Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Published 1818 · 323 pages · 77,869 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Horror, Literary Fiction, Romance, Satire & Humor

How hard is Northanger Abbey to read?

Northanger Abbey scores 47 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
Austen's prose features a sophisticated 19th-century vocabulary, including words now considered somewhat archaic or used with period-specific connotations (e.g., 'propensities,' 'profligacy,' 'vicissitudes,' 'amiable,' 'se'nnight,' 'curricle'). While not as obscure as 'Moby-Dick' (72), the consistent presence of such terms requires a reader comfortable with historical English, placing it above 'The Great Gatsby' (45) in its demands.
Sentence structure: 70 out of 100
The text is characterized by long, elaborate sentences with frequent use of subordinate clauses, parenthetical asides, and inversions, typical of formal 19th-century writing. For instance, a single sentence might span several lines, demanding sustained attention to track the logical flow, as seen in descriptions of Catherine's internal thoughts or social interactions. This complexity is comparable to '2666' (70) in its consistent hypotaxis, though not reaching the extreme experimentalism of 'Ulysses' (98).
Abstraction: 60 out of 100
Northanger Abbey primarily offers a concrete narrative of social life and personal development, but it frequently elevates to a level of social commentary and psychological insight through the narrator's voice and Henry Tilney's witty observations. While not delving into overt philosophical debates like 'Brothers Karamazov' (75), it moves beyond mere plot to explore themes of appearance, reality, and the influence of literature on perception, positioning it above 'The Great Gatsby' (58).
Information density: 55 out of 100
The novel's density stems from its detailed social observations, subtle irony, and the narrator's frequent interjections on human nature and literary conventions, rather than from rapid conceptual shifts or extensive external allusions. While the plot is straightforward, understanding the nuances of character motivation and social critique requires careful attention, making it more demanding than 'The Great Gatsby' (48) but less overwhelming than 'Lolita' (65).
Narrative indirection: 38 out of 100
The narrator frequently intervenes to explicitly guide the reader, explaining characters' motivations and even offering meta-commentary on novel conventions, such as the defense of novels in Chapter 5. Catherine's thoughts and feelings are often directly stated or immediately clarified, leaving little room for deep inference of primary plot points or character traits. This is much lower than 'The Great Gatsby' (65) where Nick's bias significantly shapes understanding.
Symbolic density: 30 out of 100
The novel's themes, such as the contrast between Gothic fantasy and reality, are largely presented through direct narrative and character dialogue, rather than through layered symbolic structures. While the 'abbey' is a central motif, its symbolic meaning is explicitly explored and often debunked by Henry Tilney, not left for abstract interpretation. This score is closer to 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (45) where the symbolism is present but overt, and far from 'Moby-Dick' (90).
Ironic distance: 72 out of 100
Jane Austen employs pervasive verbal irony, particularly in her descriptions of characters like Mrs. Allen and John Thorpe, and in the narrator's meta-commentary. Readers must consistently discern the author's critical or amused perspective beneath the polite surface of the prose. This requires a constant recalibration of meaning, placing it higher than 'The Great Gatsby' (70) due to the sustained, subtle nature of Austen's irony.
Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
The narrative resolves immediate mysteries and misunderstandings quickly, often with a humorous debunking of Catherine's Gothic expectations, such as the 'black cabinet' yielding a washing bill. The plot progresses linearly towards expected romantic and social conclusions, offering clear closure rather than ambiguity. This is significantly lower than 'The Crying of Lot 49' (75), which maintains uncertainty to the last page.
Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
The novel maintains a straightforward, chronological progression of events from Catherine's perspective, guided by a consistent omniscient narrator. There are no significant timeline jumps, shifts in point of view, or formal experiments that introduce structural complexity. Its structure is highly conventional, similar to 'Beach Read' (28) in its linearity, and far from 'Ulysses' (98).

How Northanger Abbey is regarded

Northanger Abbey holds a literary regard score of 80 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where Northanger Abbey sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (154 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Northanger Abbey scores 62 out of 100. A second mythos, irony, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.
Symbol: Formal
Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.
Mythos: Comedy iii (Normal Comedy) (comedy iii)
Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang, and everybody smiled;
Genre: Novel + Romance (parodic)
Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers

Where the story of Northanger Abbey takes place

  • Bath, February-March, late 1790s (1796 to 1803), the main setting
  • Northanger Abbey and Woodston, Gloucestershire, March-April (1796 to 1803)
  • Fullerton, Wiltshire (opening and return) (1796 to 1803)

5 things that are true of Northanger Abbey, with the passage for each

  1. Catherine Morland is seventeen and has not yet inspired a single real passion at the start of the story.

    She had reached the age of seventeen, without having seen one amiable youth who could call forth her sensibility

  2. Isabella lists seven Gothic novels for Catherine to read after Udolpho, ending with Horrid Mysteries.

    Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries.

  3. John Thorpe insists a twenty-three-mile drive was twenty-five miles, contradicting James Morland and the milestones.

    "Three and twenty!" cried Thorpe. "Five and twenty if it is an inch."

  4. The mysterious manuscript in the black cabinet turns out to be an inventory of linen.

    An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all that was before her!

  5. General Tilney has Catherine sent away from Northanger in a carriage at seven in the morning with no servant to accompany her, which Eleanor reports to her the night before.

    the very carriage is ordered, and will be here at seven o'clock, and no servant will be offered you.

Scenes in Northanger Abbey that Frye would name

41 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened. Catherine recognizes that her Gothic suspicions of General Tilney were self-created delusion, which is the pivot of the whole book.
Alazon, untitled
I defy any man in England to make my horse go less than ten miles an hour in harness John Thorpe's boasting about his horse and gig makes him a braggart.
Eiron, untitled
I shall make but a poor figure in your journal tomorrow. Henry unravels social pretension with self-mocking archness from his first appearance.
Anatomy, untitled
Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. The narrator interrupts the story with an essayistic defence of the novel.
Alazon, untitled
to how many idle assertions and impudent falsehoods the excess of vanity will lead. The narrator diagnoses Thorpe's contradictory boasting as vanity-driven imposture.
Eiron, untitled
But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Henry deliberately spins a Gothic scenario to tease Catherine into awareness of her habit.

Books that share these scenes with Northanger Abbey

About the author

Jane Austen