Is Northanger Abbey really a parody?

When it comes to horror, writers like Stephen King, James Herbert and H.P. Lovecraft are probably some of the first to spring to mind, but women have been at the centre of horror since horror began.

It was eighteen year old Mary Shelley who penned Frankenstein, and Carmilla was terrorizing young maidens in their beds a quarter of a century before Dracula washed up on the Whitby shore. The protagonists of Gothic novels are primarily young women trapped in eerie houses with limited and frightening prospects, and it’s a trope that continues to influence us, from the Alien franchise’s Ellen Ripley to Edith Cushing, the heroine of Guillermo del Toro’s latest film, Crimson Peak.

Needless to say, there’s no shortage of women in horror, whether they be in the starring roles or the orchestrator of all that chaos.

Though most famous for her comedy of manners stories, Austen’s first completed novel, Northanger Abbey, was a parody of the Gothic novels she was most likely reading at the time. Pride and Prejudice is widely considered to be Austen’s masterpiece, but personally I’ve always preferred the story of the young, obsessive reader who lets her imagination get the better of her.

‘Silly’ is a word I often see thrown about when describing Catherine, and to be honest I think it's unfair. Catherine is naïve, gullible and imaginative, but never silly. You see, I’m not sure that Northanger Abbey really is a parody.

Catherine’s no saint; she makes (some rather hurtful) assumptions that lead to embarrassing consequences, making her, like all of Austen’s heroines, an ancestor of today’s Bridget Joneses and Carrie Bradshaws. Upon first meeting General Tilney, Catherine casts him as the villain in her own personal story. He’s the cold, calculating man who so values wealth that poor, dowerless Catherine is certain she’ll never be able to marry his son, Henry, unless the two of them romantically run off into the sunset.

Naturally she’s surprised when the General invites her to his home, Northanger Abbey, and the Gothic fangirl in Catherine simply can’t resist the opportunity to stay in a place that sounds as though it belongs in one of her favourite novels. Unfortunately, the Gothic fangirl in Catherine also comes to the conclusion that the General murdered his wife. Oh dear.

Ultimately Catherine learns her lesson and resolves not to let herself get carried away by the novels she loves. She and Henry marry and have a baby, leaving Catherine in a state of domestic bliss as the novel comes to a close.

That’s all well and good, but there’s more to this novel than a young girl learning from her mistakes. It’s true that Catherine is wrong about the General murdering his wife, but she isn’t wrong about him. The General proves to be a villain not only in the way he treats Catherine, but in the way he treats his own family; Henry himself admits that while his father is no murderer, his mother was so unloved that the General’s treatment of her certainly hastened her arrival at the pearly gates.

Northanger Abbey is haunted in much the same way that Thornfield Hall and Manderley are; Rebecca de Winter might not be visible, but she is very present throughout Rebecca, and Bertha Mason quite literally haunts the attic of Thornfield, so much so that the servants mistake her for a ghost. Mrs Tilney’s rooms are closed up and disused, as though the very memory of her has been banished to a solitary part of the house. Northanger Abbey is a living museum of domestic unhappiness.

There may not be murder, scandal or supernatural creatures in Northanger Abbey, unlike many of the other pre-Victorian examples of Gothic literature, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, but there is a quieter horror at work here that would have seemed much more real to Austen and the other women of her day.

Mrs Tilney’s fate was one which befell many women whose husbands married them for their wealth alone, and then treated them like breeding mares. Just like today, many marriages during the Regency period would have been happy ones, but the unhappy ones were very unhappy. Back then women had even less rights than today; they couldn’t vote, often weren’t granted a divorce when they were brave enough to seek one, and signed over everything they owned to their husbands when they were married.

Catherine may read the situations around her through a Gothic lens, but the conclusion she comes to - that General Tilney is a villain (of sorts) - is ultimately correct. She recognises that Mrs Tilney was the victim of a miserable marriage, and in doing so Austen rewards her with a happy one of her own.

Film Recommendations for Austen Fans

Considering I'm not a huge lover of Austen, though I will begrudgingly admit that she's starting to grow on me, it might surprise people how often she gets mentioned on my blog; when you do a degree in English Literature she's literally impossible to pass by!

Though I'm not the biggest fan of the way Austen's books are written I do enjoy watching adaptations of her stories - they are good stories, they wouldn't still be everywhere if they weren't - and today I'd thought I'd recommend a few films that aren't adaptations of the original texts, but are still films I think any Austen fan would enjoy. I have three modern films, set in the '90s and onwards, and three period films to share with you.

I guess this is a pretty obvious one, but I love Bridget Jones's Diary so I couldn't not mention it. I still haven't read the book but I always enjoy the film, and particularly love watching it around New Year. If we're going to be technical we could argue that this is an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, in the sense that it's a modern day adaptation, but I'm still going to count it anyway. If you're after a fun film with a bad first impression and a happy ending, much like Pride and Prejudice, then you'll love this!

