Podcast appearances and mentions of Catherine Morland

General Tilney vs. Sir Walter Elliot: Who Will Wear This Year's Crown of the Ultimate Jane Austen Villain? In this episode, we dive into the complex characters of General Tilney from Northanger Abbey and Sir Walter Elliot from Persuasion. General Tilney, with his cold obsession with wealth and status, manipulates those around him, as seen in his harsh treatment of Catherine Morland when he discovers she's not as wealthy as he thought. Sir Walter, on the other hand, is consumed by vanity and social rank, caring more about appearances than his daughters' well-being. Both men are driven by their selfish desires and social ambitions. As we wrap up, we bring these two characters head-to-head, comparing their motivations and actions. General Tilney ruthlessly controls others, while Sir Walter is driven by his obsession with status and appearance. But which one is the ultimate Austen villain? Join us as we dissect their villainous traits, and with your votes, we'll decide who deserves the crown! Where can you find Ellis? Instagram: @historian_ellis Where can you find Caily? Instagram: @half_agony_half_hope Where can you find your host (Izzy)? Website: www.whattheausten.com Podcast Instagram: @whattheausten Personal Instagram: @izzy_meakin Youtube: What the Austen? Podcast

Tonight I will be reading chapter 15 from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our website: https://thequietcornerbedt.wixsite.com/my-site-1 The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated. You can also donate to help keep the show going at https://ko-fi.com/thequietcornerbedtimestories

Tonight I will be reading chapter 14 from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our website: https://thequietcornerbedt.wixsite.com/my-site-1 The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I will be reading chapter 13 from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our website: https://thequietcornerbedt.wixsite.com/my-site-1 The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Olá, Helô e Rapha por aqui. Nesse episódio continuamos a falar só sobre as grandes casas na obra da Jane Austen.Cada uma delas tem sua simbologia, sua importância, e funcionam de alguma maneira como muito mais que apenas um pano de fundo para seus romances. A gente achou interessante, e está rendendo um monte de conversa boa… Vem com a gente!Northanger Abbey não é apenas uma casa gótica, mas um símbolo de amadurecimentoNesse episódio a gente conversou um pouco sobre a jornada de amadurecimento de Catherine Morland em 'Northanger Abbey'. Como ela se vê num confronto de suas fantasias juvenis (envoltas na estética gótica. Tendência do momento século XVIII) e a sua realidade.Muito obrigada por passar esses minutos com a gente.E para quem quiser acompanhar a nossa newsletter, aqui vai o endereço: www.portrasdosromances.substack.com Muitos abraços!De duas mulheres obstinadas e teimosas ;) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit portrasdosromances.substack.com/subscribe

Tonight I will be reading chapters 11 & 12 from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I will be reading chapter 10 from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I will be reading chapter 9 from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I will be continuing Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I am reading the opening from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I am continuing Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I am continuing Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

Tonight I am continuing Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The novel was completed in 1803, so it was one of Austens earlier works but not published until 1817. The main protaganist, Catherine Morland reads a lot of gothic novels and her imagination runs wild. Join her as she navigates the complexities of social norms, friendships and love while learning that reality is less dramatic than the novels she reads! So cozy up in your Quiet Corner and enjoy tonights story. Follow on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories (@thequietcornerbedtimestories) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Music in tonight's episode is from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://pixabay.com/id/music/klasik-modern-one-promise-with-you-174051/⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Intro Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Just Relax | Royalty-Free Music - Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like The Quiet Corner Bedtime Stories please rate, review or share with a friend so we can keep the show going and help others discover it, thank you all for your support, it is much appreciated.

You can't keep Catherine Morland down for long. Despite certain disappointments - and alarming developments - it's more important to remember that wishes do come true... While we talk about legal topics and early 2000s dramas, of course. For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, visit our website: ⁠reclaimingjanepod.com⁠ Connect with us: Twitter: ⁠@reclaimingjane⁠ Facebook: ⁠@ReclaimingJanePod⁠ Instagram: ⁠@reclaimingjane⁠ Patreon: ⁠@reclaimingjanepod⁠ Email: reclaimingjanepod@gmail.com Music by LaTasha Bundy. Show art by Emily Davis-Hale.

Northanger Abbey follows seventeen-year-old Gothic novel aficionado Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath. It is Catherine's first visit there. She meets new friends, such as Isabella Thorpe, and goes to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella's brother, the rough-mannered, slovenly John Thorpe, and by her real love interest, Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry's younger sister. Henry captivates her with his view on novels and his knowledge of history and the world. General Tilney (Henry and Eleanor's father) invites Catherine to visit their estate, Northanger Abbey, which, from her reading of Ann Radcliffe's Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, she expects to be dark, ancient and full of Gothic horrors and fantastical mystery. - Summary by Wikipedia --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/librivox1/support

Prepare to be disturbed as we delve into the eerie world of Matthew Lewis' gothic classic "The Monk" for this years Catherine Morland's reading list episode. I'm joined by Martha as we dissect this haunting tale set in Madrid, known for its unsettling themes of morality and sin. We expose the supernatural elements intertwined within the tale, from spectral apparitions, to witchcraft and obsession. We also shed light on the disturbing plot twists that keep listeners on their edge. From Ambrosio's notorious reputation and his fear of tarnishing it, to Matilda's shocking revelation, we leave no stone unturned. The strange connections between the characters and the cryptic events add layers to the story, making it a riveting listen. Disclaimer: This episode does feature conversations of sexual assault including non consensual sex as this is a heavy theme in the novel. Tune into last years spooky season ep where we discussed The Mysteries of Udolpho.Where can you find Martha? Instagram: @marthabethanreadsEpisode 10: Bridgerton Gossip (S1, S2 and the books)Episode 21: The Mysteries of UdolphoEpisodes 31 - 36: Taylor Swift seriesThe BEAM ChroniclesThere are no heroes. Fiction podcast/Superhero Audiobook by MJ DooneyListen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifyHaus of Bennet Haus of Bennet sells products themed around your favourite classic lit and period dramas.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showWhere can you find your host (Izzy)? Website: www.whattheausten.com Podcast Instagram: @whattheaustenPersonal Instagram: @izzy_meakinYoutube: What the Austen? Podcast

Catherine Morland makes a friend! Catherine Morland had better not even THINK of betraying that friend. We've got authorial tangents, boiled egg water, and infamous rom-com (not Gothic) betrayals in this second episode on Northanger Abbey. For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, visit our website: reclaimingjanepod.com Connect with us: Twitter: @reclaimingjane Facebook: @ReclaimingJanePod Instagram: @reclaimingjane Patreon: @reclaimingjanepod Email: reclaimingjanepod@gmail.com Music by LaTasha Bundy. Show art by Emily Davis-Hale.

Summary: Summer is coming to a close and academia is back on our minds. Welcome to our fourth LoveFest, where Holly and Devin talk about Jane Austen for literally longer than they've ever spoken about anything on the podcast before. Born in 1775, Austen received a home-based education and began writing in her teens. Her novels were published anonymously during her short life; she died in 1817 at age 41 of what modern physicians believe to be Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Her six novels, though, have endured for centuries and are recognized especially for their wit, humor, and keen social commentary.  Topics Discussed: Sense and Sensibility (13:09): Elinor and Marianne Dashwood teach the reader via their contrasting approaches to love that a successful romance requires both logic and passion; Holly's introduction to Austen and a mutual favorite Adaptations: 1995 film ft Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, and Harriet Walter. 2008 BBC Miniseries ft. Dan Stevens, Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield. Pride & Prejudice (25:53): This novel is the foundation of what we think of as a romance book and is still the template some 200+ years later; Lizzie Bennet is a heroine for the ages and Darcy one of the best romantic leads in all of literature.  Adaptations: 1995 BBC Miniseries ft. Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. 2005 Joe Wright film ft. Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen  Emma (39:43): Emma Woodhouse goes from playing matchmaking games and meddling in the lives of her friends and acquaintances to realizing she has to mature to earn the proper match of her own in this hilarious, witty novel; Mister Knightley is a favorite of both Holly and Devin.  Adaptations: 1995 film Clueless ft. Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash and Brittany Murphy, 2009 BBC miniseries ft. Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller, 2020 film ft. Anya Taylor Joy and Johnny Flynn  Mansfield Park (49:01): Following one of the harder heroines to love and root for, Fanny, the reader journeys through all kinds of tomfoolery and propriety transgressions on their way to a happy ending in Austen's least-loved novel (for Holly and Devin, at least); key themes of class differences, privilege, and morality add meaning.  Adaptations: Don't bother.  Northanger Abbey (1:01:13): It's a teenage dream for the reader as we follow Catherine Morland through her summer in Bath as she discovers herself, the meaning of true and false friendships, and ultimately - love (with a side of melodrama and a “murder investigation”); Austen pokes fun at the Gothic novels so popular at the time.  Adaptations: 2007 Northanger Abbey TV miniseries featuring Felicity Jones Persuasion (1:11:36): In her final work, we follow Austen's oldest protagonist (27, gasp!) Anne Elliot, who had forsaken her love of Frederick Wentworth years ago after pressure from her family about his status. The reader explores the power of love, of self-advocacy, and not bending to societal pressure while rooting enthusiastically for Anne and Wentworth alike. If you want more details on this novel, check out Episode 17, Classics.  Adaptations: 1995 film ft. Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root, 2007 film ft. Sally Hawkins, 2022 film ft. Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis (skip unless you want a laugh) Hot On the Shelf (1:18:58): Devin: With Love, from Cold World by Alicia Thompson Holly: Let Him In by William Friend What's Making Our Hearts Race (1:21:37): Devin: Barbie Holly: Oppenheimer    Instagram: @heartsanddaggerspod Website: www.heartsanddaggerspod.com   If you like what you hear, please tell your friends and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so that we can find our perfect audience.

We're starting our final novel with gusto! What exactly is the deal with Austen's first and last heroine, Catherine Morland, and why is she unfit for the job (in her own opinion)? For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, visit our website: reclaimingjanepod.com Connect with us: Twitter: @reclaimingjane Facebook: @ReclaimingJanePod Instagram: @reclaimingjane Patreon: @reclaimingjanepod Email: reclaimingjanepod@gmail.com Music by LaTasha Bundy. Show art by Emily Davis-Hale.

 In honor of this year's summer learning theme, Dig In, we're digging into some authors we already know with the Books and Bites Bingo prompt, read another book by an author you love. Carrie's PickNorthanger Abbey by Jane Austen, a coming of age story that satirizes Gothic novels. Seventeen year-old Catherine Morland visits Bath with family friends, where she indulges in her love of reading Gothic novels. When her new friends, Henry and Eleanor Tilney, invite her to their home in a former abbey, Catherine's overactive imagination almost gets the better of her.Pairing: Bath Buns, a sweet enriched yeast dough bun that was reportedly a favorite of Austen's. Michael's PickGone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana. This splatterpunk novel follows Lori, a superfan of the notorious serial killer, Edmund Cox. She corresponds with him regularly and even goes as far as to visit him in prison. During one visit, he gives her a task to prove her devotion that she of course eagerly accepts.Pairing: Mississippi Delta Infusion, a refreshing cocktail inspired by the birthplace of the Delta Blues.Jacqueline's PickClockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. When orphan Tessa Gray's aunt dies, Tessa travels across the ocean to reunite with her brother, Nathanial, her only living relative. Upon her arrival, the Mysterious Dark sisters kidnap Tessa, who work for the Magister. During her captivity, Tessa learns that she has the power to transform into other people. The Magister wants to marry Tessa and use her ability. The Dark Sisters threaten to hurt her and her brother if she fails to comply with their demands to change into other people.Pairing: Angel Food Cake, a light, airy dessert that goes great with fresh berries.

We're sorry we've been away! But here we are and we're finally getting to know Northanger Abbey. We both agree that Catherine seems to tell herself stories because not much happens for her day to day. The idea of hiding under the sheets to hide from the scary things your brain has conjured up, doesn't seem that far fetched to either of us. What's in the chest! What's in the cabinet! It just seems like a way an anxious brain sometimes works. T is still trying to figure out General Tilney, but at this point we can conclude they do not like him. "Red Flag! Red Flag! Red Flag!" Catherine is trying to distract Henry with flowers, and his flirting is going straight over her head. MURDER! Someone could have possibly maybe been murdered, and T isn't down for the logical leaps. Catherine Morland - cute goth - She'd really fit into a Scooby Doo Mystery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The complete audiobook is available for sale at Audible.com: voicesoftoday.net/nab Narrated by Catherine Bilson, Graham Scott, Terah Tucker, Denis Daly and Linda Barrans. Northanger Abbey is the earliest of Jane Austen's mature novels. Although scholarly opinion is that the book was actually completed in the late 1790s, it was not published until after the author's death in 1817. The plot follows the usual trajectory of a young girl falling in love, the relationship becoming compromised by unforeseen circumstances and a final happy consummation. In this case, Austen's heroine is a naïve country girl, Catherine Morland, who has an addiction to reading the Gothic horror novels which were so popular in the Regency period. When she is invited to stay at the family seat of her love interest and discovers it to be a vast and ancient castle, her romantic imagination runs riot. What secrets lie hidden in this vast pile over which the widowed head of the house exercises an iron control?

Henry Tilney is discussing muslin with Mrs. Allen and Catherine Morland, and the ladies are impressed. This episode we're joined by fashion historian Dr. Hilary Davidson for an examination of muslin as both a textile and a fashion statement in Austen's time. There's also some busting of popular Regency fashion myths. If you have ever lost sleep worrying over your sartorial choices, this episode is for you. Thank you so much to Hilary for joining us for this episode! You can learn more about Hilary and her work at http://www.hilarydavidson.net and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @FourRedShoes. You can find us online at https://www.thethingaboutausten.com and follow us on Instagram @TheThingAboutAusten and on Twitter @Austen_Things. You can also email us at TheThingAboutAusten@gmail.com.

