Academic literature on the topic 'Austen, Jane, 1775-1817. Northanger Abbey'

For two weeks now, I have wallowed in sinful luxury, rereading the six completed Jane Austen novels (especially my favorite parts), basking in the warmth and wit of her collected letters, eagerly absorbing the details of her life from her best biographies, and attentively following the arguments of her leading literary critics. I also saw the recent movie versions of Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion, falling in love with Emma Thompson and Amanda Root in quick succession, and finished off my orgy with viewings of the BBC videos of Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice. Throughout—at least when I could remember to pay attention—I had two questions in mind. What does Jane Austen have to say about people, communities, and nature? And what is the cause of her resurgent popularity? Perhaps, I allowed myself to think, the questions are related. Answering the questions proved not so simple, but I did have fun trying. Sam and I read Aunt Jane’s letter, dated 8 Jan. 1817, to her nine-year-old niece Cassy, beginning: . . . Ym raed Yssac I hsiw uoy a yppah wen raey. Ruoy xis snisuoc emac ereh yadretsey, dna dah hcae a eceip fo ekac . . . . . . I read the amusingly mordant comments she could write about her neighbors, such as the one in her letter of 3July 1813 to her brother Francis, mentioning the “respectable, worthy, clever, agreable Mr Tho. Leigh, who has just closed a good life at the age of 79, & must have died the possesser of one of the finest Estates in England & of more worthless Nephews and Neices [sic] than any other private Man in the United Kingdoms.” I read the last chapters of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion each three times. I read once again about Catherine Morland’s cruel expulsion from Northanger Abbey, and about the ill-omened trip of Fanny Price, the Bertram sisters, and the Crawfords to the Rushworth estate, Sotherton, with its seductive, if too regularly planted, wilderness. And again I was privileged to accompany Emma Woodhouse, Miss Bates, Frank Churchill, and Mr. Knightly on the tension-charged picnic to Box Hill, surely one of the highest peaks in English literature.