ABSTRACT
Nortbanger Abbey is the most openly literary of Austen's novels, casting Catherine's development as a young woman in terms of her maturation as a critical reader of texts, people and situations, and choosing literary spoof as its vehicle. Light-hearted Nortbanger Abbey may be, yet in its concern with Catherine's 'education' it self-consciously enters into the lively political debates of the period. In this chapter we'll be exploring the contexts of Nortbanger Abbey, considering comparable polemics on the dangers of reading, speculating on why Austen and others might have been interested in debunking both the sentimental novel and in particular its cousin the Gothic novel, and concluding with an overview of some critical debates surrounding Austen's own position.