This is another modern day adaptation, so I'll get this one out the way with before we get onto the more obscure choices. If you're a fan of stories with semi-unlikeable protagonists who are ultimately good at heart, like Emma, you'll like this film - it's also a great film if you happen to be a lover of films like Mean Girls and 10 Things I Hate About You. If you're a huge Austen fan, however, I imagine you've already watched Clueless and Bridget Jones's Diary!

This is probably the most obscure recommendation on my list, but I think it works! Of the Austens I've read so far (I say 'read', but I've only really read two of them all the way through and others I read bits of for university) Sense and Sensibility is definitely my least favourite. I just don't find the story all that interesting, and I really hate the ending; in my opinion Elinor and Marianne both deserved better, particularly Marianne. A Royal Affair is based on a true story, of the affair between Caroline Matilda of Great Britain (sister of George III) and her husband's personal physician Johann Friedrich Struensee. Caroline was married off to Christian VII of Denmark who struggled with mental illness throughout his life, back in a time when mental illness was understood even less than it is now. Caroline and Johann's story is heartbreaking and this film is so beautiful. To me A Royal Affair has that same gloomy quality that Sense and Sensibility does; they're both fitting stories if you've just been through a break-up and you need a good cry.

Fun fact: Mansfield Park is the only one of Austen's novels in which slavery is mentioned. I guess that's not exactly a fun fact, but it's interesting, right? Mansfield Park is also one of the two Austen novels, alongside Emma, that I haven't read at all, though I admit it's also one of the ones I'm most curious about because I hear it talked about so little. Belle is another period drama based on a true story, on the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle. Dido was the mixed race daughter of Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies, and Sir John Lindsay, a British naval officer. When Lindsay returned to Britain he took Dido with him and entrusted her to the care of his childless uncle, Lord Mansfield, and his wife. The two of them raised Dido as a lady, alongside their orphaned niece Lady Elizabeth Murray. Mansfield was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and during his time in this role he brought about the formal end of slavery in Britain. In his will Mansfield confirmed Dido's freedom (as she had been born into slavery) and made her an heiress. Pretty impressive. This is a brilliant film, and both Dido and Fanny Price have quite a bit in common as they are both sent to live with wealthier relatives and both struggle to find their place in the world.

Letters to Juliet is cheesy and predictable and, at times, pretty naff, but like Bridget Jones's Diary and Clueless, it's fun. If you're in the mood to watch something you don't really have to think about, something you want to sit back and enjoy with a glass of wine and a bar of chocolate, then this is the film for you. If you're a fan of stories about second chances, about lovers who didn't get it right the first time and want to try again, like Persuasion, then I recommend watching this film. Plus it's set in Italy, and Italy's beautiful!

Finally, we have my favourite Austen: Northanger Abbey. I love Guillermo del Toro's work - I think Pan's Labyrinth is fantastic, and I love others films he's been involved in such as the Hellboy films and Mama - and Crimson Peak is right up my alley. I love Gothic stories, love love love them, and stories about women who move to creepy new houses are right up my alley; the synopsis of this film reminds me of The Miniaturist, actually! I think the story of a young girl who moves to a spooky house inhabited by a mysterious family seems like the perfect film for any Northanger Abbey fan!

Have you seen any of these films? Are there any others you'd recommend?

Sci-Fi Month | Is Alien Gothic?

Sci-Fi Month is hosted by Rinn @ Rinn Reads, and this year I'm participating!

Alien is probably one of the most iconic sci-fi films of all time, but is it also a Gothic story? Well, I would argue it is!

(If you've never seen Alien and you want to, I recommend you watch it before you read this because I will be talking about things that will spoil the ending for you!)

The rise of Gothic literature began in the latter half of the 18th century, with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, being regarded as the very first Gothic novel. Gothic has stayed around ever since, becoming hugely popular during the Victorian period; proven by the popularity of Penny Dreadfuls, and the publication of staples of Gothic literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Even before the Victorian period there was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, and earlier still was the work of Ann Radcliffe, author of books such as The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797).

Even Jane Austen had a go at the Gothic novel in her somewhat tongue-in-cheek friendly parody, Northanger Abbey. Though it was one of the last novels of hers to be published, it was the first one she wrote, and something of a homage to much of the Gothic literature Austen was probably reading at the time.

Later, in the 20th century, Southern Gothic emerged as a new strand of American literature; stories which took place in the American South, and include authors such as William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy and Anne Rice.

Today we have contemporary Gothic, and tributes to the older work of a genre that we simply haven't let go of. Shows like Penny Dreadful are proof of how much we still love Gothic, and Guillermo del Toro's latest film, Crimson Peak, is a homage to all of those Gothic stories that have inspired him since childhood.

That's all well and good, Jess, but where the hell does Alien come into all of this?

Well reader, let me explain!

Something can only really exist as a genre if there are tropes and similarities between the various stories. Jane Eyre is Gothic, but Agnes Grey is not, and yet both of them are Victorian novels about the life of a governess. So what makes one Gothic while the other is not?

Gothic saw the rise of the monster in literature - from Frankenstein to Carmilla to The Were-Wolf - but the setting is also incredibly important to a Gothic novel. You're not about to open a Gothic novel that's set in a quaint little country bakery, or in a busy, bustling city centre; isolation is vital to a Gothic novel, as is a character who must be isolated and, perhaps most importantly, threatened.

Naturally, that isolated, threatened character, more often than not, is a vulnerable and (probably) virginal young lady. She's Jane Eyre in Thornfield Hall; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey; Emily St. Aubert in Udolpho; Mrs de Winter in Manderley; Ellen Ripley in Nostromo.

There's a lot of cross-over between Gothic and horror, though the two aren't the same. In Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's brilliant 2012 film The Cabin in the Woods, they talk about the archetypes in horror - The Whore, The Athlete, The Scholar, The Fool, The Virgin - and how it is always The Virgin who either survives or dies last. This idea translates to Alien, too, and it must be one that's been influenced by the pool of Gothic heroines from the 18th century and beyond. By the end of the movie Ripley is the only survivor from the Nostromo, starting a franchise that has given us one of the best action heroines in film history, but only after she's fought her way free from the Nostromo and the monster lurking inside it.

The Nostromo might not be a manor house, but it's certainly an isolated, claustrophobic setting. After all, where is more isolated than outer space? The Alien might not be as sophisticated as Dracula or as tragic as Frankenstein's Monster, but she's still become one of the most famous monsters around. Ellen Ripley might not be defenceless and innocent in the same way someone like Catherine Morland is, but she's certainly a descendent of those earlier Gothic heroines; a mixture of vulnerability and capability, and downright determination, that have made her one of the most genuine heroines to come out of '70s movies.

So, is Alien Gothic? Yes - and it's brilliant!

Top Ten Tuesday | Books to Read if you like Jane Austen

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Ten Books To Read If You Like This Super Popular Book/Author'.

I'm not a big fan of Jane Austen, but there's no denying that one of the reasons Austen's work is so popular is because it's still relevant today. There's a reason her novels have been adapted into more modern variations such as Bridget Jones's Diary and Clueless; if you gave the settings and some of her characters a few tweaks, then all of her stories could easily be 21st century romantic comedies.

For fans of Pride and Prejudice:

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton: Imagine if Jane Austen had written a book in which every single character was a dragon...

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South is another classic, later than Pride and Prejudice, with another central couple who at first dislike each other, and then grow to love one another. Also Richard Armitage is in the BBC miniseries and looks very dapper in his top hat.

For fans of Sense and Sensibility:

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal: To me, Shades of Milk and Honey is what would happen if someone added a little magic to Sense and Sensibility. Anne is older and plainer than her beautiful sister, but she's very talented in the magic department. Add to that a Darcy-esque love interest and you have the perfect book for any Austen fan.

Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson: This is an ideal book for younger readers, from around age 12 and up, by one of my favourite childhood authors. I've often seen Sense and Sensibility recommended as a great classic to read for anyone going through boy (or girl!) trouble, and Girls in Love is a good read for that, too.

For fans of Emma:

Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis: This is a middle grade novel set during the Regency period, with a little bit of magic thrown in. With a child protagonist at the centre, it's a fresh look at a period of history that's so often written about in cheesy historical romances. Kat has two older sisters and likes to concern herself with who the two of them are going to marry - she's an Emma in miniature!

For fans of Mansfield Park:

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë: I've talked about Anne Brontë before and how much I love her. She wrote two novels during her lifetime: Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall outsold Wuthering Heights upon its publication and was incredibly successful, but after she passed away Charlotte Brontë decided not to republish it, and Anne has been the lesser known of the three sisters ever since. Not cool, Charlotte, not cool. Many critics have said that, had she lived longer, Anne Brontë could be as well known to us now as Jane Austen is. While Charlotte and Emily seemed to enjoy writing about the Gothic - though not all of Charlotte's work is like Jane Eyre - Anne was much more interested in society, and particularly in how society treated women. Agnes Grey is a short, subtle and beautiful little novel about the titular character who becomes a governess to support her destitute family, and the struggles she faces. It would be a disservice to both sisters to try and compare Agnes Grey to Jane Eyre because they're entirely different, and both excellent. I particularly love Agnes' relationship with her student, Rosalie, who enjoys making men fall in love with her just so she can reject them. Seriously, give it a read.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison: Obviously The Goblin Emperor and Mansfield Park are very different novels, but, as I said when I did the Jane Austen Book Tag, both of them have a rags to riches storyline at their heart. More importantly, both of these books feature protagonists