The General, perceiv-
ing his son one night at the theatre to be paying consider-
able attention to Miss Morland, had accidentally inquired of
Thorpe, if he knew more of her than her name. Thorpe, most
happy to be on speaking terms with a man of General Tilney’s
importance, had been joyfully and proudly communicative;—
and being at that time not only in daily expectation of
Morland’s engaging Isabella, but likewise pretty well resolved
upon marrying Catherine himself, his vanity induced him
to represent the family as yet more wealthy than his vanity
and avarice had made him believe them. With whomsoever
he was, or was likely to be connected, his own consequence
always required that theirs should be great, and as his intimacy
with any acquaintance grew, so regularly grew their fortune.
The expectations of his friend Morland, therefore, from the
first over-rated, had ever since his introduction to Isabella,
been gradually increasing; and by merely adding twice as
much for the grandeur of the moment, by doubling what he
chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland’s preferment, tre-
bling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt, and sinking
half the children, he was able to represent the whole family to
the General in a most respectable light. For Catherine, how-
ever, the peculiar object of the General’s curiosity, and his
own speculations, he had yet something more in reserve, and
the ten or fifteen thousand pounds which her father could
give her, would be a pretty addition to Mr. Allen’s estate.
Her intimacy there had made him seriously determine on
her being handsomely legacied hereafter; and to speak of her
therefore as the almost acknowledged future heiress of Fuller-
ton naturally followed. Upon such intelligence the General
254
had proceeded; for never had it occurred to him to doubt

its authority. Thorpe’s interest in the family, by his sister’s
approaching connection with one of its members, and his
own views on another, (circumstances of which he boasted
with almost equal openness,) seemed sufficient vouchers for
his truth; and to these were added the absolute facts of the
Allens being wealthy and childless, of Miss Morland’s being
under their care, and—as soon as his acquaintance allowed
him to judge—of their treating her with parental kindness.
His resolution was soon formed. Already had he discerned a
liking towards Miss Morland in the countenance of his son;
and thankful for Mr. Thorpe’s communication, he almost
instantly determined to spare no pains in weakening his
boasted interest and ruining his dearest hopes. Catherine her-
self could not be more ignorant at the time of all this, than
his own children. Henry and Eleanor, perceiving nothing in
her situation likely to engage their father’s particular respect,
had seen with astonishment the suddenness, continuance
and extent of his attention; and though latterly, from some
hints which had accompanied an almost positive command to
his son of doing every thing in his power to attach her, Henry
was convinced of his father’s believing it to be an advantageous
connection, it was not till the late explanation at Northanger
that they had the smallest idea of the false calculations which
had hurried him on. That they were false, the General had
learnt from the very person who had suggested them, from
Thorpe himself, whom he had chanced to meet again in town,
and who, under the influence of exactly opposite feelings, irri-
tated by Catherine’s refusal, and yet more by the failure of a
very recent endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between
Morland and Isabella, convinced that they were separated for
ever, and spurning a friendship which could be no longer ser-
viceable, hastened to contradict all that he had said before to
255
the advantage of the Morlands;—confessed himself to have

been totally mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances
and character, misled by the rhodomontade5 of his friend
to believe his father a man of substance and credit, whereas
the transactions of the two or three last weeks proved him
to be neither; for after coming eagerly forward on the first
overture of a marriage between the families, with the most
liberal proposals, he had, on being brought to the point by the
shrewdness of the relator, been constrained to acknowledge
himself incapable of giving the young people even a decent
support. They were, in fact, a necessitous family; numerous
too almost beyond example; by no means respected in their
own neighbourhood, as he had lately had particular oppor-
tunities of discovering; aiming at a style of life which their
fortune could not warrant; seeking to better themselves by
wealthy connexions; a forward, bragging, scheming race.
The terrified General pronounced the name of Allen with
an inquiring look; and here too Thorpe had learnt his error.
The Allens, he believed, had lived near them too long, and
he knew the young man on whom the Fullerton estate must
devolve. The General needed no more. Enraged with almost
every body in the world but himself, he set out the next day
for the Abbey, where his performances have been seen.
I leave it to my reader’s sagacity to determine how much of
all this it was possible for Henry to communicate at this time
to Catherine, how much of it he could have learnt from his
father, in what points his own conjectures might assist him,
and what portion must yet remain to be told in a letter from
James. I have united for their ease what they must divide for
mine. Catherine, at any rate, heard enough to feel, that in
suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting
up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or
magnified his cruelty.
256
Henry, in having such things to relate of his father, was

almost as pitiable as in their first avowal to himself. He
blushed for the narrow-minded counsel which he was obliged
to expose. The conversation between them at Northanger
had been of the most unfriendly kind. Henry’s indignation
on hearing how Catherine had been treated, on comprehend-
ing his father’s views, and being ordered to acquiesce in them,
had been open and bold. The General, accustomed on every
ordinary occasion to give the law in his family, prepared for
no reluctance but of feeling, no opposing desire that should
dare to clothe itself in words, could ill brook the opposition
of his son, steady as the sanction of reason and the dictate
of conscience could make it. But, in such a cause, his anger,
though it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was
sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice. He
felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss
Morland, and believing that heart to be his own which he had
been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit con-
sent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable anger, could shake
his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it prompted.
He steadily refused to accompany his father into Here-
fordshire, an engagement formed almost at the moment, to
promote the dismissal of Catherine, and as steadily declared
his intention of offering her his hand. The General was furi-
ous in his anger, and they parted in dreadful disagreement.
Henry, in an agitation of mind which many solitary hours
were required to compose, had returned almost instantly to
Woodston; and, on the afternoon of the following day, had
begun his journey to Fullerton.
257
Chapter 16
Mr. and mrs. morland’s surprize on being applied to by

Mr. Tilney, for their consent to his marrying their daugh-
ter, was, for a few minutes, considerable; it having never
entered their heads to suspect an attachment on either side;
but as nothing, after all, could be more natural than Cather-
ine’s being beloved, they soon learnt to consider it with
only the happy agitation of gratified pride, and, as far as
they alone were concerned, had not a single objection to
start. His pleasing manners and good sense were self-evident
recommendations; and having never heard evil of him, it
was not their way to suppose any evil could be told. Good-
will supplying the place of experience, his character needed
no attestation. “Catherine would make a sad heedless young
housekeeper to be sure,” was her mother’s foreboding remark;
but quick was the consolation of there being nothing like
practice.
There was but one obstacle, in short, to be mentioned;
but till that one was removed, it must be impossible for
them to sanction the engagement. Their tempers were mild,
but their principles were steady, and while his parent so
expressly forbad the connexion, they could not allow them-
selves to encourage it. That the General should come forward
to solicit the alliance, or that he should even very heartily
approve it, they were not refined enough to make any parad-
ing stipulation; but the decent appearance of consent must be
yielded, and that once obtained—and their own hearts made
258
them trust that it could not be very long denied—their will-

ing approbation was instantly to follow. His consent was all
that they wished for. They were no more inclined than enti-
tled to demand his money. Of a very considerable fortune,
his son was, by marriage settlements, eventually secure; his
present income was an income of independence and comfort,
and under every pecuniary view, it was a match beyond the
claims of their daughter.
The young people could not be surprized at a decision like
this. They felt and they deplored—but they could not resent
it; and they parted, endeavouring to hope that such a change
in the General, as each believed almost impossible, might
speedily take place, to unite them again in the fullness of
privileged affection. Henry returned to what was now his only
home, to watch over his young plantations, and extend his
improvements for her sake, to whose share in them he looked
anxiously forward; and Catherine remained at Fullerton to
cry. Whether the torments of absence were softened by a
clandestine correspondence,1 let us not inquire. Mr. and Mrs.
Morland never did—they had been too kind to exact any
promise; and whenever Catherine received a letter, as, at that
time, happened pretty often, they always looked another way.
The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must
be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved
either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the
bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression
of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to
perfect felicity. The means by which their early marriage was
effected can be the only doubt: what probable circumstance
could work upon a temper like the General’s? The circum-
stance which chiefly availed, was the marriage of his daughter
with a man of fortune and consequence, which took place in
the course of the summer—an accession of dignity that threw
259
him into a fit of good-humour, from which he did not recover

till after Eleanor had obtained his forgiveness of Henry, and
his permission for him “to be a fool if he liked it!”
The marriage of Eleanor Tilney, her removal from all the
evils of such a home as Northanger had been made by Henry’s
banishment, to the home of her choice and the man of her
choice, is an event which I expect to give general satisfaction
among all her acquaintance. My own joy on the occasion is
very sincere. I know no one more entitled, by unpretend-
ing merit, or better prepared by habitual suffering, to receive
and enjoy felicity. Her partiality for this gentleman was not of
recent origin; and he had been long withheld only by inferior-
ity of situation from addressing her. His unexpected accession
to title and fortune had removed all his difficulties; and never
had the General loved his daughter so well in all her hours
of companionship, utility, and patient endurance, as when
he first hailed her, “Your Ladyship!” Her husband was really
deserving of her; independent of his peerage, his wealth, and
his attachment, being to a precision the most charming young
man in the world. Any further definition of his merits must
be unnecessary; the most charming young man in the world
is instantly before the imagination of us all. Concerning the
one in question therefore I have only to add—(aware that the
rules of composition forbid the introduction of a character
not connected with my fable2 )—that this was the very gentle-
man whose negligent servant left behind him that collection
of washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by
which my heroine was involved in one of her most alarming
adventures.
The influence of the Viscount and Viscountess3 in their
brother’s behalf was assisted by that right understanding of
Mr. Morland’s circumstances which, as soon as the General
would allow himself to be informed, they were qualified to
260
give. It taught him that he had been scarcely more misled by

Thorpe’s first boast of the family wealth, than by his subse-
quent malicious overthrow of it; that in no sense of the word
were they necessitous or poor, and that Catherine would have
three thousand pounds.4 This was so material an amendment
of his late expectations, that it greatly contributed to smooth
the descent of his pride; and by no means without its effect
was the private intelligence, which he was at some pains to
procure, that the Fullerton estate, being entirely at the dis-
posal of its present proprietor, was consequently open to every
greedy speculation.
On the strength of this, the General, soon after Eleanor’s
marriage, permitted his son to return to Northanger, and
thence made him the bearer of his consent, very courteously
worded in a page full of empty professions to Mr. Morland.
The event which it authorized soon followed: Henry and
Catherine were married, the bells rang and every body smiled;
and, as this took place within a twelvemonth from the first day
of their meeting, it will not appear, after all the dreadful delays
occasioned by the General’s cruelty, that they were essentially
hurt by it. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of
twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing
myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust inter-
ference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was
perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge
of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave
it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the
tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental
tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.5
finis
261
CO R R E C T I O N S A N D EM EN DAT I O N S
TO 1818 TEXT
volume i
1818 Corrected to
p. 12 line 24 us any as any
p. 21 line 2 do think do you think
p. 24 line 21 station stations
p. 35 line 33 and and not and not
p. 55 line 1 quizzers quizzes
p. 58 line 20 tnrned away, turned away,
p. 60 line 1 meant, He meant. He
p. 73 line 10–11 me.” “That me.” / “That
p. 82 line 18 haste!’ haste!”
p. 85 line 24 Thorpe, she Thorpe,” she
p. 85 line 24 cried, it cried, “it
p. 92 line 4 towarde towards
p. 100 line 20 Catherine.” Catherine.
p. 111 line 16 if if if
volume ii
p. 131 line 11 before. instead before; instead
p. 138 line 7 I only “I only
p. 139 line 10 half a half
p. 139 line 10 and half and a half
p. 145 line 10 at they sat as they sat
p. 150 line 4 now. now.”
p. 165 line 27 ornameuts ornaments
p. 179 line 12 He was “He was
p. 189 line 21 vavity vanity
263
List of corrections and emendations to 1818 text
p. 192 line 17 even ing, evening,

p. 202 line 26 about, her, about her,
p. 215 line 24 He “He
p. 229 line 26 and and and
p. 231 line 1 Eieanor Eleanor
p. 232 line 31 voice. “Alas voice. / “Alas
p. 254 line 4 Thope Thorpe
p. 260 line 31 hehalf behalf
264
a p p e n d ix
Summaries and extracts from
Ann Radcliffe’s novels
deirdre le faye
Ann Ward was born in London in 1764, and in 1787 married

William Radcliffe, a parliamentary journalist, and also propri-
etor and editor of the English Chronicle, a radical newspaper. The
Radcliffes made only one trip abroad during their married life, the
details of which Ann published in A Journey Made in the Summer of
1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany (1795);
the lush descriptions of southern European scenery that appear in
her novels were created from a combination of reading travel books
written by others, studying the then fashionable landscape paint-
ings and using her own vivid imagination. In later life she suffered
severely from asthma and died from this, or from pneumonia, in
February 1823.
Her first novel, published anonymously in two volumes, was The
Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, an Highland Story (1789), which
was reprinted several times up to the middle of the nineteenth
century, despite the comments by its original reviewers that the
author evidently knew nothing about ‘the manners and costume of
the Highlands’, and that ‘This kind of entertainment . . . can be little
relished but by the young and unformed mind.’ Her second novel,
also in two volumes, was A Sicilian Romance (1790), which was
more favourably received. It was, however, The Romance of the Forest:
Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry . . . In three volumes (1791)
which established Radcliffe as the leading practitioner of the gothic
romance school. She acknowledged her authorship in the 1792
second edition, and some critics thought this the best of her works.
On the strength of this success, her publishers paid £500 for The
Mysteries of Udolpho, a Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
(1794), and £800 for The Italian, or, The Confessional of the Black
265
Appendix
Penitents, A Romance (1797). Her last novel, Gaston de Blondeville,

was written about 1802, but appeared only posthumously, in 1826.
A Sicilian Romance
2 vols., T. Hookham, London, 1790
Volume 1: The setting is sixteenth-century Sicily. Ferdinand, 5th
Marquis Mazzini, and the owner of Castle Mazzini in the Sicilian
mountains, was previously married to Louisa Bernini, by whom
he had two daughters and one son – Emilia (twenty), Julia (eigh-
teen) and Ferdinand junior (twenty-one). Following her death he
took a second wife, Maria de Vellorno, beautiful but frivolous and
hard, and prefers to live in Naples with her and his son while
the two girls remain in the castle under the care of Madame de
Menon, a poor relation. Life at the castle is virtuous and peaceful,
until a mysterious light is seen in the deserted southern tower; the
old steward Vincent maintains there is no one there. Later on he
tries to tell Madame de Menon something, but dies with his tale
unspoken.
The Marquis and his wife now arrive, with Ferdinand and
his friend Count Hippolitus de Vereza, to celebrate Ferdinand’s
twenty-first birthday, and the girls are delighted to see their hand-
some brother. The Marchesa is potentially adulterous and tries to
flirt with Hippolitus, who scorns her and instantly falls in love with
Julia; unfortunately he has to leave for Naples the next day. The
Marquis is very annoyed to hear about the mysterious light in the
southern tower, and stays on at the castle for the summer months;
the Marchesa takes over the girls’ pleasant apartments and puts
them into a different suite in the southern tower, where Julia finds
a portrait miniature in a cabinet, and Madame de Menon tells her
it is her mother, Louisa Bernini. A long story from Madame de
Menon to explain her connection with the Bernini family and her
present situation as a poor widow follows.
The girls hear noises at the base of the southern tower – doors
closing, groans, footsteps – and ask Ferdinand to investigate. A
door behind the tapestry in the girls’ room leads into another suite
of ruinous rooms and stairs – too dangerous to proceed further.
The Marquis tells Ferdinand that the tower is haunted, because
266
Summaries and extracts from Ann Radcliffe’s novels
one of their ancestors abducted and killed an enemy there years

ago; Ferdinand is horrified to learn his ancestor was a murderer,
and agrees to be sworn to silence.
Hippolitus reappears, and he and Julia mutually declare their
love. However, the Marquis has arranged for her to marry the
elderly Duke de Luovo, who comes to the castle the next day,
and the marriage is planned for the third day thereafter. Julia and
Hippolitus try to flee together, and manage to get outside the castle
walls before being caught by the Marquis and his guard. Hippoli-
tus is wounded, his servants pick him up and set sail for Italy; Julia
is back in the castle, and Ferdinand in one of its dungeons. The
Duke arrives on the wedding day, but Julia is not in her room, and
there is no clue as to how she escaped or where she may be hiding.
The servants complain again about lights and figures being seen in
the southern tower, and the Marquis orders a search to be made,
but suddenly gives it up half way through.
The servants hear a rumour that Julia is hiding in the forest of
Marentino, with a young cavalier, and the Duke sets off in pursuit.
After chasing them for some days he catches up, only to find it is
a different eloping couple, not Julia and Hippolitus after all. Back
at the castle, Ferdinand in his dungeon hears groans and moans,
which he thinks must be the ghost of the murder victim. Madame
de Menon surprises the Marchesa flirting with another youth, and
with this dangerous knowledge, decides it would be safer if she left
the castle and took refuge in a convent.
Volume 2: Madame de Menon sets off for the convent of St
Augustine, and en route discovers in a cottage Julia disguised as a
peasant girl – who gives an account as to how she escaped with the
help of her maid Caterina and the latter’s lover Nicolo – she has
been hiding with Caterina’s parents. Julia and Madame de Menon
ride off together to the convent, but are chased and caught by a party
of horsemen, led by the Marquis Murani, father of the eloping girl
whom the Duke de Luovo had previously caught. Murani has no
interest in Julia, and allows her and Madame de Menon to continue
on their journey. They arrive at the convent of St Augustine, where
Julia feels instant sympathy with one of the nuns, Sister Cordelia.
Her history – she is Hippolitus’ sister, and now ill and dying – is
revealed.
267
Appendix
The Marquis Mazzini arrives at the convent, and the harsh

Abbot tells Julia she must either obey her father and marry the
Duke, or else become a nun. Ferdinand also arrives, having escaped
from his dungeon, and helps Julia flee from the convent; together
they ride off to the coast and set sail for Italy, but are blown back
to shore and shipwrecked, taking refuge with a local family. In the
meantime Hippolitus has recovered from his wounds and sets off
to find Julia, arriving at St Augustine’s just in time to hear of his
sister Cordelia’s death and Julia’s flight. He rambles off through the
forest to a ruined monastery, where he surprises a gang of banditti
robbing and killing a man; they chase him through the ruins, until
he kills one bandit and discovers Julia hidden in one of the ancient
vaults. She explains that when she and Ferdinand left their seaside
refuge, she was captured by the banditti and he by their father’s
servants.
Hippolitus and Julia manage to escape back into the forest, and
set off to find another convent for her refuge. She is pursued again
by the Duke and his men, but takes refuge in endless caverns and
tunnels in the mountainside – all conveniently provided with doors
and cracks in the rocks which allow light to enter – until at last she
emerges into a small room where she finds a pale and emaciated
female, whom she recognises as her mother, Louisa Bernini; and
realises she has run right through the mountain to emerge under
the southern tower of Castle Mazzini. Signora Louisa tells her
story – when she fell ill fifteen years ago, the Marquis arranged a
false burial and imprisoned her, thus leaving himself free to marry
again. The old steward, Vincent, has been feeding her for all these
years, and since his death the Marquis himself has done so. It was
her groans which Ferdinand heard.
The Marquis catches his second wife with a lover, and she man-
ages to poison him before stabbing herself. Ferdinand is brought
to his father’s deathbed and learns the true secret of the southern
tower; but when he goes down to the dungeon, Signora Louisa and
Julia have disappeared. Ferdinand sets off in search of them, and
finds them, along with Hippolitus, sheltering in a seaside light-
house – they had been trying once again to sail to Italy, and once
again had been blown back. A very summary conclusion explains
how everyone escaped from their various predicaments; all finally
268
assemble in Naples, and Castle Mazzini is abandoned. Hippolitus

and Julia marry; Ferdinand becomes a gallant soldier; Madame de
Menon and Signora Louisa are happy companions in their old age;
Emilia remains a devoted sister and aunt.
The Romance of the Forest

3 vols., Hookham and Carpenter, London, 1791
Volume 1: The setting is seventeenth-century France. Monsieur
La Motte and his wife, with two servants, Peter and Annette, are
fleeing by night from Paris to escape his creditors. At a lonely
cottage La Motte stumbles across a band of ruffians, who force
the beautiful eighteen-year-old Adeline into his arms and tell him
to take her away, on pain of death. The La Motte party travel on
towards Lyons, enter the Forest of Fontanville, and take shelter in
a ruined abbey when their carriage breaks down. Adeline now tells
her story – she is the only child of a widowed father, Louis de St
Pierre, who placed her for education in a convent, but when she
refused to become a nun he removed her and took her to the cottage
with the ruffians, where La Motte found her.
The La Mottes settle in quite comfortably in the abbey, and are
presently joined by Louis, their soldier son. Adeline sees a hand-
some young man in the forest, in a hunter’s dress. The owner of the
abbey, the Marquis de Montalt, rides up with a troop of horsemen,
amongst whom is this young man, Theodore Peyrou; there is some
angry mystery between Montalt and La Motte, which the latter
will not explain to his wife. Louis admits his passion for Adeline,
before returning to his regiment. Theodore also starts wooing her,
and warns her she is in danger; she tries to meet him in the forest,
but he does not come.
Volume 2: The Marquis visits again, and starts making advances
towards Adeline, who retreats to her bedroom. [Here follows, from
chapter 8, the scene parodied by Henry Tilney as he drives with Catherine
towards Northanger Abbey]:
Note 14, vol. 2, ch. 5. broken lute . . . darkness:
Adeline retired early to her room, which adjoined on one side
to Madame La Motte’s, and on the other to the closet formerly
269
Appendix
mentioned. It was spacious and lofty, and what little furniture it con-
tained was falling to decay; but, perhaps, the present tone of her
spirits might contribute more than these circumstances to give that
air of melancholy, which seemed to reign in it. She was unwilling to go
to bed, lest the dreams that had lately pursued her should return; and
determined to sit up till she found herself oppressed by sleep, when
it was probable her rest would be profound. She placed the light on a
small table, and, taking a book, continued to read for above an hour,
till her mind refused any longer to abstract itself from its own cares,
and she sat for some time leaning pensively on her arm.
The wind was high, and as it whistled through the desolate apart-
ment, and shook the feeble doors, she often started, and sometimes
even thought she heard sighs between the pauses of the gust; but
she checked these illusions, which the hour of the night and her
own melancholy imagination conspired to raise. As she sat musing,
her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, she perceived the arras, with
which the room was hung, wave backwards and forwards; she con-
tinued to observe it for some minutes, and then rose to examine it
farther. It was moved by the wind; and she blushed at the momen-
tary fear it had excited; but she observed that the tapestry was more
strongly agitated in one particular place than elsewhere, and a noise
that seemed something more than that of the wind issued thence.
The old bedstead, which La Motte had found in this apartment,
had been removed to accommodate Adeline, and it was behind the
place where this had stood, that the wind seemed to rush with par-
ticular force: curiosity prompted her to examine still farther; she felt
about the tapestry, and perceiving the wall behind shake under her
hand, she lifted the arras, and discovered a small door, whose loos-
ened hinges admitted the wind, and occasioned the noise she had
heard.
The door was held only by a bolt, having undrawn which, and
brought the light, she descended by a few steps into another chamber:
she instantly remembered her dreams. The chamber was not much
like that in which she had seen the dying Chevalier, and afterwards the
bier; but it gave her a confused remembrance of one through which
she had passed. Holding up the light to examine it more fully, she
was convinced by its structure that it was part of the ancient foun-
dation. A shattered casement, placed high from the floor, seemed
to be the only opening to admit light. She observed a door on the
opposite side of the apartment; and after some moments of hes-
itation, gained courage, and determined to pursue the inquiry. “A
270
mystery seems to hang over these chambers,” said she, “which it is,
perhaps, my lot to develope; I will, at least, see to what that door
leads.”
She stepped forward, and having unclosed it, proceeded with fal-
tering steps along a suite of apartments, resembling the first in style
and condition, and terminating in one exactly like that where her
dream had represented the dying person; the remembrance struck so
forcibly upon her imagination, that she was in danger of fainting; and
looking round the room, almost expected to see the phantom of her
dream.
Unable to quit the place, she sat down on some old lumber to
recover herself, while her spirits were nearly overcome by a super-
stitious dread, such as she had never felt before. She wondered to
what part of the abbey these chambers belonged, and that they had
so long escaped detection. The casements were all too high to afford
any information from without. When she was sufficiently composed
to consider the direction of the rooms, and the situation of the abbey,
there appeared not a doubt that they formed an interior part of the
original building.
As these reflections passed over her mind, a sudden gleam of moon-
light fell upon some object without the casement. Being now suffi-
ciently composed to wish to pursue the inquiry; and believing this
object might afford her some means of learning the situation of these
rooms, she combated her remaining terrors, and, in order to distin-
guish it more clearly, removed the light to an outer chamber; but
before she could return, a heavy cloud was driven over the face of the
moon, and all without was perfectly dark: she stood for some moments
waiting a returning gleam, but the obscurity continued. As she went
softly back for the light, her foot stumbled over something on the
floor, and while she stooped to examine it, the moon again shone, so
that she could distinguish, through the casement, the eastern towers
of the abbey. This discovery confirmed her former conjectures con-
cerning the interior situation of these apartments. The obscurity of
the place prevented her discovering what it was that had impeded
her steps, but having brought the light forward, she perceived on
the floor an old dagger: with a trembling hand she took it up, and
upon a closer view perceived, that it was spotted and stained with
rust.
Shocked and surprised, she looked round the room for some
object that might confirm or destroy the dreadful suspicion which
now rushed upon her mind; but she saw only a great chair, with
271
Appendix
broken arms, that stood in one corner of the room, and a table in
a condition equally shattered, except that in another part lay a con-
fused heap of things, which appeared to be old lumber. She went
up to it, and perceived a broken bedstead, with some decayed rem-
nants of furniture, covered with dust and cobwebs, and which seemed,
indeed, as if they had not been moved for many years. Desirous, how-
ever, of examining farther, she attempted to raise what appeared to
have been part of the bedstead, but it slipped from her hand, and,
rolling to the floor, brought with it some of the remaining lum-
ber. Adeline started aside and saved herself, and when the noise it
made had ceased, she heard a small rustling sound, and as she was
about to leave the chamber, saw something falling gently among the
lumber.
It was a small roll of paper, tied with a string, and covered with
dust. Adeline took it up, and on opening it perceived an handwriting.
She attempted to read it, but the part of the manuscript she looked
at was so much obliterated, that she found this difficult, though what
few words were legible impressed her with curiosity and terror, and
induced her to return with it immediately to her chamber.
Next morning the Marquis makes dishonourable proposals to

Adeline, which she refuses; the La Mottes tell her she must remain
on good terms with him as he could betray them. The Marquis later
proposes honourable marriage, which she likewise refuses. Adeline
starts reading the mysterious manuscript, which contains the last
dying words of someone who has been kidnapped and imprisoned in
the abbey. Peter the servant tells Adeline that the Marquis has a wife
already, and that La Motte will betray her to him the next night. She
flees into the forest and mounts behind a horseman, believing him to
be Peter; instead, he is one of the Marquis’s servants, who takes her
to the Marquis’s villa on the other side of the forest. Adeline keeps
the Marquis at bay and escapes into the garden, where Theodore
is waiting in a carriage, and they drive off, Theodore declaring his
love for her.
The Marquis and his servants catch up with Adeline and
Theodore at an inn; Theodore and the Marquis wound each other;
Adeline is carried off again back to the abbey, where the La Mottes
keep her locked in her bedchamber. After some weeks the Marquis
reappears, and he and La Motte plot Adeline’s downfall.
272
Volume 3: La Motte thinks the Marquis wishes to rape Adeline,

and is prepared to assist in such an attack; but the Marquis now
says he wants her to be murdered. La Motte is not prepared to do
this, and instead tells Adeline to flee with Peter the servant and go
with him to his peasant family in Savoy. The Marquis disbelieves
La Motte’s tale that Adeline succeeded in escaping, and gets him
arrested and gaoled.
Adeline and Peter reach Savoy and his native village at the foot
of the Alps, and she finds refuge in the household of La Luc, the
venerable village pastor; a long story about La Luc, his virtuous
daughter, Clara, and his missing son, last heard of in Geneva, fol-
lows. Louis La Motte traces Adeline, and arrives to tell her that
Theodore is in prison and condemned to die by the Marquis –
Theodore is in fact La Luc’s missing son, using the nom de guerre of
Peyrou. The La Luc party set off to find and save Theodore, but all
seems hopeless, until a last-minute respite is ordered because the
Marquis himself is now in trouble.
La Motte senior is in Paris, on trial for robbing the Marquis at
an earlier date. At his trial he is recognised by one of the ruffians
who pushed Adeline on to him at the beginning of the story, who
gives a long confession in court, claiming Adeline is the Marquis’s
natural daughter, and that he had ordered the ruffians to murder
her; the trial is suspended and the Marquis arrested instead. The
second ruffian is now brought to justice, and gives Adeline’s correct
history; her father was Henry de Montalt, the Marquis’s elder
half-brother, whom they kidnapped and assassinated so that the
younger brother could inherit – the manuscript Adeline found
in the abbey was written by Henry while awaiting death. It was
her uncle, the present Marquis, who arranged for the baby to be
placed with foster-parents and given a false name, and it was her
foster-father, St Pierre, who handed her to the ruffians for murder
when she refused to become a nun.
The Marquis commits suicide in his cell, having made a will
which leaves all her father’s property to Adeline. She is therefore
able to use her money to tidy everything up – Theodore receives
a pardon and promotion in the army; La Motte’s death sentence
is reduced to banishment and she pays for him to go to England;
273
Appendix
Louis eventually marries a Swiss lady; Adeline and Theodore marry

and leave Paris to live in Savoy.
The Mysteries of Udolpho

4 vols., G. G. and J. Robinson, London, 1794
Volume 1: The setting is sixteenth-century Gascony, where M. St
Aubert lives in virtuous rural retirement at La Vallée with his wife
and only surviving child, Emily, aged about nineteen.
Note 1, vol. 1, ch. 11: Udolpho . . . weather!:
On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony,
stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its
windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony,
stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vines, and
plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the
majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting
awful forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along,
were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and
sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward
to their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft
green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among
whose flocks, and herds, and simple cottages, the eye, after having
scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north, and to the
east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of
distance; on the west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay.
[When Catherine is in Bath hoping the rain will stop, she thinks
longingly of this fine weather in the South of France as described by
Mrs Radcliffe.]
Mysteries start when Emily finds a sonnet in the summerhouse,

apparently intended for her to read; and someone plays on her lute
in her absence. Madame St Aubert falls ill and dies, and Emily
and her father set off for a recuperative journey towards Roussillon
and Perpignan. They meet a young soldier, Valancourt, who guides
them part of the way – even though, unfortunately, at one stage St
Aubert mistakes him for a robber and shoots him in the arm. Emily
and her father travel on, and stay in the cottage of a virtuous peasant
family, La Voisin; close by is the deserted Chateau-le-Blanc owned
by the recently deceased Marquis de Villeroi, and also the convent
274
of St Clair. All these names have some mysterious significance for

her father, which he does not explain.
Emily retires to bed one evening:
She leaned pensively on the little open casement, and in deep thought
fixed her eyes on the heaven, whose blue unclouded concave was
studded thick with stars, the worlds, perhaps, of spirits, unsphered of
mortal mould. As her eyes wandered along the boundless aether, her
thoughts rose, as before, towards the sublimity of the Deity, and to the
contemplation of futurity. No busy note of this world interrupted the
course of her mind; the merry dance had ceased, and every cottager
had retired to his home. The still air seemed scarcely to breathe upon
the woods, and, now and then, the distant sound of a solitary sheep-
bell, or of a closing casement, was all that broke on silence. At length,
even this hint of human being was heard no more. Elevated and
enwrapt, while her eyes were often wet with tears of sublime devotion
and solemn awe, she continued at the casement, till the gloom of
midnight hung over the earth, and the planet, which La Voisin had
pointed out, sunk below the woods.
[Catherine recalls this, rather confusedly, as being ‘the night that poor St
Aubin died’.]
St Aubert falls ill the next morning and dies a few hours later;
his last dying instructions to Emily are to return home to La
Vallée and find a certain secret hiding place containing manuscripts,
which she must burn without reading, and he cannot tell her why.
His sister, Madame Cheron, will be her guardian from now on.
Emily herself falls ill with a slow fever, and stays on in the La
Voisin household for some weeks before returning to La Vallée.
She finds the hidden manuscripts and burns them, unread, as
instructed, although she glimpses ‘a sentence of dreadful import
[which] awakened her attention and her memory together’. She
finds also a portrait miniature of a young woman, not Emily’s
mother.
Valancourt reappears, as his estate, Estuviere, is not far distant,
and he is on the verge of proposing to Emily when they are inter-
rupted by the arrival of Madame Cheron; she is quite unlike her
brother – rich, vulgar, and bad-tempered – and she instantly dis-
approves of Valancourt as he is only a penniless soldier. Madame
Cheron takes Emily to her house in Toulouse, where the Italian
275
Appendix
Signor Montoni and his friend Signor Cavigni are frequent visi-
tors, as Montoni is courting Madame Cheron. For a time, when
Madame Cheron learns that Valancourt has rich relations, she is
prepared to reconsider him as a suitor for Emily; but then she herself
marries Montoni suddenly and secretly and withdraws her consent
to Emily’s marriage. The Montonis will go to Italy and take Emily
with them.
Volume 2:
Note 5, vol. 1, ch. 14: Emily . . . into Italy: [Henry Tilney

assures Catherine he has read many more novels than she has – she
is left as far behind him in this respect as was Valancourt when
Emily went into Italy]:
The carriages were at the gates at an early hour; the bustle of the
domestics, passing to and fro in the galleries, awakened Emily from
harassing slumbers: her unquiet mind had, during the night, presented
her with terrific images and obscure circumstances, concerning her
affection and her future life . . . The baggage being at length adjusted,
the travellers entered their carriages . . .The trees, that impended over
the high banks of the road and formed a line of perspective with the
distant country, now threatened to exclude the view of them; but the
blueish mountains still appeared beyond the dark foliage, and Emily
continued to lean from the coach window . . . She had scarcely looked
at a person who walked along the bank, with his hat, in which was the
military feather, drawn over his eyes, before, at the sound of wheels,
he suddenly turned, and she perceived that it was Valancourt himself,
who waved his hand, sprung into the road, and through the window
of the carriage put a letter into her hand. He endeavoured to smile
through the despair that overspread his countenance as she passed on.
The remembrance of that smile seemed impressed on Emily’s mind
for ever.
The Montoni party eventually arrives at his palace on the Grand

Canal in Venice, where his evil nature manifests itself, and he starts
to abuse his wife when he learns she is not as rich as he had supposed.
His unpleasant friend Count Morano pursues Emily, and their
marriage is arranged for the following morning. However, that
evening Emily’s maid Annette announces Montoni’s intention to
leave Venice immediately, and they set off for his Castle of Udolpho
in the Apennines.
276
Note 11, vol. 2, ch. 8: a Montoni!:

“There,” said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours,
“is Udolpho.”
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle . . . for, though
it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its
features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a
gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the light died away on
its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and
deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battle-
ments above were still tipped with splendour. From those too, the
rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested with the solemn
duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely and sublime, it seemed to stand
the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on all, who dared
to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened, its features
became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze, till
its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops of the
woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began
to ascend . . . The gateway before her, leading into the courts, was
of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned
by over-hanging turrets . . . Another gate delivered them into the
second court, grass-grown, and more wild than the first . . . she
entered an extensive gothic hall, obscured by the gloom of evening,
which a light, glimmering at a distance through a long perspective of
arches, only rendered more striking. As a servant brought the lamp
nearer, partial gleams fell upon the pillars and the pointed arches,
forming a strong contrast with their shadows, that stretched along
the pavement and the walls . . . they entered a spacious apartment,
whose walls, wainscoted with black larch-wood, the growth of the
neighbouring mountains, were scarcely distinguishable from dark-
ness itself. “Bring more light,” said Montoni, as he entered . . . While
he paced the room with thoughtful steps, and Madame Montoni sat
silently on a couch, at the upper end of it, waiting till the servant
returned, Emily was observing the singular solemnity and desolation
of the apartment, viewed, as it now was, by the glimmer of the single
lamp, placed near a large Venetian mirror, that duskily reflected the
scene, with the tall figure of Montoni passing slowly along, his arms
folded, and his countenance shaded by the plume, that waved in his
hat.
[This is the scene that springs to Catherine’s mind when she sees the General
‘slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in silent thoughtful-
ness, with downcast eyes and contracted brow’.]
277
Appendix
The maidservant Annette tells Emily that Montoni inherited

the castle some years ago from a Signora Laurentini, whom he had
wanted to marry but she refused; she was last seen walking in the
woods below the castle and, although her body was never found,
the servants now believe her ghost haunts the place. Emily starts
to explore the rambling and decaying castle.
Note 3, vol. 1, ch. 6: Udolpho . . . Laurentina’s skeleton:

Emily now opened the door of a chamber on the left. . . . It opened
into a suite of spacious and ancient apartments, some of which were
hung with tapestry, and others wainscoted with cedar and black larch-
wood. What furniture there was, seemed to be almost as old as the
rooms, and retained an appearance of grandeur, though covered with
dust, and dropping to pieces with the damps, and with age . . . passing
on till she came to a chamber, hung with pictures . . . she came to one
concealed by a veil of black silk.
. . . Her imagination was pleased with the view of ancient grandeur,
and an emotion of melancholy awe awakened all its powers, as she
walked through rooms, obscure and desolate, where no footsteps had
passed probably for many years, and remembered the strange history
of the former possessor of the edifice. This brought to her recol-
lection the veiled picture, which had attracted her curiosity, on the
preceding night, and she resolved to examine it . . . Emily passed on
with faltering steps, and having paused a moment at the door, before
she attempted to open it, she then hastily entered the chamber, and
went towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in a frame
of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the room. She paused
again, and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil; but instantly let
it fall – perceiving that what it had concealed was no picture, and,
before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless on the
floor.
When she recovered her recollection, the remembrance of what
she had seen had nearly deprived her of it a second time. She had
scarcely strength to remove from the room, and regain her own; and,
when arrived there, wanted courage to remain alone.
[The explanation of this horror is not given till the end of volume 4; before
then, Catherine thinks it must be Laurentini’s skeleton.]
Montoni is giving shelter in the castle to a group of banditti, and

his unpleasant friends Cavigni, Verezzi, Orsino and Bertolini fol-
low him to Udolpho, as well as Morano, who once again presses his
278
suit upon Emily. Montoni and Morano fight; both are wounded,
and Morano is thrown out of the castle. Madame Montoni com-
plains to Emily about Montoni’s cruelty – he is trying to force her
to sign away her property to him, but it should really be Emily’s
inheritance. Montoni keeps his wife locked in her own apartments,
allowing her to see only Emily and maid Annette; he then declares
to his wicked friends that his wife has tried to poison him, and
imprisons her in the east turret. Emily tries to find her aunt, with-
out success – there is only a trail of blood on the staircase. Barnardine
the porter says he has Madame Montoni in his custody in the gate-
house of the castle, and arranges to take Emily to see her the next
day.
Volume 3: Emily meets Barnardine as agreed, and he takes her
to a room with a large dark curtain at one end; Emily thinks her
aunt’s body must lie behind it, raises the curtain and does indeed
find a bleeding corpse lying there, but it is a man, one of Montoni’s
servants. Barnardine picks her up as she lies in a faint, and takes her
outside to hand her over to Morano’s men, as this was all a kidnap
plot arranged by him. However, Montoni’s men fight them off and
bring Emily back into the castle. Some strange man or ghost is said
to be wandering in the corridors, the sentries gabble of seeing this
apparition gliding along the ramparts, and moans and groans are
heard in empty rooms.
Emily and Annette are at last able to find Madame Montoni,
still alive but sick and starving:
Note 14, vol. 2, ch. 8: Mrs. Tilney yet lived . . . insensibility:

Montoni, when he removed [his wife] to the turret under the improb-
able suspicion of having attempted his life, had ordered the men
employed on the occasion, to observe a strict secrecy concerning her.
To this he was influenced by a double motive. He meant to debar
her from the comfort of Emily’s visits, and to secure an opportunity
of privately dispatching her, should any new circumstances occur to
confirm the present suggestions of his suspecting mind. His con-
sciousness of the hatred he deserved it was natural enough should at
first lead him to atttribute to her the attempt that had been made
upon his life; and, though there was no other reason to believe that
she was concerned in that atrocious design, his suspicions remained;
he continued to confine her in the turret, under a strict guard; and,
279
Appendix
without pity or remorse, had suffered her to lie, forlorn and neglected,
under a raging fever, till it had reduced her to the present state.
[Catherine mentally conflates this scene with that of Signora Louisa’s
imprisonment in A Sicilian Romance as an explanation of Mrs Tilney’s
early decease and the General’s apparently guilty gloom.]
Madame Montoni accepts she is dying, but still refuses to sign over
her French estates to Montoni, instead telling Emily where she has
hidden the deeds; she is buried in the ruined chapel of the castle,
and Montoni now starts threatening Emily, as her aunt’s heiress,
to make over her property to him. She locks herself in her room to
avoid him and his evil friends, and at night hears distant music and
a song, which makes her think Valancourt must also be a prisoner
somewhere in the castle.
A local army is on its way to besiege the castle and rout out
Montoni and his banditti, so Emily is sent off to a cottage in
Tuscany:
When Emily, in the morning, opened her casement, she was sur-
prised to observe the beauties, that surrounded it. The cottage was
nearly embowered in the woods, which were chiefly of chesnut inter-
mixed with some cypress, larch and sycamore. Beneath the dark and
spreading branches, appeared, to the north, and to the east, the woody
Apennines, rising in majestic amphitheatre, not black with pines, as
she had been accustomed to see them, but their loftiest summits
crowned with antient forests of chesnut, oak, and oriental plane, now
animated with the rich tints of autumn, and which swept downward
to the valley uninterruptedly, except where some bold rocky promon-
tory looked out from among the foliage, and caught the passing gleam.
Vineyards stretched along the feet of the mountains, where the ele-
gant villas of the Tuscan nobility frequently adorned the scene, and
overlooked slopes clothed with groves of olive, mulberry, orange and
lemon. The plain, to which these declined, was coloured with the
richest of cultivation, whose mingled hues were mellowed into har-
mony by an Italian sun. Vines, their purple clusters blushing between
the russet foliage, hung in luxuriant festoons from the branches of
standard fig and cherry trees, while pastures of verdure, such as Emily
had seldom seen in Italy, enriched the banks of a stream that, after
descending from the mountains, wound along the landscape, which it
reflected, to a bay of the sea. There, far in the west, the waters, fading
into the sky, assumed a tint of the faintest purple, and the line of
280
separation between them was, now and then, discernible only by the
progress of a sail, brightened with the sunbeam, along the horizon.
[Here again, Catherine wishes that rainy Bath could be more like Italy.]
The siege is unsuccessful, and after a fortnight Emily is brought

back to the castle and all its terrors; she decides to sign away her
aunt’s lands to Montoni, but he now says he will not release her until
he himself has taken possession. Once again she hears music and
song, and with the help of her faithful maid Annette and the lat-
ter’s lover Ludovico, the imprisoned stranger is brought to meet
her. It is not Valancourt, but a M. DuPont, a neighbour from
La Vallée – he was the one who left the sonnet in the summerhouse
and played on Emily’s lute. Emily and DuPont, with Annette and
Ludovico, manage to escape from Udolpho when the castle gates
are opened to admit the gang of banditti, and ride off towards the
Mediterranean; DuPont tells the story of his capture by Montoni’s
men. They reach Leghorn and hope to find a boat to take them to
Marseilles.
[Radcliffe now starts what is apparently a completely new story,
returning to the previous year and location in the South of France.] The
Count de Villefort, a distant relative of the deceased Marquis de
Villeroi, inherits the deserted mansion and estate of Chateau-le-
Blanc, near the monastery of St Clair, and decides to repair it and
live there with his family – a second wife, soldier son, Henri (nine-
teen), and daughter, Blanche (seventeen). The old housekeeper,
Dorothée, takes Blanche round the ancient rooms, showing her
the suite where the late Marchioness de Villeroi died, and which
has been left untouched ever since. One stormy day, there is a ship-
wreck in the bay just below Chateau-le-Blanc, and those rescued
are Emily and her party, who are therefore invited to stay at the
Chateau; Emily realises this is the place she and her father passed
last year, and which seemed to have so much significance for him.
[Now follows the scene, from chs. 12 and 13, parodied by Henry Tilney
in his extempore story to Catherine]:
Note 8, vol. 2, ch. 5: Dorothy:

When they returned to the chateau, Lady Blanche conducted Emily to
her favourite turret, and from thence they rambled through the ancient
chambers, which Blanche had visited before. Emily was amused by
281
Appendix
observing the structure of these apartments, and the fashion of their

old but still magnificent furniture, and by comparing them with those
of the castle of Udolpho, which were yet more antique and grotesque.
She was also interested by Dorothée the house-keeper, who attended
them, whose appearance was almost as antique as the objects around
her, and who seemed no less interested by Emily, on whom she fre-
quently gazed with so much deep attention, as scarcely to hear what
was said to her . . . [and later on]:
Dorothée, now stooping to pick up something, that had dropped
from among the papers, suddenly exclaimed, “Holy Mary! what is it I
see?” and then, trembling, sat down in a chair, that stood by the table.
“What is it you do see?” said Emily, alarmed by her manner, and
looking round the room.
“It is herself,” said Dorothée, “her very self! just as she looked a
little before she died! . . . That picture!” said she, “where did you find
it, lady? it is my blessed mistress herself!”
She laid on the table the miniature, which Emily had long ago
found among the papers her father had enjoined her to destroy . . .
“If you were her daughter, you could not remind me of her more . . .”
DuPont confides to the Count his love for Emily, and then leaves;
Emily stays for some days at the convent of St Clair, and meets there
the elderly and deranged Sister Agnes, before returning again to
the chateau. Henri de Villefort comes to join his family, bringing
fellow-soldier Valancourt with him. The Count tells Emily that
Henri has told him that Valancourt fell into debauchery in Paris
and is now unworthy of her.
Volume 4: Emily and Valancourt have a long sentimental argu-
ment – he admits he behaved badly in Paris and is in debt; Emily
says they must part, so final farewells are taken. Housekeeper
Dorothée now tells Emily part of the history of the deceased Mar-
chioness de Villeroi, who may have been poisoned by her jealous
husband and who was buried in the convent of St Clair. They return
to the Marchioness’s deserted suite, to study a larger portrait of her
on the wall, but flee in terror when the black pall upon the bed
appears to move. The servants declare the room must be haunted,
and Ludovico offers to spend the night there, suitably armed; but
in the morning he has disappeared.
DuPont reappears and proposes to Emily, but she rejects him and
insists on returning to the convent; she finds the nuns are talking
282
about the recent events at Chateau-le-Blanc, and Sister Agnes is

particularly wild and rambling on the subject. Emily now learns that
Montoni was seized by Venetian soldiers and has died in prison, so
she is the owner of her aunt’s estate as well as of La Vallée. Another
of the nuns tells Emily something of Sister Agnes’s past, which
Emily thinks is curiously similar to what Dorothée has told her
about the Marchioness de Villeroi.
Emily goes to her aunt’s estate at Toulouse, and from there to
La Vallée, where she finds Valancourt has been nobly helping an
impoverished peasant, Theresa; he arrives to see Theresa, Emily
faints, and Theresa assures Valancourt that she still loves him.
Ludovico comes with news from the Chateau-le-Blanc, with the
explanation of how he had been kidnapped by pirates who had been
using the house, while it was deserted, as their refuge and store for
stolen goods – it was one of them who was hiding under the black
pall in the deserted bedroom.
Sister Agnes dies, giving half a confession to Emily beforehand –
she is the missing Signora Laurentini. The Abbess of St Clair later
completes the confession by revealing to Emily another long story
about the wicked tangle between Laurentini, Montoni and the
Marquis de Villeroi; the murdered Marchioness was Emily’s aunt,
her father’s other sister, hence the family resemblance that Dorothée
and Sister Agnes/Laurentini had recognised. The horror behind
the black veil is now explained as being a lifesize waxen figure of a
decaying corpse, a penitential memento mori enjoined by the Church
upon an earlier Marquis of Udolpho and his descendants.
The Count de Villefort has learnt that the tales of Valancourt’s
Parisian debauchery have been much exaggerated, so has written
to him to return to La Vallée, where he is now able to exonerate
himself to Emily; and all ends in their happy marriage.
The Italian
3 vols., Cadell & Davies, London 1797
Volume 1: The setting is Naples in 1758. Vincentio di Vivaldi sees
Ellena Rosalba in church and falls instantly in love. She is an
orphan, living with her aunt, Signora Bianca, and earning an honest
living by undertaking needlework for the local convent; Vivaldi is
283
Appendix
the only son of rich, proud, aristocrats. He starts visiting her humble
villa, which is approached ‘from the dark arch of a ruin’; a black-
robed monkish figure appears in these ruins and warns Vivaldi off
any further contact with Ellena; he chases the figure but it eludes
him.
Vivaldi proposes marriage, to which Signora Bianca agrees,
despite their social differences. Vivaldi’s parents command him to
cease the courtship; his mother, the Marchesa, is particularly proud
and angry, and tells her confessor, the Dominican Friar Schedoni,
that he must help her to prevent such a marriage. The Monk again
appears at the ruined arch with a further warning for Vivaldi, as he
makes his next visit to the villa, where he finds Signora Bianca has
just died. Vivaldi thinks Schedoni may be the Monk, but cannot
prove this; Schedoni thinks the Marchesa will provide him with a
rich benefice if he prevents the marriage, but she is thinking only
of the family’s dignity.
Ellena decides to go to a convent for safety and propriety while
awaiting her marriage, but before she can do so, she is abducted by
three masked men and taken to a gloomy monastery in the Abruzzo
mountains. Vivaldi and his servant Paulo again chase the Monk
round the ruins, shooting at him; but despite finding a bloodstained
garment they cannot catch him; instead a door slams and they
are themselves locked in a vault. Overnight, Paulo tells Vivaldi a
rambling tale about a Friar Ansaldo and some particularly awful
crime that was confessed in the church of the Black Penitents. By
daylight, the locked door is mysteriously open, so that Vivaldi and
Paulo are free to leave.
Ellena is a prisoner in the monastery of San Stefano, scolded and
bullied by the abbess: she must either give up Vivaldi and marry a
husband chosen for her by the Marchesa or else take the veil here in
the convent. Ellena meets one of the older nuns, Sister Olivia, with
whom she finds instant sympathy. Vivaldi thinks that Schedoni has
arranged Ellena’s abduction, goes to the church of San Spirito and
quarrels with him in front of the other monks – the confessional of
the Black Penitents is mentioned, and at this Schedoni disappears
into the shadows. Vivaldi gets a clue from local fishermen as to
Ellena’s whereabouts, and sets off after her.
284
The Marchesa and Schedoni are plotting together, the latter

brooding over Vivaldi’s recent insults, and doing his best to poison
the mother’s mind against her son. Vivaldi and Paulo are in the
mountains, and enter the convent disguised as pilgrims, just in
time to stop Ellena being forcibly dedicated as a novice nun. Sister
Olivia tells Ellena she will help her escape that evening, wrapped
in a nun’s veil.
Volume 2: The pilgrim band is allowed to enter the convent for
a concert of sacred music, which enables Vivaldi to slip a letter
to Ellena; after many cliff-hanging moments they are at last able
to escape and with Paulo set off to ride back to Naples by a cir-
cuitous route. Vivaldi pleads for instant marriage, but Ellena says
she cannot marry him if his family refuse to accept her. She takes
refuge in an Ursuline convent, and Vivaldi goes to a Benedictine
monastery.
The Marchesa learns that the young couple have fled together;
Schedoni untruthfully tells her that they are already married, and
persuades the Marchesa that Ellena should be assassinated for such
insolence as daring to marry above her station. He suggests she
should be taken to a lonely cottage on the shores of the Adriatic,
inhabited by one poor man known to Schedoni, who can be trusted
to murder her while she sleeps.
Ellena at last agrees that her marriage to Vivaldi can take place,
but even as the local priest starts the service in a lonely chapel,
the Holy Inquisition guards burst in and arrest Vivaldi for the
crime of abducting a nun. Vivaldi and Paulo are dragged off to
Rome and the prison of the Holy Office, while Ellena is taken
to the lonely cottage inhabited by one ferocious villain, Spalatro.
Schedoni appears to organise her murder, and some of his past is
now revealed – he is really the Count di Marinella, the younger
son of an ancient family who had wasted his small inheritance and
therefore took a new name as he entered the Church in the hope
of finding advancement there. Spalatro demurs at murdering the
girl while she sleeps, so Schedoni himself enters her room to do so;
but sees round her neck a portrait miniature which he recognises
as his younger self. Ellena wakes, agrees that her father’s name
was Marinella, and that Signora Bianca had told her this was his
285
Appendix
portrait. Schedoni now tells her he is her father – she is shocked

and disbelieving, but he convinces her by specific knowledge of the
Marinella family background.
Schedoni is torn by remorse, and plans to get Vivaldi and Ellena
married, which now necessitates saving Vivaldi from the Inquisition
prison – his arrest was another of Schedoni’s wicked arrangements.
He and Ellena set off together for Naples, with Spalatro lurking
after them.
Volume 3: Schedoni and Ellena take shelter in a ruinous villa,
once the property of Barone di Cambrusca. Spalatro appears and
quarrels with Schedoni, who shoots at him. The local guide talks
about the Cambrusca family, and about Spalatro and his possible
involvement in a murder some time ago, topics which have some
unpleasant meaning for Schedoni. He and Ellena return safely to
Naples, where he places her back in her old convent, the Santa
Maria della Pieta; he then goes to the Marchesa and starts arguing,
in complete contradiction of his original stance, that Vivaldi should
be allowed to marry the girl.
Vivaldi is in the Inquisition prison, being cross-questioned and
threatened, without ever really being told the reason for his arrest, or
who is accusing him. The Monk also seems to be there, whispering
in the ear of the blindfolded Vivaldi from time to time, and yet the
Inquisitors say no one else is present. The Monk visits Vivaldi in
his cell, and gives him some information as to Schedoni’s wicked
past – there is an old monk, Friar Ansaldo, who can testify to this.
Schedoni is arrested, and Friar Ansaldo brought in; he relates a
confession he heard in 1752, when an unknown man admitted he
had murdered his brother for love of the latter’s wife, then married
her, and later murdered her too from jealousy, because he thought
Ansaldo was her lover, even though both were innocent. However,
Ansaldo cannot confirm that Schedoni was the man, now too long
ago. The Monk appears openly, and is named as Nicolo di Zampari,
another Dominican in Spirito Sancto; he has a deathbed written
statement from the assassin Spalatro, which proves that the Count
di Bruno was the elder brother, and Schedoni, alias the Count di
Marinella, the younger, and the confessed murderer. Schedoni is
found guilty, and then states publicly that he is Ellena’s father, to
Vivaldi’s horror.
286
Ellena is waiting in her convent, and the nun Olivia arrives,

having asked to leave San Stefano. Ellena’s old servant, Beatrice,
visits her, with the news that Vivaldi is missing and his mother
is dying. Beatrice recognises Olivia, who is in fact Bianca’s sister
and Ellena’s mother; Olivia was only wounded, not killed, in the
murder attempt, and took refuge in a convent and was supposed
dead. She had two baby girls, one by her first husband and one by
Schedoni; the Schedoni baby died, but as he never knew this, he
assumed Ellena must be his daughter. Bianca died before she could
explain all this to Ellena.
The dying Marchesa insists that her husband accepts Ellena as
their son’s wife, and he gets Vivaldi released. Schedoni is dying
in prison, but manages to slip some poison to his old enemy the
Monk, Nicolo di Zampari, before taking the remainder himself.
Vivaldi at last reaches Naples and learns from Ellena that she is not
Schedoni’s daughter; so all is set fair for their marriage a few weeks
later.
287
A B B R EV I AT I O N S
E Emma
FR Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record, second
edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004)
Gilson David Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen
(Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies; New Castle,
Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 1997)
JA Jane Austen
Johnson Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755)
L Jane Austen’s Letters, third edition, collected and
edited by Deirdre Le Faye (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995)
‘L&F’ ‘Love and Freindship’
LS Lady Susan
Memoir James Edward Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen
and Other Family Recollections, edited by Kathryn
Sutherland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
MP Mansfield Park
NA Northanger Abbey
P Persuasion
P&P Pride and Prejudice
OED Oxford English Dictionary
RoF Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest, edited by
Chloe Chard (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999)
S Sanditon
SR Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance, edited by Alison
Milbank (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
289
List of abbreviations
S&S Sense and Sensibility

Udolpho Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, edited and
introduced by Bonamy Dobree (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1970)
W The Watsons
290
E X P L A NAT O RY N O T E S
volume i , chapter 1
1 Catherine Morland . . . an heroine: JA used the name Catharine
[sic] for the rebellious heroine in one of her juvenile parodies of
sentimental fiction, Catharine or The Bower, written in 1792, which
opens: ‘Catharine had the misfortune, as many heroines have had
before her, of losing her Parents when she was very young.’ Either
orphaned or abandoned in infancy, sentimental heroines typically
suffer loneliness and neglect before recovering their inheritance
and family, and marrying the hero.
2 Her father . . . handsome: mysterious lineage, which turns out to
be noble, and the father’s virtuous retirement to rural life, were both
gothic clichés. The dislike of the name ‘Richard’ seems to have been
a long-standing joke with the Austen family, dating back to at least
The History of England (1791), where JA comments on Richard
III: ‘The Character of this Prince has been in general very severely
treated by Historians, but as he was a York, I am rather inclined
to suppose him a very respectable Man’; and still running in her
letter of 15–16 September 1796: ‘Mr Richard Harvey’s match is
put off, till he has got a Better Christian name, of which he has
great Hopes’ (L, p. 10).
3 independence: income from land and investments, which enabled
the Revd Mr Morland to maintain a comfortable lifestyle for him-
self and his large family in the middle rank of society, without the
necessity of relying solely upon his earnings as a clergyman.
4 livings: a clergyman of the Church of England, once instituted
to a parish, had the tenure of the church and parsonage until his
death or resignation; each parish was provided with an acreage of
glebe-land, which the clergyman could either farm himself or rent
out to tenants; and the rest of his income consisted of the fees for
291
Notes to pages 5–6
baptisms, marriages and burials, as well as the annual tithes (one-

tenth of every sort of agricultural produce) contributed by the
parishioners. This complete bundle of church, parsonage, glebe-
land, clerical income and tithes was known as ‘a living’.
5 locking up his daughters . . . excellent health herself: impris-
onment and violent treatment by false, usurping father-figures or
brutal guardians, pursuit by lascivious noblemen and the death of
the heroine’s mother, usually immediately after childbirth, were all
clichés of gothic novels.
6 plain as any: the heroines of gothic fiction were always radiantly
beautiful in face and figure. Ann Radcliffe describes the sisters
Emilia and Julia Mazzini (A Sicilian Romance; London, 1790):
‘The person of Emilia was finely proportioned. Her complexion
was fair, her hair flaxen, and her dark blue eyes were full of sweet
expression. Her manners were dignified and elegant, and in her
air was a feminine softness, a tender timidity which irresistibly
attracted the heart of the beholder. The figure of Julia was light
and graceful—her step was airy—her mien animated, and her smile
enchanting. Her eyes were dark, and full of fire, but tempered with
modest sweetness. Her features were finely turned—every laugh-
ing grace played round her mouth, and her countenance quickly
discovered all the various emotions of her soul. The dark auburn
hair, which curled in beautiful profusion in her neck, gave a finish-
ing charm to her appearance’ (vol. 1, ch. 1). In The Children of the
Abbey (London, 1796), Regina Maria Roche saves herself the trou-
ble of composing even a cliché, dismissing her heroine’s appear-
ance thus: ‘Amanda was now about nineteen; a description of her
face and person would not do her justice, as it never could convey
a full idea of the ineffable sweetness and sensibility of the for-
mer, or the striking elegance and beautiful proportion of the latter’
(vol. 1, ch. 1).
7 nursing . . . garden: to ‘nurse’ meant to rear, or ‘to bring up a child
not one’s own’ ( Johnson). Canaries became popular as song-birds
and ladies’ pets in the late seventeenth century. Love of nature
and kindness to animals were further indications of a fictional
heroine’s virtue. In Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest (London,
1791), when the La Motte family are living secretly in the ruined
abbey, Adeline ‘ventured to look out from the tower: the only
292
Notes to page 6
animate objects, that appeared, were the deer, quietly grazing

under the shade of the woods. Her favourite little fawn distin-
guished Adeline, and came bounding towards her with strong
marks of joy. She was somewhat alarmed lest the animal, being
observed, should betray her, and walked swiftly away through
the cloisters . . . In the cloisters she was again met by her lit-
tle favourite, and stopped for a moment to caress it. The fawn
seemed sensible to the sound of her voice, and discovered new
joy; but while she spoke, it suddenly started from her hand, and
looking up, she perceived the door of the passage, leading to the
great hall, open, and a man in the habit of a soldier issue forth’
(vol. 1, ch. 5).
8 taught . . . stupid: gothic heroines are precocious and instinc-
tively intelligent. Charlotte Smith’s eponymous orphan heroine,
Emmeline, growing up in a half-ruined Welsh castle with only the
old housekeeper and steward to teach her to read and write, ‘had a
kind of intuitive knowledge; and comprehended every thing with
a facility that soon left her instructors behind her’. She finds moul-
dering books in the deserted library, and ‘From them she acquired
a taste for poetry, and the more ornamental parts of literature; as
well as the grounds of that elegant and useful knowledge, which,
if it rendered not her life happier, enabled her to support, with
the dignity of conscious worth, those undeserved evils with which
many of her years were embittered’ (Emmeline, or, the Orphan of
the Castle, London, 1788, vol. 1, ch. 1).
9 Beggar’s Petition: more correctly titled ‘The Beggar’, by the
Revd Thomas Moss in his Poems on Several Occasions (1769).
It was a didactic poem of eleven stanzas, opening ‘Pity the Sor-
rows of a poor old Man!’, and itemising all the bereavements and
woes suffered by the speaker. It was frequently anthologised and
became a schoolroom favourite for learning by heart, encourag-
ing the pupil as it did to display charity towards the poor and
aged.
10 The Hare and many Friends: a popular narrative poem in Fables
(1727) by John Gay. It tells the story of a hare who, instead of
forming true friendships, merely flatters all the farmyard ani-
mals – bull, horse, sheep, cow and goat – hence when she is
attacked by dogs, not one will help save her.
293
Notes to page 6
11 spinnet (sometimes spelt ‘spinet’): a small domestic harpsichord,

already old-fashioned in the 1790s. Gothic heroines rarely have
any tuition, but are always naturally brilliant musicians. ‘[Julia]
struck the chords of her piana-forte [sic] in beautiful accompa-
niment, and towards the close of the second stanza, her voice
resting on one note, swelled into a tone so exquisite, and from
thence descended to a few simple notes, which she touched with
such impassioned tenderness that every eye wept to the sounds’
(SR, vol. 1, ch. 2).
12 accomplished: in order to make them marriageable, young ladies
were expected to be skilled in needlework and other domes-
tic handicrafts; and, as Miss Bingley cries, when Elizabeth is
visiting Netherfield (P&P, vol. 1, ch. 8): ‘no one can be really
esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is
usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of
music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to
deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a cer-
tain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her
voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half
deserved.’ During JA’s lifetime, moralists and feminists, notably
Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(London, 1792), opposed this concept of female education in
favour of one that stressed the development of reason and moral
sensibility.
13 outside of a letter . . . odd piece of paper: since writing paper
was expensive, the usual amount devoted to any letter was one
quarto sheet (about fifteen inches long by nine inches wide),
which was folded vertically to make two leaves – four pages – each
about seven and a half inches by nine. The text of the letter was
written on the first three pages, and, as there were no ready-made
envelopes, the name and address of the recipient was written in
the centre of the fourth page. The paper was then folded in on
itself several times, both vertically and horizontally, until it was
reduced to a small oblong packet, the last folds of which were
fastened together with either sealing-wax or a gummed wafer.
Any part of the sheet of paper which was not written upon would
be cut off by the recipient for further use – perhaps, as here, being
given to the children to practise drawing.
294
14 accounts: simple arithmetic, enough for a young wife to be able

to keep tally of her household expenses. When JA’s eldest niece,
Fanny Knight (1793–1882), had to take over the domestic man-
agement of Godmersham following her mother’s sudden death,
she kept such records, and one of her ‘Household Books’ survives,
in fragmentary form; it deals mainly with servants’ wages, and
shows that Fanny had to pay out 9s.6d. for ‘Washing in Hamp-
shire’, when the Knight family stayed at Chawton in the spring
of 1812 (Knight archive, Hampshire Record Office, 18M61/Box
98/214).
15 her features . . . more consequence: ‘consequence’ in this context
comprises the ideas of Catherine being taller/larger/more self-
possessed, hence generally more noticeable in society. She has
now reached puberty, and as her features have acquired ‘plump-
ness and colour’, so her figure is maturing into that of an adult
woman.
16 lying-in: the period of childbirth and subsequent recovery, when
a woman would remain in her bedroom for some weeks; this
period was also referred to as a ‘confinement’, for the same rea-
son. For those who could afford it, like the Morlands, the baby
would be delivered at home by a local doctor or midwife, and
a special ‘monthly nurse’ would be engaged to care for mother
and child for the next few weeks. Poor women might be able to
gain entry to one of the charitable lying-in (maternity) hospitals
– there were eleven of these in London, ‘amply provided with
every comfort, and even the infants taken care of till they are
two or three years old, and others which provide midwives and
medicines gratuitously at their own houses’ ( John Feltham, ed.,
The Picture of London, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme
and Brown, 1818, pp. 207–8).
17 base ball: known to English schoolgirls today as ‘rounders’, this
game involves a batsman who hits the ball as far as possible and
attempts to run around the circular course before the fielder can
retrieve the ball and throw it back to base.
18 to books . . . at all: Catherine enjoys novels and romances, whereas
intellectual gothic heroines read works of moral reflection, and
especially poetry. In Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), Emily
St Aubert has been taught by her father: ‘He gave her a general
295
view of the sciences, and an exact acquaintance with every part of

elegant literature. He taught her Latin and English, chiefly that
she might understand the sublimity of their best poets’ (vol. 1,
ch. 1).
19 all such works . . . lives: exemplary passages from classic English
literature were excerpted in schoolroom anthologies such as
Vicesimus Knox’s two-volume Elegant Extracts (1785), one of
poetry and the other of prose. In her childhood, Jane Austen
owned a copy of the prose selection, and passed it on to her niece
Anna in 1801 when the senior Austens left Steventon.
20 woe: Alexander Pope, Elegy To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
(1717), book 1, line 57. The poem mourns the suicide of a lady
who has been seduced and then deserted far from her original
home.
21 air: Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751),
lines 55–6, a hugely popular poem commemorating unknown
rustic heroes. Here JA slightly misquotes, replacing the original
‘sweetness’ with ‘fragrance’.
22 shoot: James Thomson, adapted from ‘Spring’ in The Seasons
(1728): ‘Delightful task! to rear the tender thought / To teach the
young idea how to shoot’ (lines 1149–50). The passage celebrates
pious domestic life and rural parenting.
23 Shakspeare . . . Writ: literary anthologies quoted plentifully
from William Shakespeare’s plays, and this and the following
two excerpts appear in Elegant Extracts. In this passage, adapted
from Othello, Iago plots to rouse Othello’s jealousy by dropping
Desdemona’s handkerchief in Cassio’s lodgings: ‘And let him find
it. Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmations strong /
As proofs of Holy Writ’ (Act 3, scene 3, lines 323–5).
24 The poor . . . dies: Shakespeare, adapted from Measure for
Measure: ‘And the poor beetle that we tread upon / In corpo-
ral sufferance finds a pang as great / As when a giant dies’ (Act 3,
scene 1, lines 77–9). In this scene, Isabella observes that the fear
of death lies mainly in the mind, since all creatures feel pain alike,
and reproaches Claudio for preferring his life to her honour.
25 like . . . Grief: Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: ‘She sat like Patience
on a monument, / Smiling at grief’ (Act 2, scene 4, lines 116–17).
Viola’s veiled description of her own love as that of a woman who
296
died keeping hers secret was very popular in eighteenth-century