This is a LibriVox public domain recording. Northanger Abbey follows Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath, England. Seventeen year-old Catherine spends her time visiting newly-made friends, such as Isabella Thorpe, and going to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella's brother John Thorpe (Catherine's brother James's friend from university), and by Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry's younger sister. Henry captivates her with his view on novels and his knowledge of history and the world. General Tilney (Henry and Eleanor's father) invites Catherine to visit their estate, Northanger Abbey, which, because she has been reading Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine expects to be dark, ancient and full of fantastical mystery. (Summary by Wikipedia) --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/colin-holbrook/support

Catherine Morland has arrived in Bath, and she is ready to be introduced to a man with a keen knowledge of muslin. This episode we explore both the Upper and Lower Assembly Rooms, including breaking down the role of the Master of Ceremonies, aka Bath's best matchmaker. You can find us online at www.TheThingAboutAusten.com and follow us on Instagram @TheThingAboutAusten and on Twitter @Austen_Things. You can also email us at TheThingAboutAusten@gmail.com.

Welcome to the twenty-first episode of the What the Austen? podcast! I'm your host Izzy and I am joined by my friend and fellow Janeite Martha from @marthabethanreads. In this episode, we will be unlocking all the secrets of The Mysteries of Udolpho a novel by Anne Radcliffe which Catherine Morland reads during Northanger Abbey.We will run through the plot of Udolpho, talk about the references in  Northanger Abbey and all around explore the Gothic that inspired Jane Austen's satire.  This is a long book to try and summaries and so I have created a supporting document which you can download from my website: www.whattheausten.com This was such a fun episode to record and a wonderful novel to read despite its length, we hope you enjoy tuning in. This podcast is about Janeites coming together, discussing Jane Austen's work, and having a few laughs along the way. We really enjoyed making this episode and we hope you like it. Where can you find Martha? Instagram: @marthabethanreadsEpisode 10: Bridgerton Gossip (S1, S2 and the books)Where can you find your host (Izzy)? Website: www.whattheausten.com Podcast Instagram: @whattheaustenPersonal Instagram: @izzymeakinYoutube: What the Austen? PodcastPlease follow and subscribe to keep up with all the upcoming episodes.Support the show

Northanger Abbey follows Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath, England. Seventeen year-old Catherine spends her time visiting newly-made friends, such as Isabella Thorpe, and going to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella's brother John Thorpe (Catherine's brother James's friend from university), and by Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry's younger sister. Henry captivates her with his view on novels and his knowledge of history and the world. General Tilney (Henry and Eleanor's father) invites Catherine to visit their estate, Northanger Abbey, which, because she has been reading Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine expects to be dark, ancient and full of fantastical mystery.View our full collection of podcasts at our website: https://www.solgoodmedia.com or YouTube channel: www.solgood.org/subscribeThis is a Librivox Recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain.

Take me out to the ball game! This week we're getting sporty as we discuss Catherine Morland's love of baseball. If you have ever imagined a romcom moment for Catherine and Henry involving baseball, this episode is for you. You can find us online at www.TheThingAboutAusten.com and follow us on Instagram @TheThingAboutAusten and on Twitter @Austen_Things. You can also email us at TheThingAboutAusten@gmail.com.

A klastrom titka egyszerre fejlődésregény és szatíra, egyúttal Jane Austen egyik legvitriolosabb és legszórakoztatóbb műve. Hősnője egy antihős, legalábbis abban az értelemben, ahogy a regények általában megjelenítik a hősnőket, ő mégis a regények szűrőjén keresztül szemléli a világot. Bár már 1803-ban befejezte, végül csak Jane Austen halála után, 1817-ben jelenhetett meg A klastrom titka, amely az író talán egyik legszemélyesebb könyve. A nyüzsgő fürdővárosban, Bath-ban és a gótikus jegyeket magán viselő northangeri kastélyban játszódó történet 17 éves hőse, Catherine Morland folyamatosan a félreértések csapdájában vergődik, melyek nagy részét saját maga gerjesztette. De mi baj lehet abból, ha életvezetési útmutatóként tekintünk egy regényre, hogyan viszonyul Austen azokhoz a karaktereihez, akik nem szeretnek olvasni, és vajon ki lehet az egész Austen-univerzum egyik legellenszenvesebb karaktere? Az Austen-projekt negyedik adásából kiderül ez is.

Hello my friends,You've been through a lot this with us this October - our month of horrors has explored the haunted halls of Mansfield Park, the monstrous mousiness of Fanny Price Ultimate Conqueror, the Drawing-Room treachery of Jane Austen's parlors, and now we cap it off just in time for Halloween weekend, with this special post and podcast episode featuring professor and writer Maria DeBlassie. For Dr. DeBlassie, ordinary life is full of dangers, threats from the real and every day, and what she calls ordinary gothic. Everyday treachery is everywhere and it haunts Jane Austen's novels, where our heroes are forced to face down drawing room dangers even among so-called polite society. But Dr. DeBlassie also has an answer to this problem. She says everyday magic, and the empowerment and joy and romance found in nature, in the power of stories, and in yourself, can help you slay the everyday demons.So, for this special Halloween edition of the Austen Connection we're having a conversation about gothic romance, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, feminism, bodice rippers, witchery, and everyday magic. And somehow Professor Maria DeBlassie ties all of this together in her work and in her life. Dr. DeBlassie is on the faculty at Central New Mexico Community College and teaches in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. In her teaching, her writing, and in her brujeria practice, Dr. DeBlassie is all about finding joy and empowerment, especially as women, as a women of color, and from indigenous or marginalized backgrounds. She says magic, witchery and reading Jane Austen can help you form a magical path forward from trauma and fragmentation based on marginalized identities and to conquer that ordinary gothic that we all face at times. And when you think about it, Jane Austen's characters are all about conquering the ordinary gothic -  Fanny Price, Elinor Dashwood, Catherine Morland - they are constantly conquering the everyday treachery of people around them. Think of patriarchal Sir Thomas, Sir Walter, Henry Crawford, the Thorpe siblings, John and Isabella. These characters and the dangers they bring can relate not just to the everyday but also the political, the cultural society, and the world we all share. But Dr. DeBlassie also teaches the romance genre, and she believes that Jane Austen has an awful lot to say about our everyday relationships. Here's our conversation about ordinary gothic - the disturbances, toxicity, danger, and general creepiness surrounding us - and finding a path forward through story, and everyday magic. Enjoy! Plain JaneSo let me start with: I saw you on Twitter talking about your work, as a professor, about Northanger Abbey, bodice rippers. What is the title of the class? And what's in it? What are you teaching in it?Dr. Maria DeBlassieSo the title of the class is “From Bodice Rippers to Resistance Romance,” or something like that. And it's looking at courtship novels, bodice rippers, and historical romances, and really thinking about how the courtship novel in the 18th century, 19th centuries, really developed this beautiful form of storytelling that centered women's lives, that centered the domestic sphere, and people's emotions. So we look at that and how that genre really inspired the modern romance novel, particularly the historical romance. And then there's a real, spicy couple of decades, where we get the bodice ripper in the sort of ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. And that's when people introduce sex. And you know, it's really colorfully described sex scenes into the historical romance. So the bodice ripper is really what most people think of when they think of romance novels. They think of the sexy clinch covers, and Fabio, and now and then we end up the class looking at contemporary historical romances that are really thinking about centering people with marginalized identities, in stories about happy endings. And I think it's incredibly powerful to have those stories, so people of color, people from the LGBTQ-plus communities, people with disabilities, they get to see themselves having happy endings, and seeing it in stories that are set in the past. Because I don't think people realize that the past is a very complex space. It tends to be whitewashed and heteronormative and ableist. Like the way we talk about that history. So when we look at historical romances that center people of color, for example, it's really reclaiming that space and undoing a lot of that historical erasure. So that's kind of what we look at in the class and it's a lot of fun. You look at sex positivity and gender, politics, and all sorts of really fun things with it.Plain JaneWhat comes out in these discussions that delights you? Or surprises you? I'm a teacher too. So I know you learn from your students. What do you learn from them? And what do they what do they surprise to hear from you in these conversations? Dr. Maria DeBlassie For me, it's always funny because I'm so steeped in this world of reading romances already. So sometimes I forget what it's like to be someone approaching the genre for the first time. So it's always fun to see students engaging with it and being pleasantly surprised that they can analyze and think critically about a really joyful genre that they can have fun, when they're analyzing and unpacking things. And then, genre that's really considered pretty much fluff has a lot of really interesting, complex, intense, problematic ways of framing things historically. You know, we have issues of imperialism, colonization, race - all these things are playing out in these stories. And it's really fun to show them how that's working. I think it's incredibly powerful to have those stories, so people of color, people from the LGBTQ-plus communities, people with disabilities, they get to see themselves having happy endings, and seeing it in stories that are set in the past. Because I don't think people realize that the past is a very complex space. So even a frothy fun book is actually pretty loaded and charged and doing a lot of different things. Sometimes it's really positive stuff. Sometimes it's not so positive. And I had to laugh, because when we did, we read The Pirate and the Pagan by Virginia Henley for the bodice ripper. And it was the first texts we read that have sexually explicit content. And there's a moment where students were like, the stories that center our emotional lives or sexual lives or romantic lives - they're so charged, they're so over the top. And yet, they're really saying such beautiful, important things that affect us in our day-to-day lives. And it's it's beautiful to see students engaging with that, responding to things that really gave them wonderful ideas about their own lives, their own relational lives.And also how they will catch things that I don't catch. So one of my students thought there was a character in The Pirate and the Pagan who was queer coded. And I was like, “That's amazing. That's so brilliant.”So they bring their own interpretations to things, which is so powerful. I think that that's great. But do we ... start the class with Northanger Abbey. We watch the 2007 BBC film adaptation of it, because I think it just does an absolutely wonderful job of looking at why readers - particularly young women - are reading these kind of lurid over-the-top, you know, scandalous stories.Plain JaneWell, let's unpack that a little bit. Northanger Abbey. I guess that's probably the Andrew Davies adaptation, which really, I think starts with or has kind of embedded in it all these fantasies. Catherine Morland's fantasies depicted, which is a great thing to do for the screen, I think. And it makes it in some ways more Gothic than the novel feels. What do you unpack and what do you talk about with Northanger Abbey?Dr. Maria DeBlassieSo I love that film adaptation because I think it takes the novel and really pops out the conversation that's being had in it. Northanger Abbey isn't as popular [in] the Austen canon. But I think it's because a lot of people don't know about Ann Radcliffe and all those sorts of stories that young Catherine Morland is reading. If we situate it within its historical context, people are reading it, and they know just what kind of juicy content Catherine Morland is reading. So, I really love the film adaptation because of those fantasies, we really get to embody and experience all this excitement that's going through Catherine's mind. And I teach it to my students in terms of a young woman's sexual awakening and the real power of the ravishment fantasy. And so that's where it can become a little bit tricky territory because, you know, we're talking about the Me Too movement, we're talking about, consent is mandatory in all things. Their old-school bodice rippers have really problematic rape scenarios or sometimes it's euphemistically called “forced seduction.” So we're really thinking about, Why are all these things playing out? ... I think it's really about seeing these books as a safe space to explore your sexuality and really understand the difference between a ravishment fantasy versus what you want to see happen in real life. One of Catherine's first fantasies in the movie is being abducted by highway men. And it's such a funny scene because it ends with her, like, in the highway man's grip, and she has this terrified [look], but it slowly shifts to pleasure and excitement. Of course, you know, that's the moment where you realize she's just completely lost in this fantasy of what is this whole wide world. What is this sexual world she's being exposed to in these books? What is this new adventure she's going on, because she's never really been outside her hometown. And it's just the pure joy of that. Now, by the end of the story, when she is in a situation, she's kicked out of Northanger Abbey, by General Tilney, and she does run the risk of running into some very real highwayman. In a way … she has to go home and she's unsupervised. She's unprotected.Plain JaneThat's an interesting point.Dr. Maria DeBlassie Yeah. She realizes, these are two different things - the fantasy of being desired and having desires. It's very different from the real-world dangers that I have to negotiate.Plain Jane It's interesting, I love that you point out the word fantasy, I find myself saying this in the posts. And it's just kind of funny, but it does need to be said. And I think in some ways, the reason it still needs to be set is because we're largely talking about female desire. It's like, we have all watched plenty of Tarantino films, we know that sex and violence goes together in our culture, and that there's an erotic aspect to violence. It's when there's that erotic aspect to our violent aspect of female desire that people get confused. But especially because there are these important questions about feminism and, who is attractive? You mentioned this, who we find attractive is a social construct in so many ways. And … the other thing going on with romance, of course, Maria is that it is a huge industry, it is a big bestseller. That is reason enough to treat this seriously. As a genre … it's so foundational that I have really been wanting to explore this. And I feel like that's one of the fun things about Northanger Abbey. And one of the fun things about Jane Austen, is that it is still so foundational to what we find romantic and to these stories that we tell.Dr. Maria DeBlassieAnd you know, everyone, I think kind of dismisses Catherine as this young girl who gets swept away with her imagination. And, you know, the huge butt of the joke in the story or the huge, you know, ongoing joke is that she's overreacting to things in her daily life or blowing things out of context. But as I was rereading the book and watching the movie for my class, I realized: actually, she has really great instincts, and all the stuff that she feels uncomfortable about are actually things she should feel uncomfortable about. Like when … John Thorpe. He takes her [for[ the ride. She's like, I feel really uncomfortable with this. But everyone kind of gaslights her and makes her feel like she's overreacting. It was like, no, she should feel uncomfortable with that. Plain Jane  I love that scene. I love it that you highlight that scene. I feel like it's easy to just “drive by” that scene. … She's literally being forced to stay with him, he will not stop the carriage. Who's been in a car that you weren't sure was going to stop? Or a door that you weren't sure you're going to be able to open? Austen is really giving you that scene and she's making it funny, but she's also showing you something very important, as she always is: That this doesn't feel good. And she's making you feel it. She's making you feel that frustration, and she's making you feel the danger of that moment. Dr. Maria DeBlassie Yes, absolutely. And the way, you know, other women can be complicit in that, right? His sister's helping to orchestrate that situation. And, you know, each and every time Catherine kind of brings up a question like, “I'm uncomfortable about how we're doing this,” Isabella and John, you know, kind of talk her out of her feelings or undercut her emotions. Which, you know, I call that like a really good example of ordinary gothic. It's something that happens all the time. That is actually really bad and problematic, right? That's how women second guess themselves about their instincts. But people don't perceive it as something gothic or scary because it's just so normalized. And then on the other hand, we have Henry Tilney, which she just kind of knows he's a really good guy. She just has this feeling about him, which ends up proving really true. So it's interesting. So as flighty, and as flaky as she might seem, she actually has a pretty good head on her shoulders. And the books are helping her better process and navigate her new world that she's exploring.Plain JaneYes, and at risk of sounding extremely repetitive for people who listen to all of the Austen Connection, I really feel like that's one of my favorite themes of Austen: She's showing you what you expect first, you realize even by the end that, “Oh, she really does have something going on.” Even over Henry, at the end of the day, she's right. She encounters true danger. Like you say, I love that, at the end is the patriarchy, is General Tilney - Can't get any more patriarchal, right?Dr. Maria DeBlassieHe's like the classic gothic villain, you know. The evil patriarch archetype. And it's there in both the book and the movie, when Henry Tilney at the end, really [scolds] Catherine and lays into her about her fantasies and how she's assuming that there's all these evil goings-on in his family. And it's really not, you know, that's not the case at all. And it's true that she does kind of a violating thing by trying to sneak into - I think she's sneaking into his mother's chamber to find evidence. So, you know, some sort of disaster.Austen is so great at having those really horrifically, like secondhand embarrassment scenes where you're like, “Yeah, you know,” it's like, Mr. Knightley says, “You did a bad thing.” And I felt uncomfortable just reading and watching this. But you know, I love at the end of Northanger Abbey that Catherine really feels rightfully apologetic and chastised by Henry Tilney, when he's like, “You have no right to intrude on my family's stories like this.” But then he later comes back. And he's like, “Actually, what you were feeling and thinking was, right. I mean, you took it out in a weird way. But my mom was really unhappy in the marriage.” And so I love that he's able to apologize and say, “Well, I didn't like the way you executed things. But you actually picked up pretty quickly everything that's going on with my family dynamic.” And to me, that's such a powerful moment, because you know what a gothic romance is about what are romance novels about? It's about traditionally young women entering the marriage market and having to negotiate all these new things: the rake, the evil gothic villain, the wonderful hero, and trying to figure out what kind of marriage alliance, what kind of marriage or love match am I going to make? Because in Austen's time, if you choose the wrong marriage, like, you're screwed. You're kind of locked into that. So women were seen as property of male family members. So once they chose a marriage, and usually they didn't have a whole lot of agency in that they're pretty much locked in. So General Tilney's wife had more of a tragic marriage story. Because she thought it was love. You actually married her for her money, and now she's stuck. So what Catherine Morland is really looking at in reading all these gothic novels is, How do I avoid the worst possible situation and find the best possible situation? You know, happiness, love, stability, and a partner who sees me as an equal. So, again, she seems real, like a horny teenager, you know, just really getting into like, “Wow, all these men like me,” but there's another real part of her thinking, “What's my future gonna be like, and how do I negotiate all these things and not get carried away and make the wrong choice?”Plain JaneThere's so much at stake with marriage. And listening to you, I realized that it must be really lovely to be exploring these stories with you in the classroom and to have you as a teacher. Claudia Johnson wrote something and Dr. George Justice and I were talking about this in a … podcast, that Claudia Johnson writes about “the fantasy of benign authority,” which she's describing Knightley, and you're making me realize Henry Tilney does come back and say, “Well, you were wrong, but essentially you were right.” I wonder if that's part of the fantasy? Knightley does the same thing, you know: Emma's matchmaking for everyone, and he says, [in] a really romantic moment, and we're all swooning, basically … he says, “You would have chosen for Mr. Elton better than he chose for himself.” Such a smart thing to say, like, “Yeah, you're walking around wrong, but you're not as wrong as everyone else.” Which I think is kind of what Austen's showing us with her heroines a lot as well. She's having fun with these mistakes they make. But there're still more right than everyone else .. And so I feel like she she's kind of doing something feminist in that. … Dr. George Justice, and I were reminding ourselves … it's Austen, creating these powerful characters. She's creating this powerful patriarchal symbol, with Pemberley and Darcy, and Knightley and Donwell Abbey. She gives us the most powerful person - you can imagine Henry Tilney and Northanger Abbey - and she kind of conquers them. But then the fantasy is they come back and they say, “You were right. You're smart”!Dr. Maria DeBlassie Well, not only do they say, “You were right,” they say, they're sorry. And I think if we're thinking about romantic connections, really being able to have a partnership with someone who knows when to apologize, and knows when to say, “Hey, maybe I was wrong.” That's pretty powerful. And it's not something that people would list as things that are super sexy, but it's actually very sexy. Day in, day out.Plain Jane I love that comment. I mean, … you are the expert, How well do bodice rippers and our romances do what Austen does? Which is, she shows us the companionate marriage and she basically shows us the love. She shows us the lust. That last is a little easier to grasp - that fantasy, the eroticism. I mean, it's intuitive. But the companionate partnership is not so intuitive. That's something that you have to learn and really observe and really think about. … I love the post-game analysis Austen gives us (I can't believe I've got a sports analogy because I'm not a sports person) - I love it. She gives us postgame analysis. There's no better word for it really. With Knightley and Emma, particularly with those two, Austen's doing this. So consciously - like, this is not an accident: These are very intentional. Those postgame analyses. I feel like she's very conscious about showing us how to have a good relationship. I think if we're thinking about romantic connections, really being able to have a partnership with someone who knows when to apologize, and knows when to say, “Hey, maybe I was wrong.” That's pretty powerful. And it's not something that people would list as things that are super sexy, but it's actually very sexy.Dr. Maria DeBlassie And how to communicate with people. I always tell my students, it's such a good example of close reading and analysis. Those scenes when they break down -  like in a Pride and Prejudice when Darcy and Elizabeth finally get together, and they basically break down every encounter they had with each other. What it means. And it's like, this really good example of close reading and analysis and also like, a healthy way of talking about your relationships. Because no one's perfect in this world. What matters is, can you communicate? Can you work through stuff?Plain JaneCan you tell us more about what you call ordinary, everyday gothic?So when I'm not teaching, I'm a writer and I do witchy stuff. And I write about everyday magic and everyday, ordinary gothic. And so the idea behind those things is that magic and the mystic and the wondrous are around us every day. Sometimes we really look way far outside ourselves, or outside our daily lives, in order to find that kind of luminous or mystical experience. You know, I kind of equate it with people feeling like, they need to need to travel all over the world to get that and they're not thinking about how to find happiness in their daily life, right? Ordinary gothic is a similar theme, but it kind of tackles the darker side of that magic, which is the way we can normalize toxic behaviors, or we can kind of push past … like uncanny experiences, we'll kind of write them off. Or things that make us feel uncomfortable, we'll kind of pass through, bypass those feelings. And so, the ordinary gothic is those moments of the uncanny, or a sense of disturbance in our daily lives that we don't necessarily register as gothic or creepy, because it's so normalized. So a great example of that, like we said earlier is with John Thorpe, when he just kind of talks [Catherine Morland] into that ride, when she's just like really saying, No. You know, we see that, as you said, playing out in our life, so many ways, when that one person does something when we're like, No, we're really uncomfortable. But we're made to feel like we're wrong for wanting to lay down a boundary, for example. Or a really good example of ordinary gothic is Fanny Price. And everyone says she should be marrying Henry Crawford. And everyone's like, “I don't get what your problem is.” And she's literally like, “Hey, he's done a bunch of bad stuff. He's gone after and dumped Maria Bertram, like he's behaving badly. I'm not comfortable with this.” And [Sir Thomas], his response is, “Well, why don't you go home to poverty for a little bit, think it over, and then let us know how you feel.” That's a really great example of ordinary gothic, because he's making her feel her limited status as someone who came from poverty, and really trying to force her hand into a relationship that is going to be actively unhealthy. … Henry Crawford is not a good man. And she knows as much as he's putting on the charm now that will fade, and she'll be trapped in a loveless marriage. Now, objectively, we would say, “Oh, it's just a family member of the patriarchy, having our best interest at heart and trying to marry her off to a good suitor.” The ordinary gothic comes in when her background is being used to manipulate or coerce her into a situation, which we know is toxic. You know, Henry Crawford, there's those lines. And I think the 1999 film adaptation makes them a little more sympathetic. So that's how people think of him. But in the book, you know, he talks about wanting to like, tear a little hole in her heart. The way he describes it, it's like, it's not actual love for her. It's this conquest thing. It's this violence. So again, a really good example of ordinary gothic, where objectively, we think, “Oh, here's a rich, sexy man who flirts and really loves you and wants to take care of you. Why aren't you married?” But there's all these other social underpinnings that are really quite toxic.Plain Jane And one thing that you talk about in your work too, that I want to ask you about and that I love is the … let me see if I can look at the words you use. You talk about the unseen mystic which you're talking about here too. But specifically with the ordinary Gothic, you talk about … Hang on, let me see if I can find it because you say it so well. On your website: “reclaiming our power, specifically as women of color, fellow marginalized identities, of those in need of hope and healing.” When I listen to you, Maria, talk about Fanny Price. and also Catherine Morland up against the very powerful General Tilney, I wonder if some of these ordinary gothic stories can be extrapolated to larger issues. I feel like Jane Austen was showing us with Sir Thomas. Yes, Sir Thomas. Who's almost benevolent? He's really almost benevolent, but then he's very much not. And he's not in a way that's sort of that benign dictator. And I wonder if it's a metaphor for Imperialism. So all of that to say, I wonder if that ordinary gothic can be extrapolated to something larger about reclaiming spaces as marginalized individuals - reclaiming power, like you say.Dr. Maria DeBlassieAbsolutely. And I think, you know, when I first started reading Jane Austen, I was an undergrad, so feels like 1000 years ago, like 15 plus years ago. And I was really trying to explore what happiness looks like. And I have a very complicated relationship to my own cultural background. So it's indigenous, latinx, and European. And essentially, we're products of colonization. So it means we have this very fraught history that really gets romanticized. But there is this history of violence in our veins. And, you know, at the time, there wasn't a lot of discussion about how that impacts communities, specifically with the goal of moving beyond those narratives of trauma. So I was trying to figure out, “Okay, well, I know I have this here. But how do I move forward? I can't just wallow, right?” So the gothic is there to say, “Yes, bring all that out into the light.” And then once that rupture happens, we need to move forward. So I started reading Jane Austen, because I took a phenomenal class in undergrad. And first of all, it's just such a wonderful community, it was so nice to just nerd out with people who just love these stories. And my mom got me into I'm reading, you know, watching BBC adaptations and stuff. So I really want to learn about this. And I fell in love with the stories in undergrad, because I felt like they were helping me figure out what happiness looks like, specifically for people who weren't, you know, crazy rich and could do whatever they wanted. When you you still have to kind of live in the society that you're navigating. And I also love that it was really centering domestic and emotional lives. So I'm a really domestic person. I'm also an introvert. And so the long walks across the Moors, and the quiet reflections in the sitting room. Like that really spoke to me. And of course, it's also kind of a problem that I had to go to white narratives to find those examples of finding happy endings and working through difficult things. But over the years, I've realized it's also about being expansive. Like, what stories are we allowed to enjoy? What stories are we allowed to be part of? I'm really happy to see the Jane Austen fandoms becoming much more inclusive and exploratory. There's people queering the Jane Austen characters and doing all sorts of really wonderful stuff. And that's really, what got me started on my road in many ways to brujeria. And thinking about reclaiming that magic of everyday life, and reclaiming space for ourselves and finding that empowerment. And recognizing that a lot of times, that's going to look a lot different from the traditional narratives that are told about people of color. You know, we're told, we can only read or enjoy certain things. We're told how we're supposed to feel about our relationship to our culture, and there's a lot of stereotypes in there. But literature is really an outlet for us to explore and reclaim our agency. And Jane Austen was one of the authors that really helped me discover that.Plain Jane  That's wonderful to hear. And I also feel sad that it had to be a white world that you went to for that happily ever after. And I'm really, really excited that we're just changing that and I feel like Jane Austen would be extremely excited that we're changing that too. Dr. Maria DeBlassieAbsolutely. And it's so much easier now because, you know, as I've been writing more and been more vocal about these [things], I've had so many friends of color, friends with marginalized identities, reached out to me and be like, “Oh my God, I've been quietly trying to work, trying to do this to or to figure out a way past these kind of trauma narratives.” Because it's so much of what stories about people with marginalized identities are, it's like trauma narratives. And it becomes like an element of torture porn after a while. It's like, “Why can't I be centered in a happy story?” And then it's really marvelous to see that at the same time, I was kind of exploring things with Jane Austen, things on the internet and these online communities. We're seeing this really fruitful exploration of people from all different backgrounds, reclaiming their agency and their right to joy and telling more inclusive stories that center that.I mean, now I can find so many wonderful romances, for example, that center BIPOC joy, or queer love, or all these things. So, you know, that was just something I didn't have access to 15-plus years ago.Plain JaneThat's awesome. Tell me Maria, a little bit more about your background? And, and you've kind of mentioned how finding Jane Austen fit into it. But can you tell me a little bit more about it? And how you have reconciled with with it? And with your romance reading?Dr. Maria DeBlassie Yes, absolutely. So I have a pretty complicated relationship to my cultural identity, just because, again, we do have that history of colonization. So in New Mexico, it's the Spaniards who came in through Mexico, and conquered indigenous communities. And as a result, we have this very interesting, mixed cultural heritage now. But unfortunately, a lot of that heritage gets whitewashed because there's this huge history of cultural assimilation. So you have families that will only insist that they're Spanish, but not Mexican, or they want to erase any indigenous connections. And a lot of us don't know what our full mix is because of that erasure. So part of what we're grappling with, is really coming to terms with the fact that we can't know everything about our cultural or ancestral past, even though it is something that can still affect us and those energies. And that's where I get into some of my witchy stuff, you know, the ancestral hauntings and the, the kind of echoes of the past in our blood. And so the only option we have is to move forward. And to say, “I can't always go back and reclaim things. Sometimes I just don't know enough, or I will never be able to figure out what my full ancestral background is. And sometimes it's not a healthy thing for me to do, depending on family dynamics, etc. So where do we go from there, then? Well, the answer is, we move forward. We craft new narratives that pave the way and move beyond that trauma, or the fraught past. And this is a huge part of my brujeria practice. It's allowing us to move past the stories that are told about us, and really carving our own path. And part of that path is joy. So when you have a marginalized identity, so for me as a woman of color, it can be hard to feel like you can access that sense of pleasure or joy. So, particularly if you've ever been exposed to Catholicism … there can be also a very shaming aspect to pleasure and joy, particularly sexual pleasure or things that are just for the sake of enjoyment. And that comes into our backgrounds through Spanish Catholicism that really shamed indigenous communities and women. So part of what we're reclaiming in finding new ways of telling stories in our brujeria practice is our right to joy, is our right to sexual freedom, is our right to our own agency and autonomy. But actually … when you're grappling with all those issues, that's how Jane Austen and then eventually romance novels really helped me. Because they were just stories about joy, people figuring their stuff out in everyday life and in finding joy. So when I really started looking into romance novels more seriously … it was just so wonderful to read stories about people being tender and having emotions and working through stuff, and really feeling that the beauty of human connection. And in fact, in one of my classes, when, at the start of the pandemic, when we all had to move online, we were at the start of our romance novel unit for a class I teach on sex and gender culture. And a lot of my students kept reading romance novels after that, through the pandemic, because they felt it had a huge impact on their mental health, to just find these moments of joy. And so for me, I call this, it's my part of my pleasure magic practice, where you just kind of create space for warm and fuzzy things. And of course not all more romances are created equal. The bodice rippers, again, have a lot of really old-school problematic content. And some of the newer stuff can too. But when you find those stories that really speak to you, you know, they're healing you in fundamental ways. And they're nourishing your soul and letting you know that you're allowed to be more than histories of oppression, essentially.Plain Jane Yes, that's so well said. So tell me, the brujeria practice, and you say it so beautifully, that it's about going forward. And it's about carving out these stories for yourself for the future and finding joy. So tell me more about the everyday magic and everyday witchery. And those rituals that sustain you and help you plow ahead.Dr. Maria DeBlassieYes, thank you. So I just actually just published a book on it, Practically Pagan: An Alternative Guide to Magical Living. And it's really about being intentional about how you want to live. So my theory of practice is a little bit different in the sense that I write for the pagan- or witchy- curious. I teach a class on witchcraft and pop culture for my students. [W]hen you find those stories that really speak to you, you know, they're healing you in fundamental ways. And they're nourishing your soul and letting you know that you're allowed to be more than histories of oppression, essentially.And so I'm less complex-spells and complicated rituals and really expensive tools, and ingredients. And I'm more thinking about how powerful our thoughts are, how powerful our energy and intention is. And really thinking, you know, if I want to create this narrative of happiness, if I want that everyday magic, I need to look at the ordinary gothic first. I need to find the places in my life that feel dark or oppressive. And I need to untangle that and figure out what's causing that. Once I kind of work through those things, then the magic follows. Our energy opens up, we can get really grounded about what we want our day-in, day-out to look like. So I talked about making routines and turning them into rituals, right? So we're not just on autopilot, we're thinking intentionally about how we want to live our daily life. … I like to frame it in terms of actual storytelling, because I believe in story magic. I do think these stories, you know, the books and the stories we're attracted to give us a lot of medicine, and healing through simply following the heroine's journey or the hero's journey. So when I explain brujeria to people, or my version of practicing it, I think of it as centering yourself as the protagonist in your own life, right? If your story was a book, what would you want it to look like? What would you want to be there? What would the setting be? And then you can slowly start building it from there. And it sounds sort of silly or corny, but it's a really beautiful way of saying, “If I'm the author of my own life, how do I want to script this? How do I want to shape this?” And it's amazing what happens when you just start directing your attention, the synchronous events that will keep guiding you to a more joyful way of living and really helping open up to the profound possibility. —Happy Halloween weekend, friends - are you inspired by Dr. DeBlassie's closing words and insights about finding “profound possibility” through story, and finding a way forward from a difficult path, whatever that might involve, into empowerment, magic, ritual, and joy, through story? Are you a reader of romance novels, and have they gotten you through tough times?You can comment here and let us know!You can also reach out to us at austenconnection@gmail.com, and please find us on twitter at @AustenConnect and on Insta and Facebook at @austenconnection. Do you know anyone who might love to hear about this combination of witchery, everyday magic, and romance stories, and Jane Austen? If so, invite a friend into our community by sharing this post! Meanwhile, have a magical, wonderful Halloween weekend, and stay in touch with us here at the Austen Connection. Yours affectionately,Plain JaneCool linksDr. Maria DeBlassie's website: https://mariadeblassie.com/Practically Pagan: An Alternative Guide to Magical Living and other books by Maria DeBlassie: https://mariadeblassie.com/publications Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Northanger Abbey - Chapters: 20-23Elle and Catrina finally make it to Northanger Abbey... I mean... Catherine Morland finally makes it to Northanger Abbey!Catherine heads to the Abbey with the Tilney's. She is extremely excited because she gets to spend time with her new friend Elenor and her love interest Henry. Most importantly, she gets to go and stay in an abbey! Her little gothic novel fangirl heart might just explode. Of course, she can't visit an abbey without finding all the spooky stuff. Henry tells her about all the mysterious things she is likely to find in his old house and Catherine certainly finds them. What's more, she believes she has uncovered a secret that even Henry and Elenor are unaware of. Who needs a secret wife in the attic, when you have a secret wife in the basement?Wit Beyond Measure is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to atFrolic.media/podcasts        

Hello friends,Today, a podcast episode!It would not have been possible to have our Everything Emma month here at the Austen Connection without consulting Professor George Justice. Dr. Justice is the editor of the 2011 Norton Critical Edition of Emma, a professor of 18th Century British literature, and a frequent contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education. And he's also the husband of Austen scholar, author, and friend Devoney Looser, who tells the story of their romantic meet-cute in a previous Austen Connection episode. Consult him we did, and the conversation was really fun, because: Emma is fun, just as it is also complex, surprising, baffling, and romantic. All of this complexity comes out in the conversation with George Justice. We explore what's going on with Austen men, what's going on with Austen women, and how romance and power get wrapped up in the stories of Austen. I first met Dr. Justice on the campus of the University of Missouri, where he served as dean of the graduate school. Now, he is a professor of English at Arizona State University. But in the process of that journey, from Missouri to Arizona, and from administration back to the classroom, he rediscovered the power of teaching Jane Austen.  This journey also has involved a recovery from a serious illness, and Dr. Justice says one of the things that got him through tough times has been reading Jane Austen, and talking about Jane Austen with his students. We spoke on a recent sunny Saturday, by Zoom. Here's an edited excerpt from our conversation:*Please note: There is a light mention of sexual assault in this conversation, about 20 minutes in, and again at 40 about minutes.Plain JaneI'm so glad that you're sharing your beautiful Saturday morning. Let me just ask a little bit about your work, George. So you're obviously on English literature with a focus on women's writing and publishing. And you're writing a book on Jane Austen, as a writer for Reaktion Books, the “Critical Lives” series. You also write about higher education, very compellingly, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. What, in all of this, are you most focused on and most passionate about, like, right this minute?George JusticeI can't say there is one thing because you're right, you just outlined the two major threads of my career as they've evolved. They both involve students, higher education, and places where I think I can contribute. But on the literature side, it feels like a miracle to me to be able to write about Jane Austen, to do research on Jane Austen, and especially, to teach Jane Austen to undergraduate students, which I can't imagine a more enjoyable thing that I can pretend is productive for myself to do. But my most recently published book is How to Be a Dean from the Johns Hopkins University Press. So figuring out ways, outside of administration, to take my passion for higher education to make structural change, structural change that is also focused on the individual. And I think that's something that maybe I'll be able to bring back to a discussion of the novels, genre, and to teaching. I love thinking about what the novel is. But what I also love is what it means to individual human beings to change their lives and do great things in the world.Plain Jane George, you said something else, about your illness, which you handled, it seemed, so gracefully. But I know that it's been huge. And in some ways, you were hit by this turn-the-world-upside-down thing. And then the world itself was turned upside down, not too long later. So in some ways, we're all kind of stunned. But you look the picture of health, and it's so great to see it. What were you reading during this time? Can Jane Austen get you through something like that?George JusticeTo me, it was therapeutic. It was therapeutic not only to reread her books, and to dig back in, more generally, to 18th century literature, but I was a little shaky, you know, I had been very sick. I had not from my own choice been thrust out of a job that I had spent 70 hours working on actively, and the rest of my life kind of thinking about, when I got into the classroom, and started teaching Jane Austen again. And it was absolutely life-changing. And I realized, that is what the life of an educator should be. And it was really … a life-changing class for me, not only because it marked kind of re-entry into a different kind of career: But the students were so shockingly great to me. To me, having these students in that class, loving Jane Austen and understanding things about Jane Austen, was transformational in my understanding about what the rest of my life and the rest of my career are going to be. I can bring together a complete passion for bringing Jane Austen not just to white, upper-middle class students at a private liberal arts college, but at Arizona State University, 120,000 students. It's now a Hispanic serving institution. It serves many, many first generation and low-income students, and they love Jane Austen. Not only with as much passion, but with at least as much insight as any students I've ever had anywhere else in my life. That class changed my life, when I had these students engaging with such depth and brilliance with the texts.Plain Jane That's amazing. I hear you George, I think that's true. It is life changing. And this project arose also from the difficult times, the winter of the pandemic, and just looking for something to lift you up and a community to engage in. What you're describing, going into that classroom, sharing Austen, but then also having some brilliance shared back at you and just literally connecting around the stories. But you know, the Norton Anthology that you edited and curated came out almost 20 years ago. And you may have not looked at it recently. I have. But you were talking about the power of Jane Austen, then, so it's Everything Emma in the Austen connection right now.George JusticeGood for me.Plain Jane Yes. Well, is Emma your favorite novel of all time?George JusticeOh, that is a a very difficult question. And I know because you talked to Devoney and you had Devoney on your podcast a couple of weeks ago. In that now infamous conversation, I declared to Devoney that Mansfield Park was my favorite novel. And I do love Mansfield Park … because it was the first one that grabbed me. I mean, I was assigned it in a class my first year of grad school. I didn't read it until then, and I started reading it and it was just one of those amazing things, but my life was changed: How could I not have seen this or understood this in my past 22 years of life? I stayed up all night reading it, and it was like an onslaught. If you ask me, yes, that was my favorite. Plain Jane Well, I'm just curious. It seems to me like you were a more mature 22 year old. I mean, I read Mansfield Park when I was just out of college. Weirdly, I've never been assigned much Jane Austen at all. I just discovered it after all of the degrees - it was only two degrees - in English. … It wasn't until later that I realized there's a heck of a lot going on with Austen. What were you noticing? Why were you reading it up late at night? I mean … I had kind of a weird education, up until college. But you had a good education. So maybe you did have the training to spot the subtexts.George JusticeI don't know if it was about the subtext. I think it was about Fanny Price. Plain JaneYou like the underdog! Devoney said this … George Justice  The underdog and the person with depth, with a strong, correct, and unassailable moral code, oppressed by the world. I mean, that was a thing that just for whatever reason, maybe, from my high school years, which were kind of miserable, the person who was neglected. I mean, it just spoke to me, this whole world moving around in a cynical and nasty way. And yet, there's a moral center to that world, which was Fanny Price. So it wasn't even, it was not a literary reading, where I was looking at themes and context. It was Fanny Price. Who is, as you know, of such huge controversy in the Jane Austen world, because there are so many self-proclaimed Janeites who hate Fanny Price. To me, Fanny Price is the true center of Jane Austen. Which is why I found the film both interesting and disturbing, because Patricia Rozema melds Jane Austen and Fanny Price together, which I think actually weakens Fanny Price. But I do believe that the role of Fanny Price in the world, and especially in her world, is a truth about the social world. And it grabbed me. To me, Fanny Price is the true center of Jane Austen. … I do believe that the role of Fanny Price in the world, and especially in her world, is a truth about the social world. And it grabbed me. And the unbelievable moment when she turns down Henry Crawford. I always bring it up in class and I ask my students, “Should she have accepted Henry Crawford?” And the ones who read it correctly but glibly, always say, “Of course not.” The ones who are very cynical say, “Of course she should.” The real answer is, “I don't know.” Because that actually is the answer that the narrator provides to some extent. I just thought it captured a truth about the choices we have to make in the world, and the possibility of choosing good, not as an obvious choice, and not as a glibly self-justifying choice. But as a choice that resonates as truth within one's own moral complexity.Plain JaneI agree with everything you're saying about Fanny Price. … She is ascendant. And you talk about Henry Crawford: She's superior. Like, you can't read that without thinking, “This child, this female child of the species, is superior to everyone. What are you gonna do with that, people? What are you going to do with that? Not even the parsonage and Edmund and not even the grand estate of Mansfield Park is worthy of this child. So, take that!” And I don't know if people really see it that way. You say it's still a little controversial. But you saw this when you were 22?George Justice Well, I think it was a weakness in my psychology.Plain Jane No, because Austen was showing you. Austen was showing you. But we just, I feel like there's still so much to unpack with Austen with every new generation. George JusticeAnd she shows it to you both without humiliating her and without glorifying her. So, as you were talking so eloquently, what came into my mind [is] another woman author of the 19th century, George Eliot and Middlemarch and Dorothea Brooke, and Dorothea Brooke is both humiliated and glorified. You are right, Fanny Price tears everything down. The humiliations are our humiliations from society, not from the writer. I mean, Dorothea Brooke is somewhat humiliated by George Eliot. Jane Austen never humiliates Fanny Price, even if Mrs. Norris is there brutalizing her, but she's definitely not glorifying her either. Fanny Price comes back, and in some ways you could say she assimilates herself to the patriarchy, she marries her cousin, the bossy Edmund  - I don't even think he even fully 100% appreciates her but maybe that's just me. I think I would have been better for Fanny Price than he is.Plain JaneYou would have, George! And no, Austen does not want us to love Edmund, you know? That's clear. She does not love Edmund. We're giving our opinions here! So let us know, people, if you disagree. But yeah, but I love what you're saying, George, that Austen is not humiliating. And in fact, it's not really Fanny tearing things down. Right? Fanny is not doing that; Austen is doing that. And the world is humiliating. The world is full of humiliations, insults, injuries. And here's how you stand. Here's how you stand in this. You point out something in your writing that I want to get to too, which is that there's imagination. This is, in some ways, a fantasy of what can happen. This is re-envisioning a world where a young woman, a young person who identifies as female, a young person who identifies as however you identify, whatever your race, color, sexuality, gender, you - just as a human - you can stand, and this is how you might survive and maybe even be ascendant. Even though it's not necessarily going to happen in real life.So, Mansfield Park. The next novel Austen wrote, I believe, right after Emma. How does she go from Fanny Price to this heroine that has so little to vex her?George Justice When you look at Mansfield Park, which is certainly an experiment in light of Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, and a novelist who is a genius and who is shaping the form and breaking the form at the same time that she's inhabiting it. In a way it's the right next experiment. You take somebody who's very much unlike Fanny Price. She's wealthy. She's beautiful. She's admired. She never makes social mistakes. Really. She is the queen of the world, as opposed to Cinderella. So Fanny Price is Cinderella. Emma is one of the wicked sisters. Yet, and the brilliant ... “I'm going to create a heroine nobody but myself will much like”: That's something an artist would do. It's a kind of intellectual game. But unlike the way postmodern novels sometimes [create] experiments without a heart. It's an experiment in which life overwhelms whatever kind of intellectual experiment may have given rise, to trying to write about an entirely different character, because there is just as much life in Emma, as there is in Mansfield Park. And there is in its own way, just as much integrity in the character of Emma, as there is in the character Fanny Price.Plain Jane It's interesting because she's taking us on this roller coaster ride. So she's like, “Here, I showed you the poor, mousy Cinderella, who becomes ascendent. How does that happen? Now I'm going to show you somebody who - as you say, George - the queen, she's at the top. But she also is going to change and evolve. And in both cases, she's focusing on what matters to her, which is character, and kindness, and how to exist in the world - not to just be on top because that's not the goal, people - we're still getting that memo. But it's to be a contributor, a good citizen, a kind person. How do you feel about that, that aspect of this, that she's got someone on the bottom there, she's got a female character that's already at the top. But yet, what are the themes that remained the same? George JusticeWell, I think you actually just put it in a way that crystallizes something for me. And it's what I become much more self-conscious about …  in life: which is that kindness is at the core. And so that's not something that I wrote about in the introduction that you very kindly mentioned, to the Norton Critical Edition. But it is something that is absolutely true. And I point out to students, you know, [Emma] does what she's supposed to do. She visits the poor, she's charitable to the poor. And that's the kind of structural kindness, and she doesn't do it cynically. So there is a goodness to her character that gets expressed. And kindness. Of course, as we know, she's not always kind to some of the people that are closest to her, including Miss Bates, including Jane Fairfax. … One of the prevalent readings of Emma continues to be that Emma is … humiliated into kindness. The scene on Box Hill, where she is so cruel to Miss Bates, and so out of touch with her surroundings, because one thing about Emma is that she is unbelievably … perceptive about the world around her, at the same time that she doesn't put all the clues together. So she's this detective who's taking in all the evidence, and then she can't quite put it together to understand what's going on. Like Mr. Elton trying to rape her in the carriage - when anybody who had been reading it, anybody in Emma's position should have been able to see exactly what was happening. But that's very different from Box Hill, where she's not even perceptive. … But at the same time, that is a crucial moment in which she certainly sees the world more clearly and is able to correlate her kindness as you put it, this is correlated with her role in the social hierarchy, and her own personal satisfaction and romance. And it doesn't stamp out her imagination. Her imagination is still there. … No, she's a brilliantly imaginative person who doesn't have a job where she can do anything with it. … I love Mr. Knightley. But Emma, Emma wins the novel. And she wins novel not because she makes some sort of cynical or moral change from who she was, to who she will be as Mrs. George Knightley. It's because she has reshaped her world - uncomfortably because we're still in patriarchal, early 19th century England. But she shaped a world in which she can continue to love, be kind, have a lot of nice things, be admired by other people, which she certainly loves to do. And do good in the world. Plain JaneSo speaking of Knightley: You love Knightley. You say something in your intro [to the Norton Critical Edition]: Emma is being forced to recalibrate the cultural and the social hierarchy. She thinks she knows this social hierarchy. She has that classic definition of privilege, where it's not something she has to think about. She's just at the top of it. But she in fact is wrong about it, and then it turns out - you point this out - she's recalibrating, but that recalibration is coming every single time from challenges from Knightley. How does a romance and marriage and all of this fit into this recalibration and what is it like, also George, reading this as as a person identifying as a man reading that?George Justice Hmm, let me backtrack a little bit into how you've set this up in a very interesting, complicated way. It is Austen who has given Knightley those characteristics and that genuine insight into the world. Mr. Knightley really does understand and he's older - I mean, it grosses my students out how significantly older Mr. Knightley is. And he's kind to her and he's loved her since  - that also grosses out the students ...Plain Jane … for some reason Austen likes that older, very older, powerful guy to be the one just kind of showing us the way. I mean, she gives that power, and who knows why she does that. George JusticeBut it's not just giving him the power. It's also, I do believe, he is speaking for her. He is speaking correctly. The brilliant, writer, critic named Sarah Raff wrote a wonderful essay that talks about Emma and Mr. Knightley and Emma's relationship in the context of the letters of advice that Jane Austen is writing to her niece, who's trying to decide whom to marry. And there is a bullying, authoritative voice and approach to her niece, that mirrors a little bit of this relationship. It's a it's a great essay about it.Emma wins the novel. … because she has reshaped her world - uncomfortably because we're still in patriarchal, early 19th century England. But she shaped a world in which she can continue to love, be kind, have a lot of nice things, be admired by other people, which she certainly loves to do. And do good in the world. Plain JaneIf you're a woman, Regency writer, you're a genius, and you see the world and you're reflecting the world, there'll be some things that … occur when you have genius and imagination and art intersecting, right? Some things are going to occur to us 206 years later that you didn't envision, but … she's giving Knightley her viewpoints because people will listen to Knightley. People will listen to Knightley and not necessarily listen to someone else.George Justice And maybe in a romantic relationship - this is utter speculation! - she'd be more the Knightley character. And so you know, we do have these interesting intersections of gender, power and attraction. Plain JaneI love that we don't know how Jane Austen identified 100%. We have no idea. She may have identified with Knightley, she might have been in love with Emma, she might have ... Who knows? I think that's wonderful. And that's a whole other aspect we could dive into which is the LGBTQI critical approaches and queer theory approaches to Austen. Really the question we were discussing, sorry, is how it all ends up in the hands of Knightley, but also how to channel all of this into romance?George Justice Oh, yeah. I mean, because it is romantic. And I know there are some against-the-grain readers who don't find the love between Emma and Mr. Knightley plausible. I am not one of them. I find the scene - and it's a scene in which despite the fact that Mr. Knightley has just dressed her down and made her weep - the narrative is constructed so that Emma is allowed in private to have her moment of internal revelation that no one but she must marry Mr. Knightley. And then she also finally, instead of being clueless, she figures out that he likes her. So in that, it is a, to me, it's a wonderful thing. When he he starts, you know, “Can I talk to you?” And Emma's a little nervous. Because she doesn't 100% know. But as the conversation gets going, she knows exactly what's coming. And so the power is turned. Emma actually knows before he knows that Mr. Knightley is going to propose to her and that she will say yes. Before Mr. Knightley understands that. And so he's, like, mortified: I shouldn't go on. And she's like: No, no, go ahead and go on. And it's an interesting power dynamic. And I'm certainly not the person who's seen this first or seen it best. Claudia Johnson's [written] about Mr. Knightley as a character who is very masculine. And yet he's a kind of new man, because he is truly emotionally sensitive to Emma. [I]t is romantic. And I know there are some against-the-grain readers who don't find the love between Emma and Mr. Knightley plausible. I am not one of them.What is interesting in the romance is that power is so completely built into the sexual energy between Mr. Knightley and Emma. He was a teenager, looking at a little girl. And as they grew up, he would kind of mock her and tease her. And she'd flirt with him, totally unafraid of this older guy, really. So I mean, she was herself, who really has the power there? And …  in the context of Box Hill, where he really has, you know, put his hand down, if you reread the novel from the beginning, Mr. Knightley doesn't have really any power over her. He has her total respect, but she has the power of doing what she wants. And that really is what comes through at the end - that this powerful romance, which I think it is not a kind of dominance-submission thing. It is really a romance of two morally and intellectually equal people. They are very masculine and very feminine - it's interesting if you get into the GLBTQ thing, because there is a long history of people seeing Emma not as being a woman. But we shouldn't forget that it's very clear … and Jan Fergus points this out really beautifully in an essay that I put at the back of my Norton Critical Edition: We linger over the feminine, beautiful form of Emma. But her mind is powerfully intellectual. … Even as it's kind. She is a kind, intellectually brilliant person who answers to nobody. So where you might see it as, “She makes all these lists of books that she hasn't read!” … That shows her power. She has the intellectual power to know what she should do. And she has the intellectual power and the judgment to say, “I'm not going to do it.” And is happy to live within the structures, the class structures, the social structures, the architectural structures of her society. But she kind of scoffs at any structures that would restrain her moral and intellectual worth. Plain Jane  Well, it's almost like she doesn't even notice those structures. She's like, clueless in some interesting ways.George Justice Yes, but I, but I don't think it's clueless overall.  … She's clear-sighted and not insecure. She's totally non-insecure. It's kind of amazing.Plain JaneWell, it's interesting describing her power. It's true. Like you say, Austen's not humiliating these characters with Emma, she's doing the opposite. She's showing someone who is not only superior, but she's artificially superior. Emma's so powerful, she can be as wrong as the Eltons and the, you know, all of the wrong patriarchal figures. Emma's wrong and artificially propped up just like they are. But she has this transformation that comes from this this man. .. There was a little post I did called The Smartest Person in the Room. ...I feel like maybe Austen wanted someone, man/woman/person to be as smart as she was. That's a hard way to go through the world when marriage is your option. Who is going to be smart enough for Jane Austen? She didn't find it. She created stories with people who find it. But at the same time, obviously, she showed us so much more than that romance.George Justice  That's sad! And it's very true. Let's go through from the beginning: I'm just going to ask you. Do you think Mr. Darcy is worthy of Elizabeth Bennet?Plain Jane  Yes, I believe that. It seems to me like Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett make each other worthy of each other. It seems to me like the both characters You want to just focus on Darcy and Elizabeth for a minute? George Justice  Yeah, I mean, I'm going to go through the whole list.Plain Jane Externally, he's worthy, right? He's a ticket. Internally, not so much. But because he transforms, they make each other better. I feel like they make each other better. And I feel like Austin is showing us that marriage - if you're going to get married, make sure it's somebody who will make you better and not make you worse. And she's full of examples of people who make each other worse.George JusticeThe Crofts. Admiral and Mrs. Croft make each other better.Plain JaneAnd are they the only ones?!George JusticeThey probably are. I want to go [through the list] because I think this is something I haven't thought of. We already said that Edmund really isn't worthy of Fanny. But Darcy is worthy of Elizabeth. Would you say that Edward is worthy of Elinor.Plain Jane Almost! He has potential. That little engagement on the side is extremely disappointing. But he needs to speak up. He needs to grow a spine. But he has potential Maybe with Elinor's extremely strong spine, those two will be all right. What do you think?George JusticeI don't think he's worthy of her. But he's whom she chose. And he's not terrible. That's like Edmund. It's, that's who Fanny wanted and he's not terrible. I'd say the same thing about Henry Tilney. Catherine Morland's not as fully developed a character. But he's, he's not a bad guy. We linger over the feminine, beautiful form of Emma. But her mind is powerfully intellectual. … Even as it's kind. She is a kind, intellectually brilliant person who answers to nobody.But if you take Mr. Darcy, and you take Captain Wentworth, and you take, Mr. Knightley, those are characters who embody - as I said, Claudia Johnson talks about it - these new men who are masculine and powerful, and yet have a sensitive intelligence to them, as well. And respect and value deeply the women that they're with. … This conversation has made me want to think about that. And why the last two, thinking about Persuasion, and Emma, the last two of those powerful men are truly worthy, I think. And you know, of course, I think the moment at the end of that letter, in Persuasion, is one of the most intense things. But I know a colleague who thinks it's camp, that it's purposely overdone. I don't believe that at all. I think it's one of the most beautiful things ever written in the English language.Plain Jane  It's so beautiful. I love your categorizing all these leading men, who's worthy, who's not. It's really interesting. You, okay, I had to pick up the Norton Edition, Claudia Johnson. Here's what she says: She says Knightley is “a fantastically wishful creation of benign authority, in whom the benefits and attractions of power are preserved, and the abuses and encroachments expelled.” So what do you think is going on with that as you categorize the leading men? That's Claudia Johnson's Knightley, wrapped up in power.George Justice And because authority and power are inherently not wrong things in these books. When I'm teaching classes, I bring it back to the authority and the power of the narrator, who is the actual authority and power in all of these novels. And I think that's partly why the turn from an epistolary novel, where, you know, it's harder to weld that to increasingly intense narrative strategies that express their authority, often by merging the voice through free indirect discourse, with the voice of the main character. So it is such a trick to have the most fully controlling and authoritative and benign narrators who efface themselves and express their authority and power, almost through their own self effacement.Plain Jane Let me George, read your own writing back to you, because this is so amazing. And it just kind of sums up everything that we said, and I have this kind of as our last question. You write almost 20 years ago in your introduction to the Norton Critical Edition. Here's what you wrote: “Reading Emma requires interaction. We impose meaning on the text just as the text pushes its various meanings on to us. Trying to understand Emma, with its interplay of psychological realism and moral vision, is like trying to understand ourselves and the world. We must be both introspective and exceedingly observant of what lies around us. Complete success eludes us. We must reread, reflect and change our minds, and perhaps become better people for having done so.” I almost cried when I read that!George Justice That's very kind (laughing). I can't believe I wrote that. It does sound pretty good. Plain JaneMy question for you with that is, Do you still think that? Twenty years later, almost 20 years later?George Justice Yeah. And that's an interesting thing I do. And it's an interesting thing, and it's humbling about teaching, and it's a wonderful thing about teaching. Like any teacher, when I teach a novel a lot of times, like I do with Emma, I have go-to points, I have shticks. I have different scenes I like to focus on. … So I'm, you know, leading, I like to talk about the carriage theme, for example, and I do have a strong reading, and Mr. Elton is basically raping Emma, and I want students to see the actual violence that is in that scene. It isn't just the sloppy, silly guy who is physically menacing in that space and in the way that he approached. But then students will say, “Well, I read it in this way.” And any good teacher has to be able to say, “Wow, I hadn't thought about that.” Just as your focusing on just your use of the word kindness, and putting that deeply into our conversation about Emma. I had not articulated it to myself in that way before. That's new to me. And I can tell you, I'm going to be thinking about that for months to come. So I do believe that every time I read this book, it's a new book to me. She's constructed the books so carefully that it's impossible to understand even what's happening, 20 times through the book, for me. And then when you add the increased complexity of how human beings interact with each other, and how the fixed and unfixed parts of their personality come into this complicated matrix of interaction. Yeah, it's a new book every time. And it's a new book that is morally compelling. Because it tells us to look at everything anew.Thanks for joining this conversation, friends.As always, let us know your thoughts on: Austen's men - who's Worthy and who's Not Worthy? Who makes your list? What are your thoughts on Emma, Knightley, and the power dynamics in Austen's romances? You can comment here!You can also find us on Twitter, at @AustenConnect and on Insta at @austenconnection.Meanwhile, stay in touch, and hope you enjoy a beautiful autumn with soups, teas, and lots of great novels.Yours truly,Plain JaneIf you liked this post, feel free to share it!Links:“Critical Lives” series - Reaktion Books: http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/results.asp?SF1=series_exact&ST1=CRITICALLIVES&DS=Critical%20Lives&SORT=sort_titleThe Norton Critical Edition of Emma:  https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393927641More on scholar and critic Claudia Johnson: https://english.princeton.edu/people/claudia-l-johnsonDever Justice LLC: https://deverjustice.com/about/How to Be a Dean - from Johns Hopkins University Press: https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/how-be-dean Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Catherine Morland is an ordinary girl. She is pretty, but not remarkable. She is intelligent, but not a prodigy. She is well off, but not wealthy. Most importantly, she is our heroine. Why, because that is, literally, what Northanger Abbey tells us. Elle and Catrina start Northanger Abbey. Known as Austen's Gothic novel, this less popular book was actually the first complete novel she wrote. What's more, it is actually a parody of both the Gothic and sentimental romances of the time. Join us as we dive deep into this spooky book, just in time for fall!This episode is brought to you by Kensington's newest title from Shelly Laurenston, BREAKING BADGER. Find out more at Kensingtonbooks.comWit Beyond Measure is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to atFrolic.media/podcasts   

Hello dear friends,Welcome to another week of The Austen Connection and our sixth podcast episode, which you can stream from right here, or from Apple or Spotify! And this episode features a conversation with Austen scholar and Janeite Devoney Looser - who for many of you captures the spirit and vibe of Jane Austen's stories in her work and in her life: Looser has dedicated so much of her life to connecting through literature and Jane Austen, from her books, her teaching, her many appearances at conferences and at Janeite and JASNA gatherings, and also in her personal life through her marriage to Austen scholar George Justice and her roller derby career as Stone Cold Jane Austen.These days Devoney Looser is working on a new book, due out from Bloomsbury next year: Sister Novelists: Jane and Anna Maria Porter in the Age of Austen explores two sister novelists writing, innovating, and breaking rules in the Regency and Victorian eras. Devoney Looser is also the author of The Making of Jane Austen. And - full transparency here - I'm lucky enough to call Devoney Looser a friend. We met as professors on a campus in Missouri. So this is a continuation of conversations that Devoney and I have had for years. We got together by Zoom a few weeks ago and talked about many things, including the first time she read Austen, how an Austen argument was the foundation of her first conversation with her husband, and how -  just like Jane Austen - Devoney straddles the worlds of both high culture and pop culture.Here's an excerpt from our conversation. Enjoy!Plain Jane:  So let me just start if you don't mind with a couple of just questions about your personal Austen journey. What Austen did you first read? When did you discover Austen? Do you remember which book? And which time and place? Devoney Looser: Absolutely. And this is a question that I really enjoy. It's a kind of conversion question, right? … So I love that this is where we start …  I do have my awakening moment. And your awakening, I think this is a common story for a lot of Janeites, which is why the story resonates. It was my mother, who handed me a copy of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice bound together. I now have this book. It was a Modern Library edition of both of those novels that was published in the ‘50s. And she handed it to me because … she knew I was a reader, she knew I loved to read. And she said, “Here's one that I think you should read.” We had books from her childhood, or from church book sales in our house, we had a lot of books in our house. And I started to try to read it. And I really stumbled because I could not get at the language. But she was insistent, she kept kind of putting it toward me, and saying, “I think you should read this one.” And I think it was maybe around the third time I tried it - Pride and Prejudice is what I started with - it just really took. You know, it was like, Oh, wait this is kind of funny. And I like these characters. And I like the story. So after I got my PhD, I learned that my mother had actually never read Pride and Prejudice before. And to me that actually made her giving it to me even more meaningful. She is not college educated. She wanted me to have an education. And the idea that novels could be handed down from mothers to daughters, even mothers without an education, to say, “Here's a way for you to have access to more opportunities,” is what the books are about too, in a way, right? I mean, the mothers aren't always the ones doing it in the books. In fact, they're often not. But the books are functioning as that opening up - worlds opening up possibilities and opening up education, self actualization. You know that this is to me meaningful that my mother knew that this is a book that educated girls should read, and that she wanted it for me. Plain Jane: She was tapping into something that she hadn't had herself and just trying to give that to you. That's awesome. So you're a professor, scholar, writer. … What attracts you to the conversations about Jane Austen, and teaching Jane Austen? Devoney Looser: I think the thing about Austen that keeps me coming back to her is how readable she is. And lots of people say this in the critical community and the Janeite community like the scholars and JASNA. I think even anyone who picks her up casually having not read her in 20 years or never read it before, there's a complexity there on the level of the sentences, paragraph, plot, that is really, to me. enriching, or generative - it generates ideas. And every time I go back to the books, I see something new. every age, every experience that I've made it through, gives me a new way into those sentences. And there are a lot of books that we love, but that we can't really imagine rereading with the same level of love, I think. And for me, that makes Austen just really remarkable. The idea that you can go back to her, you know, every year. A lot of people who love her books read her every year, all six every year. Do you know that joke from Gilbert Ryle, the philosopher, philosopher Gilbert Ryle was asked, this is a century ago, asked, “Sir, do you do you read novels?” And he said, “Yes, I do, all six every year.” So this is this is a good Janeite in-joke, that the only novels there are these six? Obviously not true. … But the relatability is how I would I would answer that.Plain Jane: So I mean, Jane Austen can be, like you say, kind of adapted to your life as you go through different things in life. But you, with The Making of Jane Austen have really documented how not only individuals can adapt Jane Austen to their lives, but movements can adapt Jane Austen to their causes and ... we see that in kind of exciting ways. Can you talk a little bit about why her? Why are her novels so adaptable throughout the last couple of hundred years?Devoney Looser: So I know you know this, I talked about this in The Making of Jane Austen about the ways that various people have very different political persuasions find a reflection of their values or questions or concerns in her novels. So she has been used to argue opposing sides of political questions for 150 years and probably longer. I think this was partly to do with the fact that her novels and her fiction open up questions more often than they close them. And I think it's her relationship to the didactic tradition in her day, the moralizing tradition. I think she's really stepping outside of that and more interested in gray areas, than in declaring what's right and what's wrong. So I think this is a beautiful, complex thing about her novels and they're novels of genius, to my mind, and I'm not afraid to use that word. But they also present certain kinds of really interesting challenges, because you can't go to them and say, “What should I think?” They don't really answer that question for you in a clear away. I think in other kinds of didactic fiction where there's a clear moral outcome, this person's punished with death, or, you know, or some kind of tragic outcome, or this person's rewarded, and it's all going to be, you know, happily ever after, and nothing ever is going to go wrong. Her novels are working outside of that to some degree. So I do think that that's one reason why people have very different experiences and political persuasions and motivations, come to her novels, and it can be kind of like a Rorschach test, right? You can see what you want to see in the designs to some degree. Now, I do think people can get it wrong, I think you can find there are arguments that people make that I think there is absolutely no textual evidence for that whatsoever. But oftentimes, I can look at someone coming to a conclusion that might be different from the one that I reached, and say, Well, I see where you can get that from emphasizing this point, more than this one, or seeing this passage as the crucial one, instead of another passage.I think this is a beautiful, complex thing about her novels and they're novels of genius, to my mind, and I'm not afraid to use that word. But they also present certain kinds of really interesting challenges, because you can't go to them and say, “What should I think?” They don't really answer that question for you in a clear away.Plain Jane It's also occurring to me listening to you Devoney, that she sort of makes people think, in ways that might be uncomfortable. She must be one of the few novelists that can actually draw you to her story, draw you in and draw you to that narrator. But also be uncomfortable, maybe with what she's giving you. And maybe we just stepped around the discomfort some of us. Do you think that's an accurate way of thinking about Jane Austen as well?Devoney Looser: I think that's beautifully put. And, you know, I think too we can read her novels on many different levels. If you say, I want to go into this for a love story, that's funny, with a happy ending, which is what many people who read in the romance genre know the formula, and they're going to it because they like the formula. And it might have different things in different component parts. But you know that at the end you're not going to be distressed and dealing with something tragic, right? So when you go into an Austen novel, the kinds of discomfort you're describing, that they will be there along with something happy, too. So I think you could just read it for the happy ending. [But] I see that as a real lost opportunity. Because I think the happy endings are tacked on from genre expectation about comedies. If you're focusing on the happy ending, you're missing all the important stuff that's happening all along the way. And that's the uncomfortable stuff, right? The stuff about family conflict, economics, all of the kinds of ways that people are terrible to each other, that are, maybe borderline criminal or actually criminal. But everything below that, too. That's more mundane, the way that people mistreat each other. That is wrong. It's not criminal. And that, to me, is what makes these novels uncomfortable, is that even those people who are doing terrible things, usually get away with it. Plain Jane: Hmm, yes. If you said to people, Here's a novel about the insult and injury endured by women because of class and gender - and possibly you can add race and disability and a lot of other boundaries in there” -  I don't know how many people would see that as Jane Austen. But there's that subtext. … The more I read and reread Jane Austen and just stay really close to the text, the more I find myself relying on Gilbert and Gubar and their “cover story.” And it's, you know, I read that a long time ago. So it's probably influencing my reading, I say close to the text, but it's close to the text that's very influenced by what I already have read of you, and is it Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar…. How much do you think she was consciously or even unconsciously saying stuff? In all that meandering, within that courtship plot and then within that happy ending plot that you just described? How much do you think was going on with that cover story?Devoney Looser: So I want to first start with the end of this, which is to say, I think every sentence is saying something else. You know, and not like it's a secret ...I think there are there are people who will say that this is a code for a completely other world below the surface. I'm not sure that I would go there. But I do think that these are novels that are trying to get us to investigate not only who the characters are, but who we are. And sonthere's always something else going on in any human conversation. There's always something else going on. And I think she captures that in the conversations among her characters, that they can be having the same conversation but with such varying motivations that you can see it and it becomes humorous. You know, Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey, talking to Mrs. Allen, about Catherine Morland's chaperone about muslin, that whole conversation about clothing and shopping. You can read that as a love of fashion, you can read it as an indictment of consumer culture, you can read it as a kind of gender cosplay, or you can use it as an indictment of femininity. I mean, there's just so many different levels within the same conversation and you can try to understand how these characters are arguing with each other. So I think in some ways, what you're getting at is, Yes, there's something beneath the surface. So the text that you brought up, Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic, I think that came out in 1979 - incredibly important book. Because a lot of second wave feminism, 60s and 70s, had said Jane Austen is not a primary author for us or not an author that can be as important to the second wave, because these novels end in marriage. And it was a moment in the feminist movement, when looking for something that expressed anger, that expressed alternative lifestyles, was seen as more important than reinforcing heteronormativity, which is what Austen was imagined as doing. So what I think what Gilbert and Gubar did is allowed for feminists and feminist critics and scholars and people beyond that circle, to look at Austen and say, “What if we didn't emphasize the ending? What if we emphasize the other parts of the story?” And of course, they took that to a lot of other different texts and the “madwoman” in the attic is actually a reference, as you know, to Jane Eyre, to Bertha Mason? What if you read Jane Eyre and centered Bertha Mason, which is of course exactly what Jean Rhys did in her novel Wide Sargasso Sea. But Gilbert and Gubar gave us a framework to say, “Let's look at the parts of these novels from a feminist perspective that maybe we haven't focused on.” And I think it opened up so much possibility for Austen, reading it through that lens of saying,”Maybe there's more here than the ending. Maybe there's more here than heteronormativity. There is a lot more going on.” And I'm really grateful to that book for doing that. I do think there is some tendency now to turn it all into, “Well, it doesn't mean this, it means this exactly the opposite.” To me, that's doing exactly what we shouldn't be doing. We're just closing down the text. … “Here's a clue. Now we'll find an answer. Now we've got this new clue, solve next mystery.” These are not mysteries with solutions. They are moral quagmires - and you can't solve a moral quagmire with a fact or an answer.Plain Jane: I love that. I love the way you say, “Don't shut down the text.” I love the way you describe that 1979 Madwoman in the Attic, because you're right. They were just, I guess at a time when you know, feminism was wearing Doc Martens and reading Hemingway … Devoney Looser: … and reading Kate Millett and Sexual Politics: Let's find the sexism. It was a sexism-identification moment, which is really important because a lot of people couldn't see it until people like Millett and others said, “Oh my gosh, there's sexism here in every single book, how do we not notice this?” Plain Jane: Yeah. And they were saying, These are women's lives, let's interrogate what's happening with stories by women, about women, really going in depth in their lives. And they happen to be genius, as well. You know, Devoney, you also say, in your book, The Making of Jane Austen, that Jane Austen has, in many ways, been the making of you. This is getting back to you a little bit, Devoney. In what ways is Jane Austen and the making of you? I know a few of those ways. But why did you write that? Devoney Looser: Well, I think, again, this is the reason this story resonates with people is because all of us who care about literature, and who allow books to lead us places, probably had moments like this. Mine is slightly more bizarre than most people's in that I now make a living from reading Jane Austen. And as you said, I read lots of other things, too. I read Jane Austen in the context of the history of women's writing, which has been very opening up of territory for me as a scholar, and I help lead people to read outside of her. But I've also been able to create a romantic life that started around conversations with her - and I know you know, this - that I met my husband, George Justice is also an Austen scholar. We met over a conversation and an argument on Jane Austen's books. Plain Jane: What were you arguing about again? What book? Was it Mansfield Park?Devoney Looser: It was Mansfield Park. So my husband George and I were introduced at a cocktail party that I was crashing. … And George had actually been invited. And we had a brief conversation that ended, but he came and found me because somebody said to him that I had worked on Jane Austen. And so he said, “I hear you work on Jane Austen. What's your favorite Jane Austen novel?” And I know, you know, George, Janet. So you know that he likes to ask these kind of puncturing questions, right. … … And I said, “Well, the one that I'm working on right now is Northanger Abbey.” And he said, “I didn't ask you which one you're working on. I asked you which one's your favorite.” He heard that I was working on it. But he wanted me to make an aesthetic, you know, you want to make a judgement about which one's the best. … So I said, Well, I guess my favorite is Pride and Prejudice. And George said very proudly, “Well, my favorite is Mansfield Park. … And so I said, “Well, Mansfield Park is my least favorite. And I like it the least because I don't like the heroine. Fanny Price is too much like me. She's boring. Plain Jane: You said that?!Devoney Looser: Yes. And George said at that moment that he said to himself in his head, “I'm gonna marry this woman.” So you really need to hear his side of it. I just thought, this guy's kind of needling me. And I'm shutting down his meddling with, you know, disarming honesty and sarcasm. But you know, I do mean it, I did at the time. I really felt like a very shy person and quiet person and I had more class sympathies with Fanny Price of all of Jane Austen's heroines. But I didn't like those parts myself. I didn't like being quiet and timid, and didn't appreciate her as a character, I think, in a way that I now do. But he did end up proposing to me that night. And I said, “No.” I said, “I don't believe in the institution of marriage.” But whatever. What I can say is that he was very persuasive. And within about a month we decided we'd have a Jane-Fairfax-and-Frank-Churchill-style secret engagement. And we got married. We got married about a year later. So George is very persuasive. Plain Jane: That's awesome. I did not know that he had proposed and that you had declined on that same evening. And I love it that you relate to Fanny Price and find that kind of complicated. Now I have to say, you have told me that story, Devoney. And I had forgotten the details about Fanny Price. But I learned them again, from the First impressions podcast, where they were talking about you on that podcast, and that you related to Fanny Price. And that got me thinking about who people relate to in Jane Austen novels. And I feel like Jane Austen is putting herself  - I feel like all authors, for much of the time -  are putting themselves in not just the positive aspects of characters … She's even probably in Mrs. Norris a little bit, you know? Think of your worst person, you know? There's a part of her that wants to be Lady Bertram, probably. And there's certainly a part of her that's Fanny Price. And there's certainly a part of her that's Emma, who's also a difficult character. So anyway …  does George love Fanny Price?Devoney Looser: I think George loves underdogs who triumph. And I think to him, he likes the idea of people who weren't born to it sticking up for themselves. And he likes the idea of there being greater opportunity for people who weren't necessarily born to opportunity. And I think that's the story of his grandparents and his parents. So I think that's where he came to the love of that particular plot, out of stories from his own family. Plain Jane: So we are talking about, we've been talking about, the way people take on Jane Austen for their causes. You also talk about the fact that Jane Austen has ... carried pop culture and high culture simultaneously. Almost maybe like almost no other artist, maybe Shakespeare can carry those two at the same time. And you also walk both of those worlds. Can you talk a little bit about that? How are we doing with those two things right now? I mean, Jane Austen's probably bigger than ever before, right, today? And are we kind of bringing the high culture of the scholarly and the fandom together in interesting ways? And in productive ways?Devoney Looser: Yeah, that's such a great question. And the “greater than ever before,” quite possibly, if only because of how communication is greater than ever before, right? … But there were moments where she definitely popped in popular culture before now, you know, millions of people saw that Broadway play in 1935 that moved to the West End in London, the next year. This was another moment of Austen pop culture saturation. Where I think if we were able to compare it, then, to now we might say she was in the imagination of the cultural imagination to a pretty great degree in these other moments, too. But let's not go there - now I'm in the weeds! But I do think there is something about being in both worlds that really speaks to my sense of our responsibility as scholars to be educators, but also to be trying to understand the world outside of the academy and seeing that as a talking across, not a talking down. And there are moments where it's easier for scholars to remember that than others, but the talking across has really made new scholarly ideas possible. For me, this is a divided identity. I think you're capturing that accurately in how you describe it, Janet, but I want to make sure that I'm saying it's not a one way street for me. When we talk about teaching, those of us who are educators, we talk about learning from our students, and people often roll their eyes at that … But I think back to an old, classic and educational theory of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he talks about differently located learners. And the Janeite community through JASNA has definitely brought home to me the ways that differently located learners can inspire each other, and teach each other. And I think that is just really, really crucial. And I love that Jane Austen has made this possible.Plain Jane: You know, we're in a way a lot of what we're talking about is her image. And how, you know, there's a lot under the surface of the Courtship and the Marriage Plot, that you've researched this, and written about it in The Making of Jane Austen. In what ways did her family contribute to this image? Can you talk a little bit about that? And why - why were they trying to create, if I have this right, a respectable sort of Aunt Jane? Do you feel like this is what she also would have perhaps wanted? I mean, class insult, class injury can be humiliating, and I feel like perhaps also Louisa May Alcott, some of these women writers who were writing for money, maybe did want to be seen first and foremost, as respectable. What do you think was going on with the family members painting her image?Devoney Looser: I think this is a really difficult, multi-layered question. And I, of course, have different ways of answering this. But I think that the ways that her family described her, were trying to head off criticism. And I think if you look at the ways that women writers were treated in this period, you can understand why they wanted to head off the criticism. They very much wanted her not to be seen as strident Bluestocking, morally suspect. They very much wanted to put her on the side of … the polite, the proper, the lady .... Not the bitter spinster, not the ugly woman who couldn't get married or who was having all sorts of morally questionable behaviors with men. But the woman who was very much doing the “femininity”, quote-unquote, 1810s and the 1820s. So at first, I think that's what her family is up to. And the extent to which she would have been excited about that, I don't know. But it does seem quite possible that she would have endorsed staying to the side of that. Because in the same way that 70s feminists brought us to see the ways that language was about Virgins and W****s - not that no one had ever noticed this. But I think in Second Wave feminism, the Women's Studies classes, let us look at the words that were used to describe women and their sexual experiences, and say, “Wow, this is really unbelievable,” right? So I think if we take that and we move that conversation back 150 years, I think the Austens were wise to the fact that you were not allowed to be anything other than one or the other. And it was very clear what you wanted to be if your choice was to be castigated as the woman writer so who is more virgin-like, or the woman writer who is more W***e-like, of course, she wanted to be on the side of the Virgin. It's a crime that this existed, right? It's a linguistic crime. But if you're a family trying to negotiate the reputation of your relative at the same time that some of you are clergymen and trying to make your way forward in polite society, titled society, elite society, of course ... She's a Public Woman. Those words aren't supposed to go together. You want to put her to the side of the one who wasn't looking for money, the one who wasn't looking for fame, the one who wasn't too learned. She was nice. She was doing this for her family. She wasn't doing this for fame or money, you see that? Already, you're talking about sides of a question, where putting your eggs in one basket results in a different outcome. So the extent to which Austen herself wanted that, what would be desirable of being on the other side of that? Very little, right?Plain Jane: Listening to you talk makes me really understand that so much more. And also realize that in a way they were doing what Jane Austen seemed to do with her novels, which was to keep herself out of it. And maybe she's not as out of it on the third and fourth rereading as we thought she was on the first rereading. But she's kind of keeping herself out of it and just letting the story, letting the characters, say what she really doesn't want to be seen saying particularly, perhaps.Devoney Looser: You know that I'm working on two contemporaries of Jane Austen, Jane and Anna Maria Porter. I'm writing this book, Sister Novelists: Jane and Anna Maria Porter in the Age of Austen. And where for Austen, we have 161 letters of hers [that] have survived. So when we try to say, “What did Jane Austen think?” The novels give us a certain amount to go on. But a lot of us say, well, “What did she say in her letters where we can assume that she was being more of a quote-unquote, authentic self?” … But the idea that we only have 161 of these to go on; for the Porter sisters, they were both novelists. And they wrote thousands of letters, which they painstakingly preserved. And so to be able to go through these thousands of letters between these two sisters who are looking at literary culture through the eyes of public women and literary women, and looking at the ways that they describe the things that they want people to believe and what they're actually doing behind the scenes, has been really illuminating for me. And I hope other people will be interested in reading about that too, people who are interested in Austen, people who are interested in the early 19th century and Regency culture, Victorian culture, because the Porter sisters lived longer than Jane Austen did. [And] the ways that they tried to navigate making decisions with agency and with, specifically, female agency and romantic agency and a culture that said that, as Austen puts it, their only power should be the power of refusal. And they, the Porter sisters, were doing things all the time that you weren't supposed to do. And we know it because they were writing about it with each other. They were innovators in historical fiction. And Jane Porter claimed, I think with with some accuracy, that she was the one who influenced and inspired Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, which was published in 1814. Plain Jane: Wow, you had us at Hello - our sisters writing to each other, during the Regency and beyond, and they have each other, they're doing historic fiction. I mean, I just think hashtag-Regency is going to blow up over these two sisters! I think that sounds like a lot of fun. I just feel like there is a hunger to broaden out these conversations, and you can see it, the conversations are being broadened out in such exciting ways, especially right now. Books, like The Woman of Colour, and then every conversation we can have about Bridgerton -  like anything to do with the Regency and people's lives and especially the lives that we're uncovering that have been overlooked: Women writers, Black citizens of the Regency in Britain, and it's just and so many others. It's just really exciting. So I feel like there's a hunger for these conversations. Devoney Looser: And I think it's absolutely crucial and important that we start to try to understand race relations in the early 19th century. And think about why we care about them so much. Now, that's what literature should do. I get really frustrated when people want to tell us that we're taking questions from the present and popping them back falsely under the past. This is not at all we're doing. Things are popping in our moment that we can see, we're also popping in Austen's moment. ,,, Maybe she doesn't write about them to the degree that some of us would now wish she had. But these questions are there. And we are having a real opportunity, through scholars like Gretchen Gerzina and Patricia Matthew, and others who are helping us look back to the abolition movement, look back to texts, like The Woman of Colour, which Lyndon Dominique edited in a fabulous edition for Broadview Press that everybody should run out and buy. This is a novel from 1809, an anonymous novel. All of these works are giving us new opportunities to read Austen in terms of race issues that were important in her own day and to her novels. And for very good reasons have popped up in ours, so I'm excited about the opportunity to open up these questions.I do think there is something about being in both worlds that really speaks to my sense of our responsibility as scholars to be educators, but also to be trying to understand the world outside of the academy and seeing that as a talking-across, not a talking-down. And there are moments where it's easier for scholars to remember that than others. But the talking across has really made new scholarly ideas possible.Plain Jane: And some of this is historians also - Gretchen Gerzina, in a previous episode, alerted me to the National Trust report that was done documenting the ties to the slave trade in the Great Houses in England. Such a simple thing, really. And very much a historic enterprise, not a political enterprise in any sense, other than [that] everything is political. But that's exciting. And then you've also contributed to this conversation about the legacy of slavery and the ties to the slave trade in the Austen family. Do you want to talk about that at all? I mean, this is something that's just been published in The Times Literary Supplement and then picked up a lot of places. Do you want to just give a takeaway on what was going on with your research on that and what you'd like people to keep in mind when they think about Austen's family and the slave trade?Devoney Looser: Absolutely. So the May 21 issue of the Times Literary Supplement, which is a weekly newspaper that anyone who cares about literature should subscribe to … I am very honored to have published it. I did a piece on Austen and abolition, looking deeply and very minutely into the Austen family's relationship to slavery and abolition. And people are asking a question now, “Was Austen pro-slavery or anti-slavery? Was the author's family pro-slavery or anti-slavery?” And because of things like the National Trust report that you just mentioned, and a freely available database called the Legacies of Slavery that's run out of UCL by a scholar named Catherine Hall and a team. This is a freely available database, George Austen's name shows up in that database, because he was a trustee for a sugar plantation in Antigua that was owned by somebody who was probably a student at Oxford. So this is the fact that we had, and that has been repeated, that Austen's implicated in the economics of slavery. And what my piece did, is tried to look at what that means, and to try to deepen that conversation. And what I, the takeaway, for me is that the Austen family can be described as both pro-slavery and anti-slavery. And this is probably true for a lot of 19th century families, frankly, where you would have members who were on different sides, quote-unquote, of these questions. But the moment we try to turn it into sides, we're missing an opportunity for further description and nuance. And what my piece shows is that George Austen probably never benefited financially from this trusteeship. He was a co-trustee. And I go into a lot of description about that. And that years afterward, 80 years after that, Henry Thomas Austen, we never noticed this before: Henry Thomas Austen was a delegate to an anti-slavery convention. So we have a member of the immediate Austen family, a political activist, against the institution of slavery and with the anti-slavery movement. So to me, this tells us that the Austen family was both of these things. And I think it's an additional piece of information for us to understand the ways that race and slavery come into Austen's novels and the ways that she is working with the difficulties and complexities of this issue that was central to the moment she lived in.Plain Jane: What do you love most about introducing people to Austen? And what surprises you when you teach - in the classroom, or in Great Courses, from people that you hear from all the many Janeite and fandom conversations that you so graciously, drop in on Zoom with? What do you love about introducing people to Jane Austen?Devoney Looser: Yeah, so these 24 30-minute lectures I did for the Great Courses, which is interestingly just rebranded itself as Wondrium. But I say there, and I say this at the beginning of my classes as well: I love these books. And I love the ways that these books have inspired me to be a better thinker and have created certain things in my life that have become possible and meaningful to me. But it is absolutely not required to me that anyone in my class come out loving them like I do. What I want is for students to find that thing that is meaningful to them. And that generates meaning for them - that's generative, to go back to that word again. And I think when students take me at my word, I'm very grateful. I want them to read closely and think about these things. But it is absolutely not required that they see in them what I see.—————Thank you for reading, listening and being here, my friends. Please stay safe and enjoy your remaining days of summer. We'll be back next week - and it's all about my conversation with definitive Austen biographer Claire Tomalin! I caught her at home, safe, enjoying her garden during the pandemic, and I'll share our conversation here, same time, same place, next week! Below are many of the authors that Devoney mentioned in this conversation, with links to finding out more.If you enjoyed this conversation, please do share it!And if you'd like to have more conversations like these dropped in your inbox, subscribe - it's free! More Reading and Cool Links:Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic: https://www.npr.org/2013/01/17/169548789/how-a-madwoman-upended-a-literary-boys-clubPaulo Freire and The Pedagogy of the Oppressed: https://www.freire.org/paulo-freire/paulo-freire-biography/Gretchen Gerzina - https://gretchengerzina.com/about-gretchen-gerzina.htmlLyndon Dominque, editor: The Woman of Colour: https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-woman-of-colour/#tab-descriptionPatricia Matthew: https://www.montclair.edu/newscenter/experts/dr-patricia-matthew/UCL slavery database: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ Devoney Looser's website: http://www.devoneylooser.com/The Wondrium/Great Courses on Jane Austen: www.thegreatcourses.com/janeausten Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen - Book 5, Part 1 Title: Northanger Abbey Overview: Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752). Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, the first of Austen's novels completed in full, but was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion. The story concerns Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, and her journey to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. How Catherine views the world has been distorted by her fondness for Gothic novels and an active imagination. Published: 1818 Author: Jane Austen Genre: Romance Novel, Fiction Novel, Novel of Manners, Coming-of-Age Novel, Epistolary Novel Episode: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen - Book 5, Part 1 Part: 1 of 2 Length Part: 3:31:46 Book: 5 Length Book: 7:28:58 Episodes: 1 - 16 of 32 Narrator: Elizabeth Klett Language: English Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: romance, emma, jane austen, love Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/support

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen - Book 5, Part 2 Title: Northanger Abbey Overview: Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote (1752). Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, the first of Austen's novels completed in full, but was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion. The story concerns Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, and her journey to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. How Catherine views the world has been distorted by her fondness for Gothic novels and an active imagination. Published: 1818 Author: Jane Austen Genre: Romance Novel, Fiction Novel, Novel of Manners, Coming-of-Age Novel, Epistolary Novel Episode: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen - Book 5, Part 2 Part: 2 of 2 Length Part: 3:57:12 Book: 5 Length Book: 7:28:58 Episodes: 17 - 32 of 32 Narrator: Elizabeth Klett Language: English Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: romance, emma, jane austen, love Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/support

Chapter one gives us some background on our heroine, Catherine Morland. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/badaccentstory/support

A two-parter! Eric and Annie discuss the final chapter of Northanger Abbey and the movie adaptation with Carey Mulligan and Rey from Star Wars. We bid goodbye to our sweet puss cinnamon bun Catherine Morland and a number of our former guests send us off as well.

This is an audiobook of Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, narrated by Elizabeth Klett. Northanger Abbey is a satire of the Gothic novels that were popular at the time. A coming-of-age story, it revolves around Catherine Morland, a fan of Gothic novels. She seems to take what she reads and applies it to her real life. The story is about her coming to realize that, while enjoyable, novels don’t always relate to daily life. Throughout the book, she comes to understand that the world is larger than her own backyard and that while seeing the good in people is a noble endeavor, at one point, one has to admit that people are not always good. Catherine is imaginative and means well, but her naivety lead her into some misunderstandings. As with all of of Austen’s novels, the themes of society and class are ever-present. Chronologically being the first book she wrote, one can surmise that it helped establish the issues that she would tackle throughout her career as a writer. Some themes, such as the satirization of Gothic novels and the importance of reading as a way to grow, are unique to it. To the last point, reading is used a way of showing who is “good” vs who is not so good. Title: Northanger Abbey Author: Jane Austen Free/Pay-What-You-Want: Librecron Edition Apple Books Link Original Recording: LibriVox If you want all these audiobooks delivered automatically, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Consider leaving a review if you enjoy these books! I cleaned up the recording as follows: Removed the introduction of the narrator. Removed the LibriVox introduction. Shorted or removed long silences. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/librecron/support

Witness to the bubonic plague, Giovanni Bocaccio, stops by to discuss his works, disease, the ghost Amazon warehouse, and social distancing in the land beyond the vale. In an unexpected twist, our little cinnamon bun, Catherine Morland, all set up to live happily ever after, is expelled from Northanger without even a servant to accompany her home. Trigger warning: offensively bad Italian accent.

Well well well look who comes crawling back to Catherine Morland, begging for her brother back. It's everyone's messy diva Isabella Thorpe! Meanwhile Annie makes a horrifying discovery about doorknobs and Eric sings Cole Porter. Because of Covid-19 we recorded this episode over the phone, and smooshed together our different audio tracks during editing. So if it sounds like we're talking over each other, sorry! We're looking at better ways to record while social distancing. Meanwhile, everyone please stay safe and healthy!

Alakazam! Anarchist warlock Alan Moore drops by to discuss psychohistorical magic and tell problematic jokes. There's a very English singalong before we get back to Catherine Morland who's quite regained her senses.

Virginia Woolf comes on the pod to explain her blackface episode and divulge the deepest, darkest, kinkiest secrets of John Maynard Keynes. Also Eric attempts to phonebank for the Labour Party and our sweet Catherine Morland has a nutty in the tower room of the eponymous abbey. For this episode, Eric recommends The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252774/the-memory-police-by-yoko-ogawa/

Catherine Morland finds a haunted cabinet and is at her most annoying as she fangirls all over Northanger Abbey. Eric and Annie argue CIA funded mid-century literature and pair classical composers with recreational drugs.

Today on The Literary Life Podcast, our hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins, along with Thomas Banks, are discussing chapters 4-10 of Northanger Abbey. They start out talking about Jane Austen’s light touch and her gentle satirical way of pointing out the pros and cons of the novel. Angelina and Thomas bring up some of the historical and social context for this setting in Regency period Bath. They contrast the proper social code with the way the Thorpes behave and with Catherine Morland’s naïvetè and innocence. Cindy laughs about the way in which Jane Austen pokes fun at the novel’s form while writing a novel herself. After the critics’ early disgust for the novel, Jane Austen elevated the form to the point that they finally had to recognize the novel as a worthy work of literature. Cindy also brings up the idea that Austen may have partly written this novel because she wanted to talk with others about all these books that she references. They chat about all the things that occurred in history that led up to the availability of the novel to the masses, and to women in particular. Angelina observes that Austen plays with the tropes within a realistic situation in contrast to the over-the-top situations presented in sensational novels of the period. They wrap up the conversation with highlights about the different characters and what we can be looking for in the next several chapters. Thanks to Our Sponsor: Located in beautiful Franklin Tennessee, New College Franklin is a four year Christian Liberal Arts college dedicated to excellent academics and discipling relationships among students and faculty. We seek to enrich and disciple students intellectually, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, to guide them to wisdom and a life of service to God, neighbors, and creation. Also, be sure to check out Thomas Banks’ webinar, The Poetry of Advent, taking place on December 4, 2019. Love and Live by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester All my past life is mine no more, The flying hours are gone, Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er, Whose images are kept in store By memory alone. The time that is to come is not; How can it then be mine? The present moment’s all my lot; And that, as fast as it is got, Phyllis, is only thine. Then talk not of inconstancy, False hearts, and broken vows; If I, by miracle, can be This live-long minute true to thee, ’Tis all that Heav’n allows. Book List: Summer Lightning by P. G. Wodehouse Pamela by Samuel Richardson Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Becoming Jane (film) Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham Lady Susan by Jane Austen Love and Friendship (film) Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: Find Angelina at  https://angelinastanford.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/ Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Gouty, laudanum guzzling Wilkie Collins drops by to discuss beards and polyamory. Meanwhile, in Austenland, Catherine Morland's got to deal with her crush's lame dad on an awkward road trip to the eponymous abbey.

Catherine Morland, das Landei, geht auch in dieser Verfilmung des englischen Privatsender ITV in Bath auf ihr großes Abenteuer! Britt-Marie und Lara besprechen in dieser Folge einer der beiden Northanger Abbey Verfilmungen und anderem wir sehr uns Henry Tilney in seiner Charme überzeugen konnte.

Die junge Catherine Morland liebt nicht nur Schauergeschichten, sondern auch einen amüsanten Geistlichen. "Northanger Abbey" unterhält mit einem munter spielenden Ensemble und viel stimmiger Atmosphäre bis zum Schluss. Christian Kosefeld stellt das Hörspiel vor.

Catherine Morland's adorkability is weaponized and she finally corners her man! Too bad Henry Cool Fox's dad turns out to be a serious skeeze. Eric harmonizes and Annie reveals the secret behind her phantom visitations. Be warned, an attempt at a manifesto is made.

Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe play power games, discuss gothic novels, and check out the man candy in the Pump Room. Also Slavoj Zizek stops by to sing and eat floor hotdogs. If you've got questions or comments email us at chapterbychapter01@gmail.com.

Este episodio está dedicado a “La Abadía de Northanger”, una novela de la época victoriana escrita por Jane Austen en 1798 y publicada en 1817. En ella conocemos a Catherine Morland, una joven de 16 años, ávida lectora de novelas y con mucha imaginación, que vive unas vacaciones inolvidables en dos lugares del sur de […]

"Northanger Abbey" tells the story of Catherine Morland, a young girl whose imagination is fueled by her love of gothic novels. As Catherine travels to old home with friends, she struggles to discern reality in the midst of her Romantic fancies. Listen as Frank Lavallo hosts readers, Jennifer Weinbrecht & Patricia Fernberg, for a summary and discussion of the novel “Northanger Abbey.” Then stay tuned for Endnotes with Ted Schwartz.

Jane Austen's novels Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in December 1817. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of these novels that bookend Austen's career, Stephanie is joined by Dr Geoff Payne to discuss Anne Elliot, Catherine Morland, the novel, and the Navy. For more info visit our website at: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/

Bonus episode! Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen's delightful parody of gothic romance, is full of surprises and humor. Kristin and Maggie highlight the hilarity of this adorable novel as it skewers of romantic convention, and review the charming meta-context Austen provides about novels and their value. They also discuss the 2007 BBC adaptation written by Andrew Davies, and the extra sexy special sauce he ladles onto beloved heroine Catherine Morland's coming-of-age story. No vampires; no blood... the worst crimes are the unsubtle interpositions of modern screenwriters. (Just kidding, Davies, we love ya).This is the last episode we recorded before we launched the First Impressions podcast into the world, so we have not yet had a chance to give any shout-outs to our awesome fans. Thank you, everyone, for your amazing support!  And stay tuned for our upcoming podcasts on Emma!The First Impressions podcast is a safe space for us to discuss our love for Jane Austen away from the haters, and perhaps even convert some skeptics in the process. Thanks for listening to this episode, and if you enjoyed it, please spread the word and let us know what you think! We can be reached at first.impressions.podcast@gmail.com.

Northanger Abbey follows Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath, England. Seventeen year-old Catherine spends her time visiting newly made friends, like Isabella Thorpe, and going to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella’s brother John Thorpe and by Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry’s younger sister. Mr. Henry Tilney captivates her with his view on novels and knowledge of history and the world. The Tilneys invite Catherine to visit their father’s estate, Northanger Abbey, which, because she has been reading Ann Radcliffe’s gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, Catherine expects to be dark, ancient and full of fantastical mystery. The first chapter introduces the reader to the protagonist of the novel, Catherine Morland.