Northanger Abbey certainly contains some elements of 18th century Gothic “potboilers” but with a satiric slant. It has the overbearing father who was “not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters”, although her mother does not die giving birth to her, and the “heroine”, Catherine Morland, prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes like watering rose bushes or feeding canaries.

The book is a hilarious parody and certainly the most lighthearted of Austen's novels, yet it still manages to be an unsentimental commentary on love and marriage. Austen fans will enjoy the decidedly satirical twist this book takes, a twist that only Austen's genius could pull off.