literature.
26 sonnets . . . fatigue: the archaic poetic form of fourteen lines writ-
ten in iambic pentameter had returned to fashion with the rise of
interest in historical verse prompted by Reliques of Ancient English
Poetry, a three-volume collection of ballads, songs, sonnets and
poetic romances, compiled by Thomas Percy and first published
in 1765, followed by several enlarged editions. The novelist Char-
lotte Smith also wrote Elegiac Sonnets and Other Essays (London,
1784), which was so popular that it was reprinted ten times in her
lifetime. The supremely accomplished gothic heroines frequently
compose sonnets and songs.
27 sketch . . . design: in gothic fictions, the heroes or hero-
ines, prohibited by moral delicacy from declaring their love in
words, often betray their feelings by leaving a drawing of their
beloved in plain sight. In Regina Maria Roche’s Clermont, A Tale
(London, 1798), the hero, De Sevignie, leaves in the cottage
a sketch of Madeline that ‘bore so great a resemblance to her
own person, that she had no doubt of its being designed for her’
(vol. 1, ch. 3). This trope lingered on in nineteenth-century fic-
tion – when Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is away from Thornfield
she finds herself instinctively drawing from memory a portrait of
Mr Rochester (vol. 2, ch. 6).
28 amiable: a term common in sentimental fiction, meaning
‘friendly, pleasing, loving, lovable’, from its conflation with the
French ‘aimable’. In E, vol. 1, ch. 18, Mr Knightley analyses
Frank Churchill as being ‘amiable only in French, not in English.
He may be very “aimable”, have very good manners, and be very
agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feel-
ings of other people: nothing really amiable about him.’
29 sensibility: the capacity for empathy, powerful emotions and aes-
thetic responsiveness to beauty, nature, divinity and suffering; it
was the key quality of late eighteenth-century heroes and hero-
ines. Sensibility was exhibited corporeally by blushes, faints, tears
and fits, and behaviourally by a selflessness and spontaneity that
was supposed to reveal moral delicacy and depth.
30 strange things . . . out: a gothic convention in which strange and
unaccountable events, often apparently supernatural, are found
297
Notes to page 9
after investigation to be perfectly explicable, although the expla-

nations themselves often strain credibility. In SR, Ferdinand
Mazzini eventually learns that the ghostly groans he has heard
have been uttered by his mother, still alive and imprisoned in
the castle dungeon close by him (vol. 1, chs. 3, 6, and vol. 2,
ch. 8).
31 not one lord . . . no children: gothic fiction clichés, in which
orphan or foundling heroes and heroines turn out to be nobly
born and the rightful owners of rich estates. Charlotte Smith’s
Emmeline is believed to be an illegitimate orphan, but is finally
proved to be the child of lawfully married parents and hence
the owner of the Welsh castle in which she has grown up. In
‘L&F’ (Letter 11th), JA has already mocked this cliché by making
her four young leading characters – Sophia, Laura, Philander
and Gustavus – casually meet Lord St Clair at an inn, and then
instantly recognise him as being their grandfather.
32 Fullerton . . . Wiltshire: there is a genuine hamlet called Fuller-
ton in Hampshire, at a crossroads on the river Test, between
Winchester and Andover. It is unlikely that JA knew of its exis-
tence, as otherwise she would probably not have used the name
for that of Catherine’s fictional home. Wiltshire is a county in
the south-west quarter of England, bordered by Gloucestershire,
Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset. The county town
is Salisbury, and Salisbury Plain is a large expanse of chalk down-
land, which in the eighteenth century was grazed by enormous
flocks of sheep.
33 Bath . . . gouty constitution: Bath is an inland spa town in the
county of Somerset, 107 miles west of London and thirteen miles
from Bristol. It was famed for its medicinal hot springs, which
were believed to remedy a huge number of disorders. Physicians
recommended drinking and bathing in the mineral waters as a
cure for gout – this is an inflammation of the joints, particularly of
the hands and feet, caused by an excess of uric acid in the blood,
which in turn was often the result of a rich diet. JA probably
visited Bath in 1794, was certainly there in 1797 and again in
1799, and finally lived there with her family from 1801 to 1805.
34 seek them abroad: the protagonist’s adventures after leaving
home form the central structure of the eighteenth-century
298
Bildungsroman, the novel of a young person’s education and self-

discovery. Conduct novels like Frances Burney’s Evelina (1778)
typically begin with the heroine’s first entrance into London
society; gothic heroines travel into foreign countries and remote
places.
chapter 2
1 A thousand alarming presentiments of evil: in gothic nov-
els, premonitions of danger, and excessive displays of emotional
advice, expressed laudable sensibility. Adeline, in RoF, is twice
abducted by the servants of the wicked Marquis de Montalt –
once on horseback, and then again in his chaise (vol. 2, chs. 11
and 12–14).
2 terrific: portentous, terrifying.
3 closet: a small room opening off a larger one, probably in this
case off Mrs Morland’s bedroom. In real life, the Scottish girl
Elizabeth Grant remembered their house in Hertfordshire: ‘The
prettiest room in the house was my mother’s bedroom looking
on the orchard. It had three windows in a bow, and on one side at
either hand of the fire place were the two light closets in two tur-
rets, one she used as her washing closet, the other was neatly fitted
up for reading in’, Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, Memoirs
of a Highland Lady, ed. Andrew Tod (Edinburgh: Canongate
Publishing Ltd, 1988), vol. 1, p. 86.
4 Rooms: Assembly Rooms, in many other provincial towns as
well as Bath, were smart social centres, providing dancing, card-
playing, concerts, billiard-tables and light refreshments. Bath
had two sets of Rooms: the older, or Lower Rooms, situated
behind Bath Abbey and close to the river Avon, were also known
as Harrison’s Rooms after the entrepreneur who first built them
in 1709. The New, or Upper Rooms, on the northern side of the
city, on higher ground and near the Circus and Royal Crescent,
were opened in 1771. These rooms were ‘particularly spacious
and elegant’, and the ballroom was 105 feet long by 42 feet wide
and 42 feet high.
5 little book . . . purpose: probably a ‘pocket-book’, a small vol-
ume rather like a modern engagement diary; it had spaces for
daily entries, together with pages for cash accounts, tables for
299
Notes to page 11
calculating income and expenditure, fashion engravings, short

essays or moral tales, and other useful information that would
assist ladies in managing their households. JA’s eldest niece,
Fanny Knight, afterwards Lady Knatchbull, kept closely written
pocket-books nearly all her life, from 1804 until 1872, and these
are now in the Knatchbull-Hugessen archive in the Centre for
Kentish Studies (U951.F.24/1–69). Some of the pocket-books
kept by JA’s sister-in-law, Mary Lloyd, are in the Austen-Leigh
archive in the Hampshire Record Office (23M93/62/1/1–23).
6 altering her name: in real life, JA’s cousin, Elizabeth Hancock
(1761–1813), (who later married the Comte de Feuillide), was
called Bessy or Betsy in her childhood, but in her teens adopted
the more sophisticated alternative of Eliza. The Austens’ rich
kinsman, Mr Thomas Broadnax (1701–81), of Godmersham in
Kent, changed his name to May in 1727 when he inherited prop-
erty from a cousin, and changed it again to Knight in 1738 when
he inherited the Hampshire estates of Chawton and Steventon;
in turn, JA’s brother Edward (1767–1852) changed his name to
Knight in 1812 when he inherited these three estates. Gothic
heroes and heroines habitually either use pseudonyms, or dis-
cover their true names only at the resolution of the plot. In
RoF, the heroine, Adeline, believes her surname is St Pierre,
but eventually finds out that she is the lawful daughter of Henry
de Montalt; and her lover Theodore has adopted the nom de
guerre of Peyrou, which means she does not know he is the son
of her protector, the village pastor La Luc, until nearly the end
of the story. JA mocked this cliché in ‘L&F’: ‘The noble Youth
informed us that his name was Lindsay—for particular reasons
however I shall conceal it under that of Talbot’ (Letter 6th).
7 writing by every post . . . Bath might produce: which would in
effect create an epistolary novel. Letters were conveyed by fast
dedicated mail-coaches, accompanied by armed guards, between
London and other large towns; there was also a system of cross-
posts between smaller towns, first devised by Ralph Allen of Bath
early in the eighteenth century. When Catherine wrote to her
family, her letters would go by the mail-coach for the Salisbury
area, which set out every evening at 5.00 p.m., and arrived in
Bath every morning between 9.00 and 10.00 a.m.
300
8 unlimited order . . . guineas: an order was a written instruction

from the customer to his/her bank to provide whatever money
was requested by a third party; a bank-bill (our modern banker’s
draft) was an instrument passing from one bank to another, to
permit a third party to receive some specific amount. Mr Mor-
land could have paid in £100 (plus charges) to his local bank
in Salisbury, who would then instruct their corresponding bank
in Bath to pay out this sum to Catherine upon her demand. A
guinea was a gold coin worth twenty-one shillings (£1.1s.0d. in
the coinage of the period).
9 robbers . . . overturn: gothic heroes and heroines often experi-
ence dramatic dangers and accidents that serve to introduce them
to each other and enable them to become intimate. In Udolpho,
at one stage Emily’s father mistakes the hero Valancourt for a
robber and shoots him in the arm (vol. 1, ch. 4).
10 clogs: in this context, not the heavy-duty wooden-soled footwear
used by factory-workers later in the nineteenth century (see for
example Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1855), ch. 22), but
light leather overshoes, used by ladies to protect their delicate
fabric footwear, particularly while travelling.
11 striking environs: ‘Bath is surrounded by hills of considerable
height . . . the valley in which the city lies, being too small to con-
tain the numerous splendid buildings which have been erected
there within the space of a century, they gradually covered the
side of the hill toward the north, and now crown its summit.
Nothing indeed can be more picturesque than the appearance of
this city, where houses rise behind houses in progressive order;
while the most elevated seem to look down with proud superior-
ity on the no less elegant and extensive structures below’ ( John
Feltham, ed., A Guide to all the Watering and Sea Bathing Places,
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, n.d., various
editions from 1803 to 1825, pp. 232–3).
12 Pulteney-street: Great Pulteney Street was part of a new devel-
opment on the eastern side of Bath, planned by Thomas Baldwin
in 1788 and erected piecemeal for some thirty years thereafter,
but never in fact completed to the original design. Pulteney
Bridge (built 1769–74) gave access from the city across the river
Avon to the open meadows of Bathwick village, and from the
301
Notes to page 12
end of the bridge Baldwin laid out the short Argyle Street, Laura
Place (a square, but set diagonally), and then the two ruler-
straight terraces of Great Pulteney Street, 1100 feet long and
with 100 feet width between them. The perspective view down
the street was terminated by the Sydney House hotel and its pub-
lic gardens. ‘On the further side of the Avon is a new creation of
architectural beauties, which may vie with anything in the world.
Laura-place and its accompaniments; and Great Pulteney-street,
terminated by Sydney-gardens, present an assemblage of fine
buildings, which do honour to the present age’ (Feltham, Guide
to Watering Places, p. 269).
13 last volume: usually published in multiple volumes, eighteenth-
century novels typically complicate the plot and intensify the
drama and suspense until the resolution in the very final chapters.
See the summaries of Ann Radcliffe’s novels, Appendix, pp. 265–
287.
14 Mrs. Allen . . . out of doors: evil, mercenary, vulgar, jealous or
foolish chaperones are stock characters in gothic and sentimental
novels; they may be either accomplices to the villain, embarrass-
ments to the heroine, or obstacles to her union with the hero.
In Burney’s Evelina (1778), the heroine’s grandmother tries to
make her marry one of her uncultured Branghton cousins, and
betrays the secret of her apparent illegitimacy (vol. 1, letter 17).
Many years later JA’s niece Caroline Austen recalled: ‘She [JA]
was considered to read aloud remarkably well. I did not often
hear her but once I knew her take up a volume of Evelina and
read a few pages of Mr. Smith and the Brangtons [sic] and I
thought it was like a play’ (Memoir, p. 174).
In Udolpho, Emily’s aunt, Madame Cheron, is a vain, vulgar
bully: ‘The love of sway was her ruling passion, and she knew
it would be highly gratified by taking into her house a young
orphan, who had no appeal from her decisions, and on whom
she could exercise without controul the capricious humour of the
moment’ (vol. 1, ch. 10).
15 genius . . . manner: Johnson in his dictionary defines ‘genius’
as ‘mental power or faculties’ – what we would now call
‘intelligence’; ‘manner’ indicated ‘a distinguished or fashionable
air’.
302
16 Dress . . . passion: the love of finery is used to signify the false val-
ues of shallow anti-heroines and corrupt, superficial characters,
trained only to display their physical charms instead of develop-
ing the moral judgement that marks the self-effacing and modest
heroine. In Burney’s Evelina, the heroine’s coarse French grand-
mother, Madame Duval, who was once a tavern-maid, embar-
rasses Evelina throughout the novel with her vulgar displays of
feminine affectations and her trivial interest in dress and gos-
sip. JA mentions her in February 1807, when a social problem
has arisen between the Austens and a Southampton neighbour:
‘What a Contretems!—in the Language of France; What an
unluckiness! in that of Mde Duval’ (Evelina, vol. 2, letter 3 and
8–9 February 1807, L, p. 120).
17 season: Bath’s spring season, popular with invalids, ran from
late February to early June, and the winter season, favoured by
pleasure-seekers, from late September to mid-December. The
summer months, in a crowded city, were considered to be too
hot for comfort. As many as 8,000 visitors came, usually staying
for six weeks; by 1800, Bath could hold 33,000 people, making
it one of the ten largest cities in England and Wales.
18 card-room: Assembly Rooms always included a room devoted
to card games, such as picquet, whist and quadrille.
19 unwearied diligence . . . gained: JA refers to a couplet from a
popular old schoolbook, A Guide to the English Tongue (London,
1707), compiled by Thomas Dyche: ‘Despair of nothing that
you wou’d attain: / Unweari’d Diligence your Point will gain’
(‘Alphabet 3’, p. 140).
20 high feathers: see note 23 below.
21 easily find seats . . . highest bench: those who were not dancing
but watching or waiting for partners sat on chairs or benches
arranged around the sides of the dance-floor; the rules of the
Lower Rooms stipulated that ‘the upper benches be reserved for
Peeresses’, and in the Upper Rooms the three front seats, at the
upper end of the room, were likewise reserved for titled ladies. See
Thomas Rowlandson’s Comforts of Bath, a set of hand-coloured
aquatint engravings published in 1798; plate X shows a dance
in progress in the Upper Rooms, with many onlookers seated or
standing on each side.
303
22 delicate muslin: a fine, thin cotton fabric, imported from the

East Indies and Bengal by the East India Company in the eigh-
teenth century; it replaced silk for fashionable wear.
23 head: head-dress, the complete arrangement of the hair and its
ornaments. Fashionable women wore their hair curled and built
up into a pyramid over a groundwork of wadding and false hair –
it was then powdered and adorned with high ostrich feathers,
gauze, beads, flowers and ribbons. Such towering creations must
indeed have been very susceptible to damage when a crowd was
pushing its way into or out of the ballroom.
24 Not one . . . any body: when Burney’s Evelina attends her first ball
her beauty strikes the aristocratic Lord Orville just as much as
it does the fop Lovel, and though they both deplore her ‘rustick’
manners, she is described as an ‘angel’ and ‘the most beautiful
creature’ ever seen (vol. 1, Letter 12). In real life, JA commented
upon the Austens’ débutante neighbour Miss Middleton: ‘Miss
M. seems very happy, but has not beauty enough to figure in
London’ (25 April 1811, L, p. 183).
25 chair: sedan chair – a narrow upright box-like conveyance for
one person, borne on poles by two chairmen. They had been
introduced to Bath in the seventeenth century, and were the
usual means of transporting ladies or invalids through the streets.
Chairmen were registered with the local magistrates, who laid
down fixed rates of charging, based on a combination of time
and distance; in the case of Bath, extra charges were allowable
for the difficulty of carrying a chair up and down hilly streets.
To go from the Upper Rooms to Great Pulteney Street probably
cost Catherine 1s.6d. or 2s. – an expensive luxury.
chapter 3
1 Pump-room: the Grand Pump Room was the hub of Bath social
life, situated at the centre of the city and just beside the great
west door of Bath Abbey. The first building had been erected in
1704–6, but was replaced during 1790–5 to a design by Thomas
Baldwin, so was still very new at the time of Catherine’s visit.
The room is 60 feet long by 46 feet wide and 34 feet high,
and the inside is set round with giant Corinthian columns. The
gallery for musicians is at the west end, and at the east end is
304
the ‘great clock’ by Tompion and a marble statue of Beau Nash

made in 1752. On the south side are fireplaces and a counter with
a marble vase, from which the attendant pumper drew up the
warm mineral water for the visitors to drink. ‘Here an excellent
company of musicians perform every morning, during the full
season; and a numerous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen,
walking up and down in social converse, during the performance,
presents a picture of animation which nothing can exceed. All
persons who are decently dressed, without any regard to fashion,
may freely perambulate the Pump-room. Those who drink the
waters, however, are expected to pay about a guinea a month,
besides a gratuity to the pumper’ (Feltham, Guide to Watering
Places, pp. 257–8).
2 master of the ceremonies: the Master of Ceremonies welcomed
visitors, introduced dancing partners to each other, and main-
tained rules of civility and dress at the Assemblies. The post had
existed at Bath Assemblies since the code of behaviour decreed
by Richard ‘Beau’ Nash (MC at Bath 1705–45) was publicised in
1707 and formally approved by the city in 1742; it involved con-
siderable social prominence and expertise. At the time of Cather-
ine’s visit James King was MC in the Lower Rooms (1785–1805),
and Richard Tyson was MC in the Upper Rooms (1785–1805).
3 address: the outward social appearance of a person, which
included his or her style, fashion, behaviour and manner of
speaking.
4 Monday...Wednesday: the Upper Rooms offered a dress ball on
Mondays, a card assembly on Tuesdays, a concert on Wednes-
days during the winter season and a fancy or cotillon ball on
Thursdays, in addition to being open for cards and coffee all the
year round. Dress balls were formal occasions and dancers had to
dress accordingly; for ‘undress’ or ‘fancy’ balls the dancers wore
historical or fictitious costumes. The Lower Rooms held a fancy
ball on Tuesdays and a dress ball on Fridays, and offered more
concerts and choral performances than did the Upper Rooms;
the Lower Rooms also had the advantage of fine views over
the countryside across the river Avon. The Theatre Royal, in
Orchard Street, gave performances on Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays.
305
5 sprigged muslin: decorated with a design of sprays of flowers or

leaves. These sprays or sprigs had originally been embroidered
on to the muslin by hand, but since the invention by Thomas Bell
of Glasgow in 1783 of a machine which printed such patterns
by using engraved metal cylinders, sprigged muslins had become
less expensive.
6 peculiarly female: sentimental novels were usually epistolary
and sometimes included excerpts from the heroines’ journals;
women’s conduct books, popular from the 1770s to the 1830s,
were also frequently written in the form of letters. The Revd
Thomas Gisborne observed ‘that when . . . amiable women
of improved understandings, write with simplicity, and employ
their pens in a more rational way than retailing the shapes of
head-dresses and gowns . . . their letters . . . possess a peculiar
ease; disclose in the most engaging manner the best affections of
the human heart; and shew with singular clearness the delicate
features and shades, which distinguish the mind of the writer’
(An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex, London, 1799,
pp. 117–19). However, women’s personal correspondence was
often derided by men for frivolous content and bad grammar –
as Henry Tilney goes on to tease Catherine in their following
conversation.
7 stops: punctuation marks. In April 1798 the Austens’ friend,
Mrs Bramston, wrote a long letter to her kinswoman, Mrs Hicks
Beach, without any punctuation at all, ending up ‘. . . what a deal
of paper I have Scribbled over I meant to have corrected it dotted
& stopped it but Supper is coming in & on revisal I might perhaps
be tempted to burn one Sheet or all but to you I write without
thought & as you are alone you will have time to puzzle it out . . .’
(Bramston archive, Hampshire Record Office, 20M64/19).
8 nine shillings a yard: not very expensive, since muslin could be
as much as thirty-six shillings a yard; roughly ten yards would be
required for a gown.
9 cravats: neck-cloths of linen or muslin, tied loosely in front, were
worn by both men and women in the seventeenth century. By
the 1790s the cravat was worn by men alone, wound around the
neck and tied in a bow in front, in the fashion established by
306
Beau Brummel, whose career as a dandy flourished from 1794

to 1816.
10 the choice of a gown: Henry Tilney was not buying a ready-made
gown for his sister, but was choosing a length of fabric which
would then be cut out and stitched by a professional dressmaker
to Eleanor’s instructions. Ready-made clothing, which could be
purchased ‘off the peg’ from a shop, did not become the norm
until very much later in the nineteenth century.
11 cap: an all-purpose indoor head-covering for women, fashion-
able from the 1790s until well into the nineteenth century. Made
of muslin, lace, or satin, and ornamented with flowers, feath-
ers or ribbons, it would be worn during the day to frame the
face and keep the hair out of the way; a simpler style would
be worn at night, to provide some warmth in cold bedrooms.
JA wrote: ‘I have made myself two or three caps to wear of
evenings . . . and they save me a world of torment as to hair-
dressing’ (1–2 December 1798, L, p. 24).
12 fag: slang for fatigue.
13 warm wine and water: intended as a soothing or soporific drink.
14 Vide a letter: JA’s own footnote refers to Samuel Richardson’s
essay published in 1751 in the twice-weekly periodical The Ram-
bler (20 March 1750–14 March 1752), edited and written mainly
by Samuel Johnson, which asserts: ‘That a young lady should be
in love, and the love of the young gentleman undeclared, is an
heterodoxy which prudence, and even policy, must not allow’
(No. 97, vol 2).
15 who her partner was: at this date clergymen were often the
younger sons of the nobility and gentry, as is Edmund Bertram
in MP, as well as Henry Tilney here in NA.
16 Gloucestershire: a rich agricultural county on the western
side of England, bordered by Monmouth (Wales), Hereford-
shire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and
Somerset. On its eastern side the limestone Cotswold Hills pro-
vided excellent grazing for sheep; the river Severn brought trade
by water up to the county town of Gloucester; and on its west-
ern side the oakwood Forest of Dean contained coal-mines and
iron-workings.
307
chapter 4
1 fashionable hours: George Robbins’ 1801 Bath Directory
(printed and sold by Robbins, Bath) recommends the music in
the Pump Room: ‘There is an excellent band of musicians, who
play many hours here every morning during the season.’
2 great clock: a ten-foot-high long-case timepiece by the master
craftsman Thomas Tompion, who presented it to the city of Bath
in 1709. It was placed in the original Pump Room, then moved
to Baldwin’s new building, and still stands there today.
3 despair of nothing . . . would gain: JA quotes again the popular
couplet first mentioned in chapter 2, but continues with a refer-
ence to some further lines: ‘Great blessings ever wait on virtuous
deeds / And tho’ a late a sure reward succeeds.’ Mrs Allen’s sure,
or just, reward, turns out to be the ‘great blessing’ of renewing
acquaintance with Mrs Thorpe.
4 complaisance: ‘civility; desire of pleasing’ ( Johnson).
5 intelligence: information, news, personal gossip.
6 Merchant-Taylors’: a grammar school founded by one of Lon-
don’s merchant guilds in 1561, situated in the city of London.
The school provided accessible and affordable education for boys
of the middle rank, including thirty-seven fellowships for under-
graduate study at St John’s College, Oxford.
7 pelisse: a cloak with sleeves, or long coat, reaching to the ankles,
trimmed with fur or lace.
8 Isabella: the name of one of the heroines in The Castle of Otranto,
a Gothic Story (London: T. Lownds, 1764), the novel by Horace
Walpole that started the craze for gothic romances.
9 turn: a stroll around the room, a common activity for ladies at
public assemblies, combining gentle exercise with opportunities
for private gossip. Such an indoor stroll could also be taken in
a large country house for the same reasons; in P&P Miss Bin-
gley attempts to attract Mr Darcy’s attention at Netherfield by
inviting Elizabeth Bennet to ‘take a turn about the room . . . it
is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude’. Darcy
concludes that they must have chosen ‘to walk up and down the
room together’ in order either to exchange secrets or to display
their figures (vol. 1, ch. 10).
308
10 Friendship . . . love: a sentimental cliché that JA also parodies

in ‘L&F’, which bears the epigraph ‘Deceived in Freindship &
Betrayed in Love’.
11 quizzes: odd-looking or eccentric people, suitable targets for
mockery.
12 Tunbridge: in 1606 mineral waters were discovered at Tunbridge
Wells, a small town in Kent some thirty-five miles from Lon-
don, which then became a fashionable spa and by the eighteenth
century was second in status as a resort only to Bath.
13 theatre: the New Play-House, erected by subscription in 1750
in Orchard Street. It became the Theatre Royal in 1767, but
closed in 1804 owing to lack of space, and a new and larger
theatre opened in 1805 in Beauford Square. The old theatre was
so small that (in chapter 12) it is very obvious to Catherine that
Henry, in the box opposite, is avoiding looking at her.
14 same chapel: as well as parish churches, Bath had several chapels,
both Anglican and Dissenting. The closest for the Allens and
Catherine to attend would have been Laura Chapel at the city
end of Great Pulteney Street, whereas for the Thorpes, lodging
in Edgar’s Buildings, the Octagon Chapel in Milsom Street was
just down the road. A third possibility, though rather further
away for both families, would have been St Mary’s Chapel on
the corner of Queen Square.
15 attornies: private agents for business and legal matters (usu-
ally but not necessarily lawyers), who often conspire with cor-
rupt guardians to defraud or defame the heroes and heroines
of eighteenth-century fiction. In Emmeline, the Croft family of
lawyers, hangers-on of the heroine’s rich and greedy uncle, Lord
Montreville, deliberately delay acknowledging her as the rightful
heiress of Mowbray Castle, as this will mean Lord Montreville
has to hand over a large part of his unlawfully held estate to her.
16 minute detail . . . minutely repeated: eighteenth-century novels
often interpolated long autobiographies or backstories by all the
characters as they were introduced, and sometimes elaborate and
irrelevant digressions as well. One such of the former was Rachel
Hunter’s Lady Maclairn, the Victim of Villainy (London: W. Earle
and J. W. Hucklebridge, 1806), which JA read together with her
309
Notes to page 28
niece Anna (29–31 October 1812, L, p. 195) and about which

Anna wrote in later years: ‘in a most unaccountable way the
same story about the same people most of whom I believe had
died before the real story began was repeated at least 3 times
over’. Maria Edgeworth was notorious for including in her works
didactic passages on ‘chemistry, mechanics, or political economy,
which are all excellent things in their way, but vile, cold-hearted
trash in a novel’, as the Earl of Dudley commented in 1814 (FR,
p. 212). Although JA enjoyed Edgeworth’s novels, she must have
been well aware of the incongruity of these interpolations, which
is no doubt why she commented ironically to Cassandra when
P&P was first published: ‘The work is rather too light & bright
& sparkling;—it wants shade;—it wants to be stretched out here
& there with a long Chapter—of sense if it could be had, if not of
solemn specious nonsense—about something unconnected with
the story; an Essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the
history of Buonaparte’ (4 February 1813, L, p. 203).
chapter 5
1 divine service: if the Allens and the Thorpes went to Laura
Chapel, they would have heard Dr Randolph preach at 11.00
a.m.; if to the Octagon, Dr Gardiner, at 11.15 a.m.; and if to St
Mary’s Queen Square, the Revd Mr Sibley, also at 11.15 a.m.
2 genteel: ‘polite; elegant in behaviour; civil’ ( Johnson); used by
the socially self-conscious until the middle of the nineteenth
century.
3 the Crescent: more correctly called the Royal Crescent, this is
a great half-ellipse about 600 feet long, made up of thirty large
houses, their 114 Ionic columns uniting them to form a clas-
sical palace frontage. The Crescent was built in 1767–75 by
John Wood the Younger, runs from Brock Street to Marlbor-
ough Buildings, and overlooks the Crescent Fields. ‘Higher up
is the Royal Crescent, a majestic assemblage of buildings of an
elliptical form, with a single order of Ionic pillars, supporting the
superior cornice. It consists of thirty elegant houses, with a fine
lawn in front, declining towards the Avon, and commands very
extensive prospects over the city and the opposite hills. By the
west end of this crescent runs that beautiful and airy pile, called
310
Marlborough-buildings’ (Feltham, Guide to Watering Places,

p. 267).
4 curricle-drivers: fashionable gentlemen who drove low-slung,
two-wheel, open carriages drawn by two horses abreast of each
other – the sports car of the period.
5 Pump-room book: a register that was signed by all the visitors,
so that the MC could introduce himself and encourage them to
join in the city’s social life: ‘he thus publicly requests that they will
on their arrival cause their names, with their places of abode, to
be inserted in the book kept in the Pump-room for that purpose,
which will afford him such information as will enable him to
comply with his own wishes, and the expectations of the public’
(Feltham, Guide to Watering Places, p. 254).
6 mysteriousness . . . hero: the sudden, unexplained departure
of the hero from the social scene and the heroine’s consequent
distress were staple devices of sentimental fiction.
7 Christian name: the use of a personal name was a sign of inti-
macy. Good manners dictated that friends and family members
of the gentry addressed each other formally by surname and the
title that indicated their social and familial rank, at least until they
became close friends. In MP, when Mary Crawford believes that
Fanny Price will accept Henry Crawford’s proposal of marriage,
she writes to her: ‘My dear Fanny, for so I may now always call
you, to the infinite relief of a tongue that has been stumbling at
Miss Price for at least the last six weeks . . .’ (vol. 2, ch. 13).
8 pinned up . . . set: ladies pinned up their ball-gown trains for ease
in performing the formal steps, curtseys and bows of the dance.
Divided into ‘sets’ (groups of some specific number), dancers
stood across from their partners in lines or circles.
9 ungenerous . . . disgust: novels were deplored by didactic, fem-
inist authors for stimulating undisciplined emotion in young
women. Maria Edgeworth wrote in the Advertisement to Belinda
(London: J. Johnson, 1801): ‘The following work is offered to
the public as a Moral Tale—the author not wishing to acknowl-
edge a Novel . . . so much folly, error, and vice are disseminated
in books classed under this denomination, that it is hoped the
wish to assume another title will be attributed to feelings that
are laudable and not fastidious.’
311
10 effusions of fancy: when George Austen gave to JA on 6 May

1792 the manuscript quarto book which she used for ‘Volume
The Third’ of her juvenilia, he wrote inside the front cover:
‘Effusions of Fancy by a very Young Lady consisting of Tales in
a Style entirely new’.
11 Reviewers . . . groans: the moral and critical disparagement of
popular fiction had become a cliché by the late 1790s, particu-
larly in the Critical Review, a very respectable intellectual journal
which ran for more than fifty years from 1756 onwards.
12 History of England: Oliver Goldsmith wrote The History of
England, From the Earliest Times to the Death of George II
(London, 1771, 4 vols.), and followed it up with an Abridgement
of the History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar, to the
Death of George II (London: G. Kearsley, 1774), this smaller work
being several times reprinted over the next twenty years. The
Austen family owned the full four-volume version, and in her
teens JA wrote pro-Stuart sentiments in the margins of this copy.
13 collects . . . Sterne: anthologies of literary extracts from famous
texts, usually by male authors, exemplifying aesthetic and moral
virtue, became popular in the late eighteenth century as copyright
laws eased and vernacular literature became a pedagogical tool.
14 Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda: Cecilia (1782) and Camilla
(1795) are by Frances Burney, Belinda (1801) by Maria
Edgeworth; they exemplify the new literary fashion for carefully
drawn, often satirical, character portraits and detailed, comic sto-
ries of heroines learning to negotiate social rules. JA subscribed
for a copy of Camilla and it is mentioned in her letters of 1, 5 and
15–16 September 1796 (L, pp. 6, 9); she also refers to Cecilia in
her letter of 24 January 1809 (L, p. 168); but on 28 September
1814 she wrote to her niece Anna: ‘I have made up my mind to
like no Novels really, but Miss Edgeworth’s, Yours & my own’
(L, p. 278).
15 the Spectator: a daily periodical founded by Richard Steele and
Joseph Addison, which published 555 issues between 1711 and
1712, and was revived in 1714 for a further eighty issues. It fea-
tured fictional letters from a small group of English character
types designed to represent the country gentry, army, town and
merchant classes. It also included serious and comic essays on
312
manners, morals, literature and culture. It was widely read, par-

ticularly by the middle rank of society, and remained popular
throughout the eighteenth century, as a result of reprintings in
book format. At Steventon, JA’s eldest brother, James, owned
an eight-volume set (1775), and she herself owned at least one
volume (VI) of a 1744 edition (Gilson, pp. 435–6).
chapter 6
1 Milsom-street: built in 1762–8, Milsom Street was laid out to
link the low-lying old centre of Bath with the new developments
springing up on the hillsides to the north. It was initially purely a
residential area, but soon became the most fashionable shopping
street in Bath, with expensive lodgings above the shops.
2 coquelicot: French for ‘poppy’ – an orange-red colour fashion-
able in 1798.
3 Udolpho . . . Laurentina’s skeleton: Catherine is mis-
remembering – the name of the villainess is Laurentini. See
Appendix, p. 278.
4 the Italian: see Appendix, p. 283.
5 Castle of Wolfenbach . . . Horrid Mysteries: Isabella lists
seven recently published gothic romances: Eliza Parsons, Castle
of Wolfenbach; a German Story, 2 vols. (London: Minerva Press,
1793); Regina Maria Roche, Clermont, a Tale, 4 vols. (London:
Minerva Press, 1798); Eliza Parsons, The Mysterious Warning,
a German Tale, 4 vols. (London: Minerva Press, 1796); Carl
Friedrich Kahlert (originally anonymous), The Necromancer: or
the Tale of the Black Forest: founded on facts. Translated from the Ger-
man of Lawrence Flammenberg, by Peter Teuthold, 2 vols. (London:
Minerva Press, 1794); Francis Lathom (originally anonymous),
The Midnight Bell, a German Story, founded on incidents in real life,
3 vols. (London: printed for H. D. Symonds, 1798); Eleanor
Sleath, The Orphan of the Rhine, a Romance, 4 vols. (London:
Minerva Press, 1798); Karl Friedrich August Grosse, trans. Peter
Will, Horrid Mysteries. A Story, from the German of the Marquis
of Grosse, 4 vols. (London: Minerva Press, 1796).
6 horrid: frightening, thrilling. The term also meant ‘shocking;
offensive; unpleasing, in women’s cant’ ( Johnson), but here
Catherine intends the former, not the latter, meaning. In 1795
313
William Enfield, the critic of the Monthly Review, commented

on The Abbey of St Asaph that ‘[the author] has thought it nec-
essary, in compliance with the present rage for the terrible,
to conduct the reader into a horrid cavern (where the father
of the heroine has been shut up for the unmerciful term of
nineteen years) and there to terrify him with a fiery spectre
emitting from its gaping jaw sulphureous flames, and send-
ing forth horrid screams, and with a moving and shrieking
skeleton,—only that he may afterwards have the pleasure of find-
ing that he had no occasion to be frightened, the spectre being
only a man, its infernal flames nothing more than a prepara-
tion of phosphorous, and the inhabitant of the skeleton not a
ghost but a rat’ (Monthly Review n.s. 18, October 1795, review
no. 42).
7 My attachments . . . excessively strong: strong, instinctive feel-
ing was a sentimental virtue. Heroes and heroines in gothic nov-
els experience instant, immutable emotions of friendship and
love. JA mocks this in ‘L&F’, when Laura meets Sophia for
the first time: ‘We flew into each others arms and after having
exchanged vows of mutual Freindship for the rest of our Lives,
instantly unfolded to each other the most inward secrets of our
Hearts’ (Letter 8th).
8 objects to novels: many eighteenth-century moralists and cler-
gymen disapproved of fiction on the grounds that it encouraged
immorality. In 1818 the Revd William Jones, vicar of Brox-
bourne, Hertfordshire, confided to his diary: ‘Novels, even of
the best sort, I would read very sparingly,—as I would have
recourse to drams [small drinks of strong alcohol]. Rosanne
was introduced to our breakfast & tea-readings by my Dosy
[daughter], who has great influence over me;—& I was much
pleased. Gertrude I rejected, a year or two ago; but we are now
reading & admiring the character of dear Gatty Aubrey’ (The
Diary of the Revd William Jones, 1777–1821, ed. O. F. Christie,
London: Brentano’s, 1929, pp. 275–6). The novels referred to
are Letitia-Matilda Hawkins, Rosanne, or, a Father’s Labour Lost
(London: printed for F. C. and J. Rivington, 1814); Letitia-
Matilda Hawkins, The Countess and Gertrude, or, Modes of Dis-
cipline (London: printed for F. C. and J. Rivington, 1811); and
314
perhaps Aubrey, a Novel, by R. C. Dallas (London: printed for

T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1804).
9 Sir Charles Grandison . . . our way: Richardson’s six-volume
novel (1754) portraying a most virtuous hero, was immensely
popular, and was one of JA’s great favourites. ‘Every circumstance
narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all that was ever said or done
in the cedar parlour, was familiar to her; and the wedding days
of Lady L. and Lady G. were as well remembered as if they had
been living friends’ (Memoir, p. 71).
10 Edgar’s Buildings: a terrace of nine large houses fronting the
top of Milsom Street and built as part of the same development,
hence quite a fashionable address.
chapter 7
1 Pump-yard . . . Union-passage . . . principal inn: the Pump-
yard was and is the large, open, paved square in front of the
Pump Room and the Abbey Church. On the north side lay the
busy Cheap Street, which linked the High Street to the Bristol
Road and passed the White Hart Inn. Thomas Baldwin laid
out Union Street (built 1805–10), and improved Union-passage
parallel to it (previously the narrow medieval Cockes Lane), as
part of the Bath Improvement Act of 1789. The White Hart Inn
was demolished in 1867 and replaced by the Pump Room Hotel;
this in its turn was demolished in the twentieth century, and the
site is now occupied by an office block, Arlington House.
2 gig: a two-wheeled, one-horse, light carriage. Catherine’s sur-
prise at seeing her brother is because she realises he is playing
truant – in the middle of February he should be studying at
Oxford, halfway through the Lent term.
3 servant: an ostler from the White Hart.
4 devoirs: from the French – polite greetings, compliments.
5 horses: there is in fact only one horse, that which John Thorpe is
driving in his gig. The plural may perhaps be a printer’s error; or
perhaps JA initially wrote: ‘giving orders about the horse’s feed’ –
or some similar wording – and failed to correct the phrase fully
when she changed her mind.
6 scrape: the first part, but clumsily executed, of a bow, so called
from the noise made when the leg is drawn back without the foot
315
being properly lifted off the ground. That John Thorpe cannot
or will not bow properly is an indication of his ill-breeding.
7 Tetbury: a small town in Gloucestershire, on the main road
between Oxford and Bath – some forty-six miles from Oxford
and twenty-three miles north of Bath.
8 true blood: the horse is a thoroughbred from pure stock.
9 Walcot Church: the small church of St Swithin’s, Walcot, is
on the north side of Bath. Originally a medieval foundation, it
was rebuilt in the 1730s, and JA’s parents were married there
in 1764. It was rebuilt again in the neoclassical style in 1777–
80, with further additions in 1790. George Austen was buried
there in 1805, and his ledger-stone is now displayed in the little
churchyard.
10 forehand: the front half of a horse’s body, as seen from the rider’s
seat in the saddle.
11 Christ-church man: an undergraduate at Christ Church Col-
lege, Oxford University. Founded between 1525 and 1546, and
known familiarly in Oxford as ‘The House’, Christ Church is
both a college and the cathedral for the Oxford diocese, and the
Head of the college is also Dean of the cathedral.
12 Magdalen Bridge: built over the river Cherwell in 1772–82 by
James Gwynne; the magnificent Gothic tower of Magdalen Col-
lege rises just behind it, and the combination of the two comprises
one of the architectural vistas of Oxford.
13 d——: curses and proper names were commonly replaced by
dashes in the eighteenth century to protect the printer from any
charges of blasphemy and libel.
14 Curricle-hung . . . complete: the gig’s body hangs like that
of a curricle on a light frame of two side pieces and two cross
bars at each end. The trunk was a box at the back, designed
to hold luggage; the sword-case was intended for a gentleman’s
duelling rapiers or fencing foils; the splashing-board was a screen
mounted in front of the driver’s seat. A curricle needed two horses
to draw it, but a gig only one, hence the latter was the cheaper
vehicle to buy and to run – which accounts for John Thorpe’s
boasting, as he tries to pretend his second-hand gig is nearly as
good as the more expensive carriage.
316
15 fifty guineas: John Thorpe has paid £52.10s.0d. for his second-
hand gig, but as a new one would have cost only £5 more, he
has not made a bargain. The carriage-maker William Felton
published prices in his catalogue to enable every customer to
evade ‘any attempt . . . made to impose upon him, either in the
original price charged for a new carriage . . . or in the necessary
expence that may be requisite to repair the damages a carriage
may have sustained by time or accident’ (William Felton, Treatise
on Carriages, London, 1794, pp. 107–9, vi–vii).
16 pitiful: in slang, ‘paltry, contemptible’, although, ironically, the
word primarily means ‘melancholy’ or ‘compassionate’ ( John-
son).
17 Oriel: one of the colleges of Oxford University and founded in
1326. The Revd Richard Buller of Colyton took his degree at
Oriel in 1798 after being one of Mr Austen’s pupils at Steventon;
he was evidently very fond of his tutor’s family, and is mentioned
in several of JA’s letters before his early death.
18 propriety of accepting such an offer: a central dilemma in sen-
timental, conduct and gothic novels in which heroines confront
awkward social or moral situations.
19 Lansdown Hill: to the north-west of Bath, part of the high
ground between Bath and Bristol.
20 Tom Jones . . . Monk: John Thorpe’s admiration for these two
novels gives a clue to his character. Henry Fielding published The
History of Tom Jones, a Foundling in 1749: Tom Jones is a humanly
fallible hero – cheerful and generous-hearted, but also imprudent
and sensual – who has various sexual escapades before discovering
his true identity and marrying his childhood sweetheart, Sophia
Western. The Monk, by M[atthew] G[regory] Lewis, was writ-
ten in ten weeks when the author was only 19, and was published
in 1796. The rigidly pious monk Ambrosio yields to seduction
by the beautiful Matilda, who is an evil spirit in disguise; under
her influence he becomes ever more depraved, murdering his
mother and raping his half-sister in a charnel-house surrounded
by corpses; he then sells his soul to the devil and dies in great tor-
ments. The book enjoyed a considerable success, though moral
disapproval led to an expurgated edition being issued in 1798.
317
21 French emigrant . . . see-saw: Burney, having become famous

for her novels Evelina and Cecilia, married the French emigré
General Alexandre d’Arblay in 1793. In the third chapter of
Camilla the benevolent but nervous Sir Hugh Tyrold, Camilla’s
uncle, entertaining his nieces on a seesaw, grows suddenly dizzy,
drops his favourite Eugenia and cripples her; his carelessness has
earlier exposed her to smallpox, which scars her for life. Filled
with guilt, he makes her heiress to his fortune in place of Camilla,
an example of the unpredictable impulses of rich men (vol. 1,
bk 1, chs. 3–5). In the fourth chapter, he seeks to soothe his
remorse and improve his education by learning Latin.
22 rattle: colloquialism for an over-talkative person, a chatterbox.
23 tippet: the name of tippet has been given to different fashion
accessories at different periods, but basically it is an item of
neckware. In JA’s time it was a very long, narrow scarf, worn
looped around the neck and shoulders, with the ends trailing to
knee-level in front – more decorative than useful. JA herself had
an ‘Ermine Tippet’, which was much admired as a ‘noble Gift’
(5–8 March 1814, L, p. 260). Mrs Allen’s muff and tippet are
probably a matching pair.
24 OctagonRoom: in the Upper Rooms, the Octagon Card-Room,
forty-eight feet in diameter, had four marble chimney-pieces; the
portrait of an earlier MC, Captain Wade (1769–77), by Thomas
Gainsborough was prominently displayed there.
chapter 8
1 stand up: begin the dance by standing facing each other in lines
or ‘sets’ of dancers. Dances were performed in twos, as the couples
progressed down the room and then up again, and partners could
not be changed until the two dances were completed. In P&P
Mrs Bennet comes home from the Meryton assembly ball and
tells her husband: ‘Jane was so admired, nothing could be like
it . . . Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful . . . he seemed quite
struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So, he enquired
who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next’
(vol. 1, ch. 3). In real life, the authoress Mary Russell Mitford
was painfully conscious of the fact that she was both short and
fat, and wrote to her old friend Sir William Elford in 1815:
318
‘What, indeed, should I do at a dance with my dumpling of a

person tumbling about like a cricket-ball on uneven ground, or
a bowl rolling among nine-pins—casting off with the grace of a
frisky Yorkshire cow, or going down the middle with the majesty of
an overloaded hay-waggon passing through a narrow lane? What
should I do at a ball? I have not been at one for these two years,
and never, if I can avoid it, mean to go to one again’ (R. Brimley
Johnson, ed., The Letters of Mary Russell Mitford, London: John
Lane The Bodley Head, 1925, p. 132).
2 the real dignity . . . character: the silent endurance of misrep-
resentation and abuse is a test of a sentimental heroine’s noble
character. In Udolpho, Madame Cheron accuses Emily of clan-
destinely meeting Valancourt: ‘A faint blush passed over Emily’s
countenance; pride and anxiety struggled in her breast; and, till
she recollected, that appearances did, in some degree, justify her
aunt’s suspicions, she could not resolve to humble herself so far as
to enter into the defence of a conduct, which had been so innocent
and undesigning on her part’ (vol. 1, ch. 10).
3 married already . . . bosom: sentimental heroines frequently
faint or suffer hysterical fits upon receiving an emotional
shock, particularly when suspecting or discovering the beloved’s
prior engagement or apparent infidelity. When Emily ‘perceived
Valancourt; saw him dancing with a young and beautiful lady,
saw him conversing with her with a mixture of attention and
familiarity, such as she had seldom observed in his manner . . . a
faintness suddenly came over [her], and, unable to support her-
self, she sat down on a turf bank beneath the trees’ (vol. 1,
ch. 12). Again, later on, when the Count de Villefort tells Emily
that Valancourt has been leading a life of debauchery in Paris:
‘He . . . perceived her countenance change, and that she was falling
from the seat; he caught her, but she had fainted, and he called
loudly for assistance’ (vol. 3, ch. 13).
4 mortification . . . lady: a lady’s inability to withdraw from her
agreement to dance with one gentleman in favour of a preferred
later applicant was a common dilemma in the novel of manners.
In Evelina, Lord Orville thinks the heroine is either ‘ignorant or
mischievous’ when he learns that though dancing with him she
had earlier refused Lovel as a dance partner. When confronted
319
by an angry Lovel, Evelina is ashamed and confused, regretting

that she was ignorant of the rules of an assembly and ‘had not
once considered the impropriety of refusing one partner, and
afterwards accepting another’ (vol. 1, Letter 12).
5 letting in this young lady . . . obligation: country dances were
held in a variety of forms, as circles, squares for eight cou-
ples, or more usually long rows for as many couples as wished
to dance. Catherine is conferring a rather unlawful favour on
Eleanor, because the rules of conduct at both the Assembly
Rooms decreed: ‘That a reasonable time be allowed between the
minuets and country-dances, for ladies of precedence to take
their places; and that those who shall stand up after the dance
is begun, must take their places for that dance at the bottom,
and not be permitted to sit down till the dance is finished’, and:
‘That no lady do permit another to come in above her, after she
has taken her place in the set’ (Feltham, Guide to Watering Places
pp. 251–2). These rules were intended to ensure that every lady
had the opportunity of dancing up and down the centre of the
row.
6 It would . . . partners: at local assemblies even dancing with the
same partner twice in one evening was seen as a mark of special
attention: in P&P Mrs Bennet is delighted when Mr Bingley
dances with Jane for the second and fifth dances (vol. 1, ch. 3)
and Mary Edwards is ‘humble’ in having to confess to her parents
that she danced the first and last dances with Captain Hunter in
The Watsons. At more public places, however, where the dancers’
range of personal acquaintance, and therefore potential partners,
might be more limited, the rules were less strict.
7 quizzes: the copytext has ‘quizzers’ here, but it seems clear that
John Morland is referring to his sisters and their partners as the
object of quizzing, rather than as people quizzing others.
chapter 9
1 The progress of Catherine’s unhappiness . . . fresh schemes:
sentimental novels depict the meticulous stages of the heroine’s
extreme feelings, which can even lead to temporary madness.
In Burney’s Cecilia the heroine imagines her lover, Delvile, has
been injured in a duel and roams the streets in search of him:
320
‘her senses were wholly disordered; she forgot her situation, her
intention, and herself . . . she seemed as if endued with supernat-
ural speed, gliding from place to place, from street to street; with
no consciousness of any plan . . . till quite spent and exhausted,
she abruptly ran into a yet open shop, where, breathless and
panting, she sunk upon the floor, and, with a look disconsolate
and helpless, sat for some time without speaking’ (vol. 5, bk 10,
ch. 7).
2 that old devil . . . into: evidently James, who came to Bath
with John Thorpe, has had to hire a carriage – a gig, as it soon
transpires, the same kind of carriage as Thorpe’s own – so that he
can drive Isabella, and Catherine can take his place with Thorpe.
In major social centres such as Bath coachmakers would generally
keep a range of vehicles for hire.
3 tumble: there are several slangy meanings for the verb ‘to tumble’,
when qualified by different prepositions, and some of them have
a sexual connotation. This may be what the coarse-minded John
Thorpe is implying here – that James and Isabella will find in the
excursion some excuse for tumbling over each other in physical
contact.
4 Claverton Down: a beauty spot above the river Avon, about
three miles east of the centre of Bath.
5 dust: slang for a fuss, or disturbance.
6 take the rest: the horse will become restive, perhaps plunging
or jibbing instead of setting off at a steady pace (from the Scot-
tish dialect word ‘reest’ or ‘reist’, describing such an ill-behaved
animal).
7 as rich as a Jew: a coarse cliché for a wealthy, often self-made,
man, since many of Europe’s bankers and moneylenders were
Jewish. John Thorpe then goes on to enquire if Mr Allen is
Catherine’s godfather, since if he were, by contemporary stan-
dards he could well be expected to give or bequeath some of
his riches to her. In the eighteenth century, to be a godparent
was a position of much more importance than it is today, and
godparents were chosen for this role not only on the grounds of
friendship or relationship with the baby’s family, but also in the
hope that they would provide social or financial assistance as the
child grew up. In return the baby was usually given the Christian
321
name of the godparent; JA’s two godmothers were Mrs Jane

Austen of Sevenoaks, her great-aunt, and Mrs Jane Musgrave
of Chinnor, one of Mrs Austen’s cousins. In P&P Wickham is
the godson of Darcy’s father, and as such was bequeathed by
him ‘the next presentation of the best living in his gift’ (vol. 1,
ch. 16).
8 bottle a-day . . . Oxford now: the eighteenth-century wine bottle
was about three-quarters the capacity of a modern wine bottle,
but even so, the Revd James Woodforde, who was an undergrad-
uate at New College, Oxford, from 1759 to 1763, often notes in
his diary the occasions when he and his friends were drunk and
disorderly. ‘March 11, 1761: Baker and Croucher both of Mer-
ton Coll: spent their evening in the B.C.R. [Bachelors’ Com-
mon Room]. Croucher was devilish drunk indeed, and made
great noise there, but we carried him away to Peckham’s Bed
in Triumph.’ ‘June 1, 1763: I took my B.A. Degree this morn-
ing . . . Reynels, myself, Lucas, Peckham and Webber treated (as
is usual) the B.C.R. after dinner with Wine, and after Supper
with Wine and Punch all the evening . . . I sat up in the B.C.R.
this evening till after twelve o’clock, and then went to bed, and
at three in the morning, had my outward doors broken open,
my glass door broke, and pulled out of bed, and brought into
the B.C.R., where I was obliged to drink and smoak, but not
without a good many words. Peckham broke my doors, being
very drunk, although they were open, which I do not relish of
Peckham much’ ( John Beresford, ed., The Diary of a Country Par-
son 1758–1802, by James Woodforde, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1963, pp. 7, 17).
9 tittuppy: unsteady, shaky.
10 York: the historic city of York, county town of Yorkshire, is 268
miles north-east of Bath and 211 miles north of London, hence
Thorpe invokes the place as an example of a long journey.
11 morning: in social terms, ‘morning’ extended to the hour of the
main meal of the day, and therefore included the early and mid-
afternoon.
12 twenty thousand pounds . . . wedding-clothes: a girl’s dowry
could be used to buy land or invest in government funds, which
at 5 per cent would have brought the General and his new wife
322
about £1,000 a year; a separate sum of £500 would be a large

amount to spend upon Mrs Tilney’s trousseau.
chapter 10
1 his glass of water: the medicinal regime at Bath would involve
regular doses of the natural waters, which were warm and tasted
strongly of the minerals they contained. The water was served
in glasses in the Pump Room.
2 cotillion ball: a ball specifically featuring the cotillion, a peasant
dance originating in France, which became popular in England
about 1770. The word means ‘under-petticoat’, and refers to the
original custom requiring that women loop up their top skirts in
order to perform the figures.
3 a lecture on the subject: the dangers of female finery as a prompt
to pride, anger, envy, social ambition and lust was a common
theme for eighteenth-century moralists. In The Spectator no. 80,
1 June 1711, Steele writes a comic moral tale of the two beauties
Brunetta and Phillis, who, after being childhood friends, start to
envy each other’s clothes: ‘These Beginnings of Dis-inclination
soon improved into a Formality of Behaviour, a general Coldness,
and by natural Steps into an irreconcileable Hatred . . . Their
Nights grew restless with Meditation of new Dresses to out-vie
each other, and inventing new Devices to recall Admirers, who
observed the Charms of the one rather than those of the other
on the last Meeting.’
4 tamboured: hand-embroidered, done with the help of a ‘tam-
bour’ (French for drum) – two circular wooden frames between
which muslin or silk was clipped to make it smooth and taut for
needlework.
5 mull . . . jackonet: both Indian muslin fabrics. Mull is a plain,
thin cotton, jackonet a heavier weave.
6 country-dancing: so called from the French ‘contre-danse’, in
which an indefinite number of dancers face each other in two
long rows. At Bath assemblies these less formal dances generally
occurred during the second part of the evening, after 8.00 p.m.
7 Leicestershire: a county in the midlands of England, bordered
by Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, War-
wickshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. During the eighteenth
323
century it became famous for the excellent foxhunting which

took place over its open, rolling countryside.
8 lavender water: a scent or toilet water distilled from lavender
flowers, often used to cool fevered brows.
9 people . . . lengthen their six weeks into ten or twelve: earlier
in the eighteenth century Bath had had two seasons, autumn
and spring, but by the mid-century these had joined together
to become six full months over the winter. From about 1780
onwards, the season lasted for nine months, September to May,
and cheaper lodgings were only to be had between June and
August. Received advice was that the water should ‘be drunk
in the morning fasting, between the hours of six and ten, and
again about noon. The quantity usually taken in the course
of a day is from one pint to three; but this ought always to
be regulated by some judicious physician on the spot. . . . A
course of the Bath waters should seldom exceed a month or
six weeks, at most, without intermission. . . . In no form
are the Bath waters to be sported with; they are capable of
doing much good; but, injudiciously or improperly used, they
may also do infinite harm.’ (Feltham, Guide to Watering Places,
pp. 245–6).
chapter 11
1 Udolpho . . . weather: Catherine is mis-remembering again. Ann
Radcliffe has many paragraphs describing the fine weather in
the French and Italian countryside, but none specifically relating
to Udolpho, where instead she repeats descriptions of the huge
ruinous castle. Furthermore, the name of the heroine’s father is
St Aubert, not St Aubin; and the ‘beautiful weather’ is on the
night before he died. See Appendix, pp. 274 and 275.
2 Bristol: an ancient city and seaport, on the river Avon, 120 miles
west of London and thirteen miles north-west of Bath. In JA’s
time it was a commercial and manufacturing centre, second in
size only to London, and much involved in the importation of
rum, sugar and tobacco.
3 Clifton: as living conditions in the cramped and smelly medieval
streets of Bristol became ever more unpleasant, during the eigh-
teenth century rich merchants moved out and built themselves
324
houses at Clifton, a village on the hills to the west of the city.

Clifton overlooked the picturesque Avon Gorge, a 300-foot deep
cleft in the limestone rocks through which the river Avon wound
its last few miles towards the Bristol Channel and the open sea.
For a short time Clifton became a small spa in its own right, with
lodging houses and an Assembly Room, and a Pump Room over
the Hotwells down at river level.
4 Kingsweston . . . Blaize Castle: Kingsweston is a village a few
miles beyond Clifton; Blaise or Blaize Castle is in fact a gothic
folly, built on a hilltop by the Bristol sugar-merchant Thomas
Farr in 1766 to enhance the view from his house at Henbury on
the outskirts of the city. The castle has one circular room with
three small towers, making it triangular in appearance.
5 Broad-street: one of the original main thoroughfares of the
medieval town; Milsom Street was laid out parallel to it, to pro-
vide a more elegant, modern route northwards.
6 phaeton with bright chesnuts: a fashionable light carriage, with
the body hung high over its four wheels, here pulled by chestnut
horses.
7 Lansdown Road: a main road leading north-west out of Bath,
up Lansdown Hill.
8 Wick Rocks: limestone crags forming a small but picturesque
glen on the outskirts of Wick, a Gloucestershire village midway
between Bath and Bristol; it was a well-known beauty spot of the
period, and all visitors to the area were recommended to make
an excursion there.
9 broken arches . . . trap-doors: half-ruined halls, dusty
tapestries concealing secret doors, and trap-doors leading to
dungeon staircases, were staple features of fictional castles or
abbeys.
10 Argyle-buildings: in Argyle Street, which runs from Pulteney
Bridge to Laura Place; it was planned as a shopping or commer-
cial street as part of the Bathwick development.
11 the Market-place: in the centre of Bath, and ‘in which may gen-
erally be found plenty of fish, flesh, and fowl, and every other
kind of provision, at moderate prices, considering the number
and opulence of the company who resort to this place. The mar-
kets, in point of supply and regulation, are equalled by few, and
325
excelled by none in England. The market days for butcher’s meat

are Wednesdays and Saturdays; and for poultry, vegetables, and
other articles, every day in the week except Sundays’ (Feltham,
Guide to Watering Places, pp. 269–70). When JA and her family
moved to Bath in the spring of 1801, she wrote to Cassandra,
then away on a visit: ‘I am not without hopes of tempting Mrs
Lloyd to settle in Bath;—Meat is only 8d per pound, butter 12d
& cheese 9 12 d . You must carefully conceal from her however the
exorbitant price of Fish;—a salmon has been sold at 2s :9d pr
pound the whole fish’ (5–6 May 1801, L, p. 82).
12 stop . . . submit: Catherine’s unwilling ride with Thorpe is a par-
ody of a typical gothic abduction. In Charlotte Smith’s Emmeline,
the wild young Delamere is determined to elope with the hero-
ine to Gretna Green despite her own refusal and his family’s
opposition to their marriage: ‘They all this while approached the
chaise. Delamere had hired servants, whom he had instructed
what to do. They were ready at the door of the carriage. Emme-
line attempted in vain to retreat. Delamere threw his arms around
her; and assisted by Fitz-Edward, lifted her into it with a sort of
gentle violence. He leaped in after her, and the chaise was driven
away instantly’ (vol. 2, ch. 3).
13 lofty rooms . . . total darkness: gothic clichés exemplified in
Radcliffe’s novels, and originating from Otranto.
14 Keynsham: a small town in Somerset, about eight miles north-
west of Bath on the road to Bristol.
15 halloo: a loud cry used to encourage foxhounds, or, as here, to
attract the attention of someone at a distance.
16 broken-winded jade’s pace: stable slang denoting a horse of infe-
rior breed afflicted with an incurable respiratory ailment.
17 a card: calling-cards first became popular at the end of the eigh-
teenth century, and were intended to prevent errors by forgetful
servants. John Trusler recommended that ladies and gentlemen
always leave a visiting card engraved with their name and address
upon their first visit to an acquaintance; indeed, merely ‘leaving
your name on a card at the door, is considered a visit’ (A System
of Etiquette, Bath, 1804, p. 30).
18 a pool of commerce: a popular eighteenth-century card game
resembling poker; each player is dealt three cards face down, lays
326
a bet, and then may exchange, barter or discard them until a

player demands the cards be shown. The pool of accumulated
money goes to the player with the best hand.
19 a full ball: well-attended, which would give plenty of scope for
finding different partners and dancing all the evening.
20 Kings: since these were the highest, or sometimes the second-
highest, value card in the game of commerce, Catherine’s hand
ensures that Isabella and James will not win this round.
chapter 12
1 white: the fashionable colour for elegant young women in the
1790s, denoting purity and elegance. To wear white also implied
a lady was fairly wealthy, with plenty of gowns to change as
soon as they were soiled, and the ability to pay laundresses and
maidservants to keep washing them.
2 offence . . . politeness: directing a servant to deny a caller by
falsely claiming to be not at home, was a social fiction that
was sometimes necessitated by circumstances, but could also be
intended as a deliberate snub to the caller.
3 conscious innocence: gothic and sentimental heroines typically
suffer malicious slander and suspicions in dignified silence, or else
cannot defend themselves for fear of betraying a third party. In
Emmeline, Delamere bursts in upon her while she is holding Lady
Adelina’s illegitimate baby, jumps to the conclusion it is her own
and fathered by his friend Fitz-Edward, and rushes away before
Emmeline can say anything: ‘that he should have conceived such
strange suspicions of her and Fitz-Edward, equally surprised and
distressed her; since, had she an opportunity of undeceiving him,
which he did not seem willing to allow her, she could not relate
the truth but by betraying the confidence of her unfortunate
friend, and embittering that life she had incurred such hazards
to preserve.’
4 consequential manner: with a self-important or pompous tone
of voice.
5 a gentleman-like . . . lived: a grammatical construction now
obsolete, but not an error. JA used the same construction in S&S,
when Mrs Jennings describes Lucy Steele as ‘a good-hearted girl
as ever lived’ (vol. 3, ch. 2).
327
6 the Bedford: the Bedford Coffee House, at the north-east corner

of the Piazza in Covent Garden, the London theatre district; it
was the most noted coffee house in London, frequented over the
years by actors, authors and literati.
7 billiard-room . . . touch: a large room devoted to the game of
billiards, a fashionable novelty in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. A touch is a test or stroke. In S&S Mr Palmer
is very bored at Barton Park: ‘Dulness is as much produced within
doors as without, by rain . . . What the devil does Sir John mean
by not having a billiard room in his house? How few people know
what comfort is!’ (vol. 1, ch. 20). At Godmersham, Edward Knight
instituted a billiard-room, and in the autumn of 1813 his daughter
Fanny records in her pocket-book the family playing billiards and
battledore on wet evenings (Knatchbull-Hugessen archive, Centre
for Kentish Studies, U.951/F.24/10).
chapter 13
1 Monday . . . week: Richardson’s and Burney’s heroines usually
write meticulously detailed letters and journals. JA’s own letters
to Cassandra are almost like diaries, giving as she often does an
hour-by-hour description of how she has spent the day.
2 the afternoon’s Crescent of this day: JA’s neatly elliptic summary
of the fact that Catherine and James, with John and Isabella, are
walking in the Royal Crescent on the Sunday afternoon. The Cres-
cent, with its imposing sweep of houses, comfortably flagstoned
wide promenade in front of them, and green fields below sloping
away towards the Bristol Road, was a natural amphitheatre, where
civic events were held and where all residents and visitors walked
out to see and be seen. JA mentions the Crescent several times
in her letters: ‘In the morning Lady Willoughby is to present the
Colours to some Corps of Yeomanry or other, in the Crescent . . .’
(L, 2 June 1799, p. 43); ‘On Sunday we went to Church twice,
& after evening service walked a little in the Crescent fields, but
found it too cold to stay long.’ (L, 12–13 May 1801, p. 84); ‘We did
not walk long in the Crescent yesterday, it was hot & not crouded
enough, so we went into the field . . .’ (L, 8–11 April 1805, p. 99).
328
3 Brock-street: developed by John Wood the younger in 1763–70;

it leads from the Crescent, where the conversation occurs, to the
Circus.
4 as obstinate as——— . . . proper one: it has generally been
recognised that there is probably a textual error here, but it is
unclear what is intended. The accusation of Catherine’s obstinacy
seems to be made by James rather than Thorpe, but as written it
is Thorpe who ‘never finished the simile’.
5 quarter of an hour: the conventional length of a formal visit.
Trusler writes, ‘On paying visits of ceremony, care should be
taken not to make them too long, nor too frequent; a quarter
of an hour, or twenty minutes, is sufficient time to exchange
compliments, or run over the topics of the day’ (Etiquette, p. 31).
6 Young men . . . places together: in the eighteenth century, and
well into the nineteenth, unmarried women of good family were
always obliged to be accompanied in public by a chaperone.
chapter 14
1 Beechen Cliff: a steep wooded hill (which could also be
described as a hanger) to the south of Bath, across the river
Avon, affording a spectacular prospect of the city.
2 Hermitage-walk: secluded rustic buildings, approached by a
lonely path, were sometimes specially erected by landowners
in the late eighteenth century to create a picturesque effect;
they were fashionable as places for romantic contemplation. The
Hermitage-walk at Northanger Abbey is probably the ‘narrow
winding path through a thick grove of old Scotch firs’ which leads
to the tea-house (vol. 2, ch. 7). In P&P, the Bennets, though
not very well off, have done some landscaping on a small scale
at Longbourn, as we learn when Lady Catherine comes to call
and Mrs Bennet commands her daughter to show ‘her ladyship
about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the
hermitage’ (vol. 3, ch. 14).
3 amazingly: fashionable jargon meaning ‘a great deal’, or ‘very
much’.
4 Julias and Louisas: highly popular and typical Christian names
for sentimental heroines. Within the previous twenty years
these names had appeared in such titles as Julia, a Novel;
329
Julia Benson; Julia de Gramont; Julia de Roubigné; Julia de Saint

Pierre; Julia Stanley; Louisa, a Novel; Louisa, a Sentimental Novel;
Louisa Forrester; Louisa Mathews; Louisa, or, the Cottage on the
Moor; Louisa, or, the Reward of an Affectionate Daughter; Louisa
Wharton.
5 Emily . . . into Italy: see Appendix, p. 276.
6 sampler: a small piece of cloth, usually linen, embroidered with
patterns, alphabets and other devices, often verses or moral
maxims; to design and complete a sampler was the recognised
way of teaching a little girl how to use her needle.
7 nicest: a late eighteenth-century colloquialism for ‘most agree-
able’. Johnson defines the term ‘nice’ as ‘accurate in judgement
to a minute exactness; superfluously exact. It is often used to
express a culpable delicacy.’
8 binding: at that date books were sold in paper or light cardboard
covers; purchasers then had them bound in leather to suit their
individual tastes.
9 Johnson and Blair: Samuel Johnson (1709–84) spent eight years
in compiling A Dictionary of the English Language: In Which the
Words are Deduced from their Originals, and Illustrated in their Dif-
ferent Significations by Examples from the Best Writers. To Which
are Prefixed A History of the Language, and an English Grammar
(London: W. Strahan, 1755). This dictionary was the first of its
kind in English, and remained unrivalled until the nineteenth
century. The Revd Hugh Blair (1718–1800), first Professor of
Rhetoric at Edinburgh University, was the author of the influ-
ential Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (London: J. Murray,
1784), which is what Miss Tilney has in mind here. He also
published five volumes of famous sermons (1777–1801), which
were often read out by lazy clergymen in their own churches –
as Mary Crawford says: ‘. . . supposing the preacher to have the
sense to prefer Blair’s to his own’ (MP, vol. 1, ch. 9).
10 history . . . true: the ancient debates over the accuracy of history,
and its didactic efficacy as opposed to fiction, were revived in the
eighteenth century. Mary Wollstonecraft comments, in A Vindi-
cation of the Rights of Woman (1792): ‘Unable to grasp any thing
great, is it surprising that [females] find the reading of history a
very dry task, and disquisitions addressed to the understanding
330
intolerably tedious, and almost unintelligible? Thus they are

necessarily dependent on the novelist for amusement’ (ch. 13,
sect. 2).
11 Mr. Hume . . . Alfred the Great: David Hume (1711–76),
philosopher and author of The History of England, from the Inva-
sion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 (5 vols, 1754–62).
Revd William Robertson (1721–93) wrote The History of Scot-
land during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI (1759),
The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V (1769) and The
History of America (1777). Caractacus (more correctly Caradoc),
who died in ad 54, was a British leader who resisted the Roman
invasion in ad 43–50, but was betrayed and captured; Gnaeus
Julius Agricola (ad 40–93) was the Roman governor in Britain in
ad 77–84; Alfred the Great (ad 848–99) was the Anglo-Saxon
king of Wessex (an area of southern England covering roughly
the modern counties of Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire
and the Isle of Wight).
12 good view . . . fine day: in 1792 William Gilpin published his
Three Essays: on Picturesque Beauty; on Picturesque Travel; and on
Sketching Landscape, as a result of which the neoclassical values
of symmetry, clarity and smoothness were being replaced by an
admiration for the picturesque effects of sharp contrasts and wild,
rugged nature. The ‘fore-grounds. . . . lights and shades’ to which
Henry refers later on were terms designed to analyse picturesque
effects, and are discussed by Gilpin in his essays.
13 conceal it . . . can: this authorial comment by JA may be an
ironic reference to John Gregory’s A Father’s Legacy to his Daugh-
ters (London: W. Strahan, 1774, and reprinted up to 1822), in
which he warned: ‘Be even cautious in displaying your good
sense. It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest
of the company—But if you happen to have any learning, keep
it a profound secret, especially from the men who generally look
with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of great parts and
a cultivated understanding’ (p. 19). Wollstonecraft in Rights of
Woman attacked such advice manuals in general and retorted
in detail to this passage in Gregory: ‘Let women once acquire
good sense—and if it deserves the name, it will teach them; or,
of what use will it be? how to employ it?’ (ch. 5, sect. 3). This
331
deep-rooted prejudice against any form of intellectual knowl-

edge in girls lasted until well into the nineteenth century. In the
1940s, an old lady whose ancestors had been wealthy farmers in
Leicestershire recorded family memories which stretched back to
the period 1800–20: ‘Education was not thought necessary in its
higher branches for girls, in fact a hindrance to their settlement
in life. A young woman was regarded with suspicion if thought
clever or bookish. My mother and aunts were educated at home:
a little music, a few airs of Dr. Arne or Handel, and an accurate
fingering of some country dances on the forte-piano, or harpsi-
chord (usually called the instrument), was enough. Some French
fables, recited, a little drawing, and usual English subjects, com-
pleted the course . . . The girls read Shakespeare, Byron, the
idol of the people, much quoted, Sir Charles Grandison, and
Pamela, issued in parts. Evelina was a new departure, and read
until almost known by heart. I can read it now, with pleasure, if I
pass over the pathetic letters, formerly causing floods of tears’
(C. M. Tucker, A Happy Past, Camberley, Surrey: privately
printed, 1945, pp. 7–8).
14 sister author: Burney portrays the beautiful Indiana Lynmere
in Camilla as vain, stupid, spoilt and morally bankrupt, yet she
entrances the sensitive and refined Melmond.
15 forests . . . politics: throughout the eighteenth century, enter-
prising landowners and farmers were enclosing (dividing up
by walls, fences or hedges) unclaimed forests and waste lands
(unclaimed as opposed to crown lands, which were owned by
the crown or sovereign), previously used by peasants for grazing
and wood-gathering, to increase their own estates; Parliament
granted roughly four thousand Enclosure Acts from 1760 to
1844. This practice of enclosure produced great opposition for
violating ancient rural customs and further impoverishing the
peasantry.
16 riot: during the last decades of the eighteenth century, anti-
government demonstrations by the working classes were fre-
quent, and particularly feared following the French Revolution.
The most famous, and still well remembered at the time JA was
writing NA, were the Gordon Riots of 1780, when the half-
crazy Lord George Gordon incited a huge mob assembled in St
332
George’s Fields, on the south side of London, to loot and pillage

the city. The rioters were ostensibly protesting in the cause of ‘No
Popery’, trying to force the government to repeal a bill passed
in 1778 which improved the civic status of Roman Catholics. A
number of Catholic chapels and priests’ houses were burnt down,
together with some of the London prisons and other legal build-
ings. Two attacks were made on the Bank of England, which
was the storehouse of the nation’s gold reserves, but the mili-
tary guard there fired upon the rioters and repulsed them. The
Tower of London, then used as a military arsenal, kept its draw-
bridges raised in preparation for an attack, but was too large
and well defended to be in any danger. It was estimated that
over four hundred rioters were either killed or subsequently exe-
cuted once order was restored (Feltham, The Picture of London,
pp. 44–7).
17 duodecimo . . . and a lantern: novels were commonly
printed in several volumes and as small books approximately
7 inches by 4 inches, the printer having placed twelve leaves
(or twenty-four pages) of type upon the one sheet of paper.
Austen’s own novels were all published in this format, and all
except NA and P were in three volumes; S&S, for example, has
306, 278 and 294 pages respectively. Printers sometimes commis-
sioned specific frontispieces to illustrate a dramatic scene from
the book, but often used emblematic woodcuts kept ready for
such ornaments. The practice was particularly prevalent with
more lurid novels. None of Austen’s novels was illustrated in this
way on first publication.
18 brickbat: a stone or piece of broken brick used as a missile. As
there was no police force in those days, soldiers had to be called
out to disperse riots or unlawful public gatherings. However,
Captain Tilney would never have been in danger in the riot as
imagined by Henry, since the (genuine) regiment of 12th Light
Dragoons was serving in Portugal from 1797 to 1802.
19 Bond-street: one of Bath’s most fashionable shopping areas, a
continuation of Milsom Street southwards, and helping to link
the old town with the new developments. It is now known as
Old Bond Street, since New Bond Street close by was built in
1805–24.
333
20 there is not . . . this time of year: while the social season for Bath
was established in the winter months Clifton had developed as
a summer resort.
c h a p t e r 15
1 driven directly to the York Hotel: the York Hotel and Tavern, in
Gloucester Place, Clifton, was opened in 1790; it had ‘an elegant
Ball-room with a good organ: and commands a picturesque view
of Leigh woods and the downs. The whole building is a capital
Hotel, handsomely fitted up; and extremely well calculated for
parties who arrive here, or make excursions for a few days to this
delightful spot.’ W. Matthews, Complete Guide to Bristol (Bristol,
Matthews, 1794), p. 104.
2 early dinner: fashionable families ate dinner, the main meal of
the day, no earlier than five and often much later, although in
the country some families might dine as early as three in the
afternoon. When Cassandra Austen was visiting Godmersham
in December 1798, JA wrote to her from Steventon: ‘We dine
now at half after Three, & have done dinner I suppose before
you begin—We drink tea at half after six.—I am afraid you will
despise us’ (18–19 December 1798, L, p. 27).
3 purses . . . pastry-cook’s: tourist souvenirs and treats; spar was
the general name for any bright crystalline mineral, here refer-
ring to the crystals of quartz found in St Vincent’s Rocks at the
foot of the Avon Gorge. These were popularly called ‘Bristol
diamonds’, and were made into cheap jewellery. Pastry-cook
shops sold cakes, jellies and other luxury items such as ice cream.
4 puce-coloured sarsenet: puce is purplish-brown, a colour then
very fashionable; sarsenet is a fine soft silk.
5 A cottage . . . Richmond: rural retirement was a sentimental
cliché. Richmond-on-Thames, Surrey, is a small town some ten
miles upstream from London. For centuries it had been favoured
by royalty as a summer retreat, and in the eighteenth century
George III and his ever-increasing family spent much time at
Richmond and the adjacent village of Kew. Isabella therefore
thinks she will have a ‘charming little villa’ in a most expensive
location.
334
6 Salisbury: the county town of Wiltshire, with a magnificent

cathedral; it is about forty miles from Bath, and nine miles
from the imaginary village of Fullerton where the Morlands
live.
7 eight parts of speech: verbs, adverbs, nouns, pronouns, adjec-
tives, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections, all taught in
traditional grammar-books.
8 Putney: Isabella’s home is in a village on the Thames, about
five miles upstream from London, and not nearly as smart as
Richmond or Kew. It has now been swallowed up by the growth
of London.
9 a carriage . . . tickets . . . hoop rings: it was the accepted prac-
tice for a young couple to start their married life with a new
carriage – as in Sanditon (ch. 2), where Mr and Mrs Heywood
have so many children that they cannot afford to replace ‘the old
Coach which had been new when they married & fresh lined on
their eldest son’s coming of age 10 years ago’. Season tickets were
for entry to places of entertainment, in the form of small tokens,
usually made in ivory or base metal, which were engraved with
the subscriber’s name and often a number as well. Hoop rings
were finger-rings, a simple hoop or circle set with small flat-cut
stones of the same size all round, without any central larger bezel;
they were worn in multiples for effect, hence Isabella’s hoped-for
‘brilliant exhibition’. There were also ‘half-hoop’ rings, mean-
ing that the stones were set only on the visible part of the
ring.
10 Devizes: a market town in Wiltshire, some eighteen miles from
Bath and twenty-seven miles from Andover; it was a well-known
staging post between Bath and London, with two large coaching
inns, The Black Bear and The Castle.
11 old song . . . another: proverbial, as quoted in Wife of Bath (1713)
by John Gay: ‘One Wedding, the Proverb says, begets another’
(Alison to Franklyn, Act I, scene 1). In the following dialogue
between John Thorpe and Catherine, John thinks he is clearly
telling Catherine that he intends to call soon at Fullerton to ask
her father’s permission to marry her, and believes that she will
be prepared to accept his suit.
335
12 insensibility: in sentimental terms, the quality of mental

and emotional dullness; but in rational terms, old-fashioned
eighteenth-century pragmatism.
volume ii , chapter 1
1 animosities . . . speed: the literary trope of jealous brothers,
dating back to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, appears fre-
quently in gothic and sentimental novels, as also does that of
the abduction of the heroine by the henchmen of a depraved
nobleman.
2 hands across: part of a dance figure in which two couples, usually
at the top of the set, briefly join hands for two half-turns.
3 A living . . . resigned: Mr Morland, who is in possession of
two livings, is generously promising to appoint his son as the
incumbent of one of them, thus permanently reducing his own
income.
4 betweentwoandthreeyears: James Morland has not yet finished
his studies at Oxford, and is only about twenty-two years old.
He must graduate and reach the age of twenty-five before he can
be considered for ordination and subsequently hold a living.
chapter 2
1 se’nnight: sometimes also spelt ‘sennet’; an abbreviation of ‘seven
nights’ – i.e., a week. This expression has now died out of modern
speech, even though ‘fortnight’ – ‘fourteen nights’ – has survived.
2 ill-fated nun: nuns, either living or ghostly, who conceal crimes
of passion or supernatural secrets, frequent gothic novels. As
these novels are usually set in France or Italy, where Christianity
was of the Roman Catholic order rather than the Protestant
version which had become the established religion in England
in 1688, this gave scope for scenes to take place in convents or
monasteries, or for heroines to seek refuge therein.
3 Reformation: the reformation of the English church led to
Henry VIII’s Act in 1536 for the Dissolution of the Monaster-
ies, by which all such ecclesiastical institutions were closed down,
their inmates expelled and their buildings and lands seized for
the Crown; later on these properties were sold off to wealthy
landowners – as here, ‘an ancestor of the Tilneys’.
336
chapter 3
1 absent . . . stamp: sentimental heroines frequently fall into devout
reveries that display their sensitivity to sublime beauty. See sum-
mary of Udolpho, Appendix, p. 275.
2 romancers . . . money: sentimental novels extol virtuous poverty;
in Udolpho Emily’s father, nobly born but lacking in riches, has
‘disengaged himself from the world’ and retired to ‘a summer
cottage’ on his ‘small estate in Gascony, where conjugal felicity,
and parental duties, divided his attention with the treasures of
knowledge and the illuminations of genius’ (vol. 1, ch. 1).
chapter 4
1 the mess-room will drink Isabella Thorpe: when dining
together in the officers’ mess, Captain Tilney’s friends in the
12th Light Dragoons will toast the name of the girl who is the
recipient of his latest flirtatious approaches.
chapter 5
1 middle seat . . . drawn out: a chaise usually held two passengers,
but could be made to accommodate three, by using a small central
seat that was pulled out forward of the other two.
2 writing-desk: a small wooden box containing all necessary writ-
ing materials, the lid of which opens out to provide a flat solid
surface upon which to place a sheet of paper. JA’s own writing
desk, which was probably given to her by her father in 1794,
descended in the Austen-Leigh family and is now on display in
the British Library.
3 two equal stages: two stretches of the same mileage, divided by
a pause for rest and refreshment and possibly a change of horses.
4 bait at Petty-France: ‘bait’ is the old-fashioned word meaning
‘food for horses’; it was usually necessary to halt on a journey
to refresh both the travellers and their animals. Petty-France
was and is a hamlet on the main road out of Bath, about
fourteen miles to the north of the city; it was a well-known
posting-stage, and kept many spare horses stabled in readiness for
hire.
5 handsomely liveried: wealthy families provided a uniform – a
‘livery’ – for their menservants to wear when appearing in public.
337
It was made of strong serviceable cloth, and usually in bright

colours, so that the man could be recognised at a distance – the
Duke of Richmond’s livery was red and yellow. In P, the livery
for Sir Walter Elliot’s servants has orange cuffs and capes (vol.
1, ch. 3).
6 chaise-and-four . . . inconvenience: a carriage drawn by four
horses, and guided by postilions – servants who ride the nearside
horses. The General’s elaborate entourage of horses and servants
requires two hours to feed and rest.
7 sliding pannels . . . family: these paragraphs include ubiqui-
tous gothic clichés. A sliding panel is a false section of wooden
wainscoting which can be pushed aside to reveal a secret com-
partment behind the wall of the main room; tapestries conceal
secret doors to staircases, dungeons and labyrinthine passages
below; mansions are always ruinous; and the heroine is always
allotted a lonely and dismal bedchamber.
8 Dorothy: Dorothée is the name of an ancient housekeeper in
Udolpho – see Appendix, p. 281.
9 stuff . . . velvet: stuff was a woollen fabric, cheaper than velvet;
both could be used either for dress fabrics or, as here, for bed-
curtains.
10 toilettes: ladies’ dressing-tables, which in the eighteenth century
were expected to bear a wide array of cosmetics and beauty aids.
Alexander Pope describes a lady’s dressing-table in The Rape of the
Lock (1714): ‘And now, unveil’d, the toilet stands display’d, / Each
silver vase in mystic order laid . . . This casket India’s glowing
gems unlocks, / And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. / The
tortoise here and elephant unite, / Transform’d to combs, the
speckled and the white. / Here files of pins extend their shining
rows, / Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux’ (Canto I,
lines 121–2 and 133–8).
11 chest: in gothic novels, chests were invariably the repository of
terrible secrets. In RoF, La Motte is exploring the underground
ranges of the ruined abbey, and breaks into a square stone room:
‘He stood for some time to survey it. The walls, which were drip-
ping with unwholesome dews, were entirely bare and afforded
not even a window. A small iron grate alone admitted the air. At
the further end, near a low recess, was another door. La Motte
338
went towards it, and, as he passed, looked into the recess. Upon
the ground within it, stood a large chest, which he went for-
ward to examine, and, lifting the lid, he saw the remains of a
human skeleton. Horror struck upon his heart, and he invol-
untarily stepped back’ (vol. 1, ch. 4). At the end of the story,
the skeleton is identified as the remains of Adeline’s murdered
father.
12 parting cordial: novelistic jargon for (literally) a drink taken
before setting out on a journey, intended to warm and stimulate
the body; or (metaphorically) as here, a farewell message that
may be the very reverse of comforting. A contemporary recipe
for a cordial water runs as follows: ‘Take three quarts of brandy or
sack, put two handfuls of rosemary and two handfuls of balm to it
chopt pretty small, one ounce of cloves, two ounces of nutmegs,
three ounces of cinnamon; beat all the spices grossly, and steep
them with the herbs in the wine; then put it in a still pasted
up close; save near a quart of the first running, and so of the
second, and of the third; when it is distilled mix it all together,
and dissolve about a pound of double refin’d sugar in it, and
when it is settled bottle it up’ (Mrs E. Smith, The Compleat
Housewife: or, Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion, London,
1753, pp. 260–1).
13 massy: archaic form of ‘massive’, and so appropriate to gothic
fiction.
14 broken lute . . . darkness: Henry Tilney’s extemporary story is
based very largely upon RoF, with some touches from Udolpho –
see Appendix, pp. 269–72 and 274–82.
15 aweful . . . edifice: gothic heroines invariably experience feelings
of ill-omen and terror as they approach the ancient, decaying
buildings in which they are forced to dwell.
16 mizzling rain: atmosphere saturated with moisture – a combi-
nation of mist and drizzle.
17 her habit: Catherine is dressed in a riding-habit, a warm,
tailored garment worn by ladies for travelling as well as for horse-
riding.
18 common drawing-room: the Tilney family’s everyday drawing-
room, as opposed to the much more elaborately furnished
formal drawing-room elsewhere in the house. The General
339
mock-modestly avows that the common drawing-room is small

and its furniture simple, because it ‘pretended only to comfort’.
19 profusion . . . taste: in the later eighteenth century, interior
decoration became a sign of a landowner’s cultured taste as well
as his riches, and wealthy patrons commissioned architects to
redesign rooms from the carpets to the ceilings. Mr Collins tells
the Bennet family that, in one of the drawing-rooms at Lady
Catherine de Bourgh’s Rosings, the chimney-piece alone had
cost eight hundred pounds; and when he later takes Elizabeth
to dine at Rosings, he points out ‘with a rapturous air, the fine
proportion and finished ornaments’ of the entrance hall (P&P,
vol. 1, ch. 16, and vol. 2, ch. 6).
20 Rumford: a new design which diminished an original fireplace
by giving it a sloping back and narrowed chimney; these modifi-
cations in consequence drew the smoke upwards more efficiently
and used less fuel. The design had been invented by Sir Benjamin
Thompson, later Count Rumford (1753–1814).
chapter 6
1 linen package: the parcel of her clothes, wrapped in paper or
possibly cloth.
2 recess . . . fire-place: an early eighteenth-century architectural
fashion for enhancing the visual interest of a large room – niches,
recesses or alcoves might contain statues, chests, tables, sofas or
other items of furniture.
3 curiously: intricately, skilfully.
4 midnight assassins or drunken gallants: murderous banditti
typically infest gothic ruins, and intoxicated libertines chase sen-
timental heroines down endless dark passages.
5 divisions of the shutters: shutters are folding wooden screens
fitted to the inside of the window, intended both to guard against
burglars and to exclude light, noise and draughts.
6 Japan: an enamel or lacquer. Named after the glossily-coated
wooden and metal luxury items imported from the East by mer-
chants in the later seventeenth century, japan was a varnish that
was applied and then dried and hardened by heat. Although
originally the background of the design was black, later on in
England craftsmen employed other colours as well.
340
7 awfulness: sublime terror; ‘the quality of striking with awe;

solemnity’ ( Johnson).
8 snuffed it . . . rekindling breath: to snuff a candle is to trim the
charred wick, so as to enable the flame to burn more brightly.
Unfortunately Catherine does this in too much of a hurry, and
only succeeds in extinguishing the candle altogether.
chapter 7
1 washing-bill: when visitors stayed at an inn for several days, they
would send their dirty linen out to be washed by the maids or
laundresses of the establishment; hence such items of clothing
would need to be listed, and this list would then be returned with
a statement of the charges made by the washerwoman concerned,
along with the clean clothes.
2 letters . . . breeches-ball: a servant would receive and pay for the
employer’s letters when the postman called; hair-powder was a
scented powder, usually white or grey, and made of fine flour
or starch, which was sprayed or puffed over hair or wigs; shoe-
strings (laces) were worn by fashionable young men in pref-
erence to shoe-buckles, which were now becoming outmoded.
A breeches-ball was a preparation for dry-cleaning clothes – a
compound of the natural detergent ox-gall mixed with finely-
powdered abrasive clays, used to rub dirt and grease off leather
breeches.
3 cramp line: a line of small, badly-formed handwriting, scrawled
by a semi-literate working man.
4 to love a hyacinth: fondness for flowers was a sign of natu-
ral feminine delicacy, which gothic heroines often demonstrate
by composing poems to favourite blossoms. Catherine, being
unheroic, has not bothered to notice flowers since the days of
her infancy, when ‘if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly
for the pleasure of mischief—at least so it was conjectured from
her always preferring those which she was forbidden to take’
(vol. 1, ch. 1). By mentioning a hyacinth here, JA reminds the
reader subliminally that the action is taking place in the spring,
and it can be calculated that Catherine stays at Northanger for
about four weeks, from late March until late April.
341
5 He: in the copytext there are no opening quotation marks to

match the closing quotations marks later in the paragraph. This
is an example of JA’s famous practice of free indirect speech –
recounting the character’s words with varying degrees of para-
phrase and narrative comment, sometimes with and sometimes
without quotation marks – and it is impossible to be quite certain
where JA intended the quotation marks to open. However, this
seems a plausible point, in the context of similar usage later in
the chapter and elsewhere in the novel. See also p. 215 line 32,
where again, during a passage of comments by the General, there
are closing quotation marks without opening quotation marks.
Since it is even more unclear where the quotation marks might
open, these closing marks have been omitted.
6 Staffordshire . . . Dresden . . . Sêve [Sevres]: all sources of
expensive modern ceramic tablewares, in respectively England,
Germany and France. The General’s breakfast-set may have been
a product of the Spode, New Hall or Wedgwood factories, which
were all sited in Staffordshire.
7 employment: in contrast to the early eighteenth-century aristo-
cratic ethic of leisure, the gentry in the later part of the century
were adopting the middle-rank’s ideology promoting work as a
moral duty. It was accepted that the eldest son would inherit the
family estates, but younger sons would have to make their own
way in the world in one or other of the gentlemanly professions –
the Church, the navy, the army or the law. As the Tilney family
owns the living of Woodston, the obvious choice for Henry is
to take holy orders and become the rector there – as likewise
for Edmund Bertram in MP. In E, George Knightley inherits
Donwell Abbey and his younger brother, John, becomes a bar-
rister in London. In S&S the Ferrars family are rich townsfolk,
not landed gentry, hence Edward Ferrars has no estate to inherit;
as he does not want to go into either the army or the law and is
already too old to enter the navy as a midshipman, the last option
for him is to enter the Church – and this, thanks to Colonel
Brandon’s offer of the living of Delaford, he is eventually able to
do.
8 netting-box: a portable sewing box, holding the tools required
for the various kinds of needlework undertaken by a lady.
342
9 rich in Gothic ornaments: although the interior of the house

has been remodelled and modernised – Catherine is disappointed
to see that the tracery and mullions have been removed from
the windows of the drawing-room (vol. 2, ch. 5) – externally
these two sides still display their medieval origins, which might
date back to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. The 7th Duke
of Wellington, who had trained as an architect, commented:
‘These [the Gothic ornaments] are difficult to visualize, and
I am doubtful whether the author had any genuine monastic
buildings clearly in mind when she wrote it’ (‘Houses in Jane
Austen’s Novels’, in The Spectator, 20 March 1926; reprinted in
Collected Reports of the Jane Austen Society, vol. 1 (1949–1965),
pp. 184–8). Living in Hampshire, it is possible that JA may
have seen Mottisfont, Netley or Titchfield Abbeys, all of which,
like Northanger, had been converted into dwelling houses in the
middle of the sixteenth century following the dissolution of the
monasteries.
10 hot-houses: small horticultural buildings, artificially heated,
designed to facilitate the cultivation of delicate fruits and vegeta-
bles in the uncertain English climate; they became popular in the
second half of the eighteenth century. The ‘beautiful pyramids
of grapes, nectarines, and peaches’ which are offered to Eliz-
abeth Bennet and the Gardiners, when they call at Pemberley,
would have been grown in hot-houses on the estate (P&P, vol. 3,
ch. 3).
11 hobby-horse: favourite pursuit or pastime. The word was long-
established, but had been recently popularised in literary terms by
Laurence Sterne’s descriptions of Uncle Toby’s whimsical devo-
tion to hobbies in Tristram Shandy (1761).
12 pinery: pineapples had been introduced to England in the late
seventeenth century, and a ‘pinery’ (the term was coined in 1758)
was a hot-house used exclusively for their cultivation. Since it
took three years and assiduous care to grow them, they remained
a great luxury; for the General to raise a hundred in a year would
be extraordinary.
13 succession-houses: a series of hot-houses with graduated tem-
peratures, into which delicate plants are moved in succession to
harden them for transplantation outdoors.
343
14 tea-house: tea-houses were small buildings, often imitating Chi-

nese or classical temples, erected by landowners at some pic-
turesque location in the grounds of the estate. They were used
in summer for drinking tea after dinner, and for picnicking in
general. The Northanger tea-house is probably reached by the
Hermitage-walk, mentioned earlier by Eleanor Tilney.
15 portrait: family portraits, depicting women’s domestic virtues
and their husbands’ public status, became a fashion for
eighteenth-century gentry. Portrait miniatures were also
exchanged between members of the family, friends, or lovers;
in gothic novels they frequently serve as evidence of the hero-
ine’s lineage.
chapter 8
1 lengthened absence . . . rambles: in gothic romances, a man’s
mysterious disappearances and lonely pacing up and down were
always signs that he had some guilty secret. In RoF Adeline’s
unwilling guardian La Motte takes to spending hours in the
forest, and his wife thinks jealously that he is secretly meeting
Adeline; in fact, he has hidden some stolen jewellery there, which
he is little by little selling off.
2 satin: an expensive silk fabric, often used for curtains or chair-
covers. When Elizabeth Bennet is touring with the Gardiners
and wants to avoid visiting Pemberley, she makes the excuse that
‘she was tired of great houses; after going over so many, she really
had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains’ (P&P, vol. 2,
ch. 19).
3 traces of cells: it would seem that the General (or perhaps JA
on his behalf ) did not realise that these traces were not of cells
but of carrels – i.e., study cubicles for the monks, opening off the
cloister in order to give good light for reading and writing. This
further suggests that Northanger Abbey was originally a Bene-
dictine foundation, as this Order laid great stress upon schol-
arship. Remains of carrels can still be seen in the south cloister
walk at Gloucester Cathedral.
4 hot closets: small cupboards or compartments built into the
stove and heated by the fire in the oven, intended to keep plates
344
and prepared food warm; they were generally used in great

kitchens designed for the entertainment of large numbers of
people.
5 improving hand . . . convent: late eighteenth-century interior
design aimed at improving the working conditions of the kitchen
staff and making large, rambling, old-fashioned kitchens more
fuel-efficient. Such improvements were considered both benev-
olent and, since they aimed at reducing the number of servants
required, practical, although the General has evidently not less-
ened the number of his employees.
6 offices: the servants’ working quarters of a house.
7 pantries . . . scullery: small rooms, opening off or close to the
kitchen; foodstuffs were stored or prepared in a pantry, and
kitchen utensils were stored and washed in a scullery.
8 pattened . . . dishabille: pattens were usually worn by maid-
servants or country-women. They consisted of wooden soles
mounted upon iron rings, which were tied over the wearer’s shoes
and thus raised her above water or mud underfoot. JA and her
sister Cassandra used pattens when walking in the lane between
Deane and Steventon. In P, when Anne Elliot enters Bath on a
wet winter afternoon, she hears ‘the ceaseless clink of pattens’ in
the paved streets (vol. 2, ch. 2). ‘Dishabillé’ (French), meaning
literally ‘partially undressed’, indicates that the men-servants are
in their simple working clothes and not in their smart livery,
as they were not expecting the General to bring guests to the
kitchens.
9 folding doors: a door composed of hinged sections, folding back
on itself when opened – the same construction was used for large
window-shutters.
10 worked: needlework, embroidery – the only sort of ‘work’ done
by ladies.
11 a Montoni: the owner of the Castle of Udolpho, and a ferocious
villain – see Appendix, p. 277.
12 pamphlets . . . nation: political reports and articles that Gen-
eral Tilney needs to read as part of his duties as a Member of
Parliament.
13 meetly: suitably, appropriately.
345
14 Mrs. Tilney yet lived . . . insensibility: see Appendix, p. 279–80.

15 some rays of light: faint lamp-light seen at midnight in the
deserted wing of a castle was a gothic cliché denoting the presence
of a mysterious prisoner.
chapter 9
1 cold meat: implying a casual, unpretentious meal, as opposed to
the lavish dinners that were the norm on the other days of the
week. Conscientious employers permitted their servants time off
on Sunday for rest and church-going, and consequently dined
on food prepared in the morning or on the previous day.
2 monument . . . Mrs. Tilney: elaborate monuments and statues,
sometimes coloured and gilded, with fulsome epitaphs com-
memorating the deceased, were and are a common sight in
churches and cathedrals.
3 ashes: mouldering remains of a body. Cremation as such did not
become a legal means of disposing of a corpse until 1884.
4 dozens . . . supposititious funeral: gothic clichés popularised
by Radcliffe’s novels. In SR, the Marquis de Mazzini arranges
a public funeral for his ailing wife, but then confines her in the
castle dungeons, leaving himself free to contract a bigamous sec-
ond marriage. In Udolpho, Montoni imprisons his wife and allows
her to die of a fever, burying her corpse in the graveyard of the
castle.
5 portraits . . . generations: in gothic fictions, family portraits
serve as witnesses of true lineage, in order to identify the hero
or heroine and unseat the usurper. This trope continued to be
popular throughout the nineteenth century: in Conan Doyle’s
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), the old portrait on the
wall enables Sherlock Holmes to identify ‘Jack Stapleton, the
naturalist’, as being a member of the Baskerville family, in this
case the villain rather than the hero (chs. 13, 15).
6 enured: archaism for inured, that is, ‘hardened, or accustomed
to painful circumstances’, the characteristic condition of female
victims of gothic tyrants.
346
7 sullen sound: another gothic cliché – keys, locks, bolts and

hinges always produce a sullen or ominous sound when the hero-
ine attempts to open a door.
8 dimity: a sturdy cotton cloth, woven with raised stripes or fancy
figures, usually used undyed for counterpanes and bedroom
hangings.
9 Bath stove: a fireplace where the hob-grate is fitted with an iron
plate over the fire, the plate having only a small opening into the
chimney above; this produces a draught that takes the smoke up
and out of the room. Unfortunately, it also means that most of
the heat likewise goes up the chimney.
10 bilious fever: a general term for intestinal and malarial disorders
supposedly caused by damp, hot weather.
11 country . . . newspapers lay everything open: in the wake of the
French Revolution in 1789, England in the 1790s was gripped
with the fear of French spies and agents provocateurs, prompt-
ing governmental attempts to trace traitorous activities, and a
series of repressive statutes in 1795, known as the Gagging Acts,
designed to quell insurrection. Henry Tilney may be thinking of
this political climate as he speaks, but is more likely to be refer-
ring to the simple fact that country newspapers always reported
the doings of the local landowners, and gossip passed swiftly by
letters between neighbouring gentry.
chapter 10
1 Alps . . . South of France: typical locations for gothic romances.
2 rhubarb: rhubarb, a medicinal root plant, usually imported from
Russia and the Levant, was used as a mild laxative.
3 mixed characters: authors and critics throughout the eigh-
teenth century debated the merits of portraying literary char-
acters as simply exemplifying virtue or vice, or as mixed per-
sonalities exhibiting both good and bad qualities. The debate
was epitomised in the rivalry between Richardson, who por-
trayed idealised heroines, and Fielding, whose heroes and hero-
ines had vices; which induced Samuel Johnson, in response to the
popularity of Fielding’s Tom Jones, to write an influential essay
attacking mixed characters who might confuse young readers and
347
endorsing idealised ones: ‘In narrative, where historical veracity

has no place, I cannot discover why there should not be exhibited
the most perfect idea of virtue; of virtue not angelical, nor above
probability, for what we cannot credit we shall never imitate, but
the highest and purest that humanity can reach’ (Rambler no. 4,
31 March 1750).
4 end . . . me: withdrawing from a marriage engagement which had
been made public was shameful behaviour that indicated moral
unsteadiness on the part of the lady, and could also impugn the
character and prospects of her former fiancé. Both men and women
could sue for breach of promise.
5 cocoa . . . newspaper: cocoa and chocolate both come from the
seed pods of the small evergreen tree, theobroma cacao, originally a
native of the Amazon and Orinoco forests. When the Spaniards
invaded central America in the sixteenth century, they found the
Aztecs had learnt how to dry, roast and grind the pods and form
the resulting powder into hard cakes that could be dissolved in
a liquid and used as a nourishing drink. The Spaniards created
their own cacao plantations in Jamaica, and when this island was
captured by the British in 1655 the pods and cakes were imported
direct into England, and chocolate was first sold in London coffee
houses in 1657. Early recipes recommended drinking it in the
style of a wine caudle – grating the hard cake into hot claret and
beating in the yolks of eggs and sugar to taste. By the eighteenth
century it was more usual to mix the grated chocolate simply with
boiling water or milk, and chocolate and coffee had succeeded ale
as the normal breakfast drink of the gentry. In Sanditon, Arthur
Parker has cocoa and buttered toast for supper in the evening.
The General is probably reading a London paper such as The
Times or the London Gazette, which reported political news in great
detail.
6 wave the subject: more correctly spelt ‘waive’, to ignore the matter,
not refer to it at all.
7 candid: without malice or deceit, sincere and truthful. Elizabeth
Bennet admiringly says to Jane: ‘Affectation of candour is common
enough;—one meets it every where. But to be candid without
ostentation or design—to take the good of every body’s character
348
and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to

you alone’ (P&P, vol. 1. ch. 4).
chapter 11
1 want of consequence and fortune: in this context, ‘consequence’
means worldly status, importance in the social order.
2 parish meeting: apart from carrying out the necessary church
services, the duties of parish clergy included dispensing charity
in the form of money, food and clothes, finding employment for
their parishioners and supervising the care of the poor. Parish
meetings, at which the clergyman officiated, would discuss such
local affairs as these, together with the repair and maintenance
of the church and the election of the churchwardens and the two
Supervisors of the Poor, who collected the Poor Rate taxes from
the wealthier parishioners.
3 club: clubs of widely different social, economic and religious
affiliations were immensely popular throughout England in the
second half of the eighteenth century. These all-male institutions
required members to engage in reciprocal responsibilities and
served to form and strengthen political and social bonds. General
Tilney’s gift of venison is probably with a view to gaining support
for his parliamentary candidacy.
4 half a buck . . . year: it was usual for landowners to share some
of their produce with their less well endowed neighbours – in
this instance townspeople, who would not have access to the
land required to raise deer. In E, among several gifts of produce
to Mrs and Miss Bates is a hindquarter of Hartfield pork – as
Emma points out to Mr Woodhouse, ‘“There will be the leg to
be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and the loin to be
dressed directly in any manner they like”’ (vol. 2, ch. 3).
5 well-connected: as the living of Woodston is owned by the
Tilney family, it is in their own interests to see that the par-
sonage is a comfortable house.
6 semi-circular sweep and green gates: as a horse-drawn carriage
is difficult to manoeuvre in a confined space, houses in the coun-
try had to be approached by a wide curved driveway (known as
a ‘sweep’) that would enable visitors to drive in at one gate and
349
then out at the other, without attempting to make the horses

turn round or step backwards.
7 Newfoundland . . . terriers: sporting breeds, appropriate to
country life. Newfoundland dogs were first imported to England
in the seventeenth century, and were used as retrievers, especially
for water-fowl; terriers were commonly used to flush out foxes
from their dens or to kill rats and mice in a stableyard. Henry’s
‘guns’ at Northanger (vol. 2, ch. 8) would be fowling-pieces, and
his Newfoundland puppy would be trained to fetch the geese or
ducks that Henry brought down when he went out shooting on
the marshes of the Severn estuary.
8 patched-on bow: it became popular in the late eighteenth cen-
tury to fit a large, convex window into an existing wall in order
to make the room lighter and more impressive. However, as such
a bow window had not been intended in the original design, it
could look very obviously ‘patched on’, as the General contemp-
tuously remarks.
9 object . . . remains: fashionable landowners, influenced by the
designs of the landscape architect Humphrey Repton, often
demolished or constructed rustic buildings to create a picturesque
prospect, and small cottages, preferably thatched, became par-
ticularly popular as focal points of such a view.
10 hangings: the window curtains, together with their pelmets,
valances, swags and fringes.
11 melted butter . . . oiled: the basic English white sauce for veg-
etables or fish, made of butter mixed with flour, which could
become oily if badly cooked.
chapter 12
1 spring fashions . . . down: Isabella has had some news of the
latest spring fashions as worn in London.
2 Bath-street: a shopping street, and very new at the time of
Catherine’s visit, since building started only in 1791. It runs
from the King’s Bath in Stall Street to the Cross Bath, and has
Ionic colonnades on both sides, which gave shelter for sedan
chairs carrying occupants between the baths, and also for loi-
tering pedestrians such as Isabella Thorpe. In P, Mr William
350
Elliot has a private talk with Mrs Clay under one of the Bath
Street colonnades, a place which provides the opportunity for an
apparently chance meeting on her shopping trip (vol. 2, ch. 10).
3 half-price: theatre-goers could attend the second half of a play at
a cut rate.
4 turban: a soft fabric head-dress, supposedly in the style of an
Indian turban. Elizabeth Grant remembered her two great aunts
wearing in 1807 ‘the very handsome head gear my Mother had
brought them from London . . . they were called dress turbans,
and were made alike of rolls of muslin folded round a catgut head-
piece and festooned with large loops of large beads ending in bead
tassels . . . They were considered extremely beautiful as well as fash-
ionable, and were much admired’ (Grant, Memoirs of a Highland
Lady, vol. 1, p. 95).
chapter 13
1 fourth week . . . longer: guests generally stayed for several weeks
when on a visit to a country-house, since travelling was too slow
and difficult to make brief visits feasible. In P&P, Elizabeth Bennet
stays at Hunsford for six weeks, from early March until nearly the
end of April, and even then Lady Catherine de Bourgh tries to
persuade her to stay on for another fortnight if not longer (vol. 2,
chs. 4, 14, 15).
2 curate: an unbeneficed cleric, usually a young man just recently
ordained, who assisted or sometimes performed the duties of a
clergyman. Rich incumbents who held several livings employed
curates, for an annual salary of some £50, to serve in their stead
in those parishes where the incumbent himself did not choose to
reside.
3 Hereford: the county town of Herefordshire, a county adjoining
Gloucestershire to the north-west.
4 post . . . unattended: the General is sending Catherine away, with
no servant to help or chaperone her, for a journey of seventy miles
that she will have to undertake by hiring and changing post-chaises
at unknown inns en route back to Salisbury.
351
5 under cover to Alice: in order to preserve secrecy in some awkward

situation, a correspondent might address letters to the recipient’s
personal servant.
6 Catherine . . . that moment: lack of worldly wisdom regarding
money was typical of sentimental heroines, and often landed them
in dangerous situations.
chapter 14
1 well-known spire: Salisbury Cathedral was and is famous for its
tall spire, 404 feet high, and consequently a landmark for miles
around.
2 post-masters: those in charge of supplying horses and carriages
for hire – usually innkeepers.
3 A heroine returning . . . bestows: sentimental heroines typically
attain wealth, nobility and happiness as a result of their fine sen-
sibility and excellence of character.
4 hack post-chaise: hired carriage.
5 post-boy: the servant who drove a hired carriage.
6 romantic: having the quality of romance – imaginary, exaggerated,
unrealistic.
7 pretty kind of: admirable, pleasant, attractive.
8 change of feelings . . . return: in gothic novels, heroines typically
return saddened by suffering to their once-happy childhood homes
before their further adventures and eventual reunion with the
hero.
9 Mechlin: Mechlin lace, a fine lace named after the town in Bel-
gium where it was originally made, and often used to trim a lady’s
gown.
c h a p t e r 15
1 French-bread: A contemporary recipe for French bread reads:
‘Take half a peck of fine flour, put to it six yolks of eggs, and
four whites, a little salt, a pint of good ale yeast, and as much
new milk, made a little warm, as will make it a thin light paste;
stir it about with your hand, but by no means knead it: then have
ready six wooden quart dishes, and fill them with dough; let them
stand a quarter of an hour to heave, and then turn them out into
352
the oven; and when they are baked, rasp them: the oven must be
quick’ (Smith, Compleat Housewife, p. 176).
2 The Mirror: no. 12, Saturday 6 March 1779 – ‘Consequence
to little folks of intimacy with great ones, in a letter from John
Homespun’ – in which Homespun deplores his daughters’ newly-
acquired fashionable behaviour, including late hours, dining at six,
French jargon, and religious scepticism, the result of a week’s visit
with a wealthy lady.
3 gratitude . . . my own: sentimental heroines typically express grati-
tude to the hero for his assistance and magnanimity before confess-
ing deeper feelings for him. JA is mocking this cliché, by inventing
a ‘new circumstance in romance’, that Henry is grateful to Catherine
for her initial and very obvious affection for him.
4 near the Abbey . . . no more: it is another cliché of eighteenth-
century novels, that heroes and heroines are frequently thwarted
in love by parental greed.
5 rhodomontade: ‘an empty, noisy bluster or boast; a rant’ ( Johnson).
chapter 16
1 clandestine correspondence: the open exchange of letters indi-
cated a relationship, and between an unrelated man and woman was
customarily considered proof of marital engagement. Since receiv-
ing a personal letter from an unacknowledged suitor could impugn
a young lady’s character if the fact became public, the correspon-
dence between Henry and Catherine has to remain private until
such time as the General gives his consent to his son’s marriage.
In S&S, Elinor knows that Marianne is writing to Willoughby,
and ‘the conclusion which as instantly followed was, that however
mysteriously they might wish to conduct the affair, they must be
engaged’ (vol. 2, ch. 4).
2 rules . . . fable: eighteenth-century novels often conclude their
complicated plots with long narratives, or the intercessions of
minor characters, to explain the hero’s or heroine’s adventures and
overcome their difficulties. The practice of resolving the action
through ostensibly natural events and familiar characters who had
been introduced earlier in the novel, was rooted in the dictum of
Aristotelian poetics that required a plot to be completed within the
353
action of the text, and discouraged the use of an external device or

deus ex machina.
3 Viscount and Viscountess: the ranks in the British peerage, in
descending order, are duke, marquis, earl, viscount and baron.
4 three thousand pounds: a considerable dowry for one daughter
in a large family. Invested in the 5 per cent government funds,
Catherine’s dowry would add an annual income of £150 to the
Tilney household at Woodston.
5 perfect happiness . . . disobedience: late eighteenth-century
fiction frequently depicts the miseries attendant on marriages
arranged for worldly reasons in obedience to parental wishes; but
contemporary moralists disapproved of novels that recommended
rebellious love-matches on the part of the hero and heroine.
354

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British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA.

Cambridge University Press

© Cambridge University Press 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

First published in print format 2006

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General Editor’s preface ix

Corrections and emendations to 1818 text 263

Jane Austen wrote to be read and reread. ‘[A]n artist cannot do

as volumes 3 and 4 of a four-volume set including Northanger Abbey,

intellectual and religious context in which she wrote is available in

This edition is deeply indebted to the extraordinary work of gen-

My thanks as always are due to the Impey family, senior descendants

research assistant, Antje Blank, as well as Linda Bree and Maartje

Spring JA’s health starts to fail. Henry Austen buys back

Edinburgh Review in 1802; it was pointed out by John Sparrow2

‘Advertisement’, she discouraged herself thereby, for she made no

The Romance is an heroic fable, which treats of fabulous persons and

But perhaps Henry and Cassandra made a mistake in calling it

Persuasion. James King had retired as Master of Ceremonies in

and the youthful Frances Burney might priggishly suggest, in her

From the references in her juvenilia, it is clear that by the age of

highly popular, and his heroines, in particular, became models

resembles John Thorpe, while Camilla’s cousin, Indiana Lynmere,

of the Forest was so popular that Radcliffe received an unprecedented

at Stoneleigh Abbey in 1806, wrote home: ‘I had figured to myself

March 1814, Letters, pp. 255–6). In Northanger Abbey Austen turns

one even located in Edgar’s Buildings – so perhaps Isabella was

Despite its liveliness and wit, Northanger Abbey has generally

monstrous’, had resulted in Austen’s novels being presently under-

his article with a much longer discussion of Persuasion, which he

gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.’35 In 1855 Eliz-

Of passionate feeling she was perhaps incapable but passion is not

G. H. Lewes remained a staunch advocate of Austen’s artistry,

Isabella Thorpe.’40 Kavanagh mentioned briefly ‘Mrs. Radcliffe’s

Instead of presenting faithful copies of nature, these tales [the later

It is from the Memoir that we learn the circumstances of the

‘novelist who has best . . . achieved the most natural amalgamation

After the Memoir, the next step forward in Austenian stud-

It is in the story of Catherine Morland that we get the inimitable

It was in the early twentieth century that the ‘men of thought

In Northanger Abbey Jane Austen takes a big stride forward. Developing

indomitable unconsciousness of its full difficulty. A lesser writer or a

the burlesque element in Northanger Abbey has a pretty intri-

actual adventures at the climax of the story. The General’s interference

Subsequent twentieth-century criticism of Northanger Abbey has

several critics have argued instead that Northanger Abbey uses

feminine behaviour. In Jane Austen and the Province of Womanhood

suspend her favoured kind of mental activity, ‘her habit of romantic

S. Babb in Jane Austen’s Novels: The Fabric of Dialogue (1962),

enterprise. Many see it as a blend and revision of Austen’s juve-

as is the rhetoric of sentimentalism’.72 Bharat Tandon goes further

The fourth topic in twentieth-century criticism explores Austen’s

relations’.79 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s innovative The

enjoy, because Radcliffe herself had never travelled to Italy, France

circles of society. Another significant point about Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey was first published in December 1817 (with

T h i s little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy,

rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden;7 and if

confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the

From Pope, she learnt to censure those who