Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen once said that if she'd been a painter, she would have been a miniaturist, for she loved the fine details. Reader Anna Massey is wonderfully attentive to those details. General Tilney is sufficiently ponderous, Mrs. Allen suitably vapid, and Catherine Morland, albeit sensible, just silly enough to make her flights of imagination entertaining as she enters the mysterious world of the handsome Henry Tilney. Massey renders palpable all of Catherine's delight and confusion in this new world. Though not as interesting as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE or EMMA, Austen's first novel argues forcefully for the seriousness of the novel as a form, pokes good humored fun at some of the silliness of the gothic, and tells a delightful story to boot. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine


Austen's parody of a gothic novel gets an elegant reading to match its elegant prose. Sheltered Catherine Morland goes to fashionable Bath with a wealthy neighbor and discovers society and love. Juliet Stevenson gives each character a unique voice--the duplicitous Isabelle; Catherine's suitor, Henry Tinley; and Catherine's vacuous hostess--and invests each conversation with energy and importance. At the same time, as Austen, Stevenson steps back and comments on gothic heroines and Catherine's failures at becoming one. The delivery of Henry's fanciful description of the Abbey as a dark and mysterious place is a mini-classic in itself. Those who love Austen's fiction will appreciate this classy production. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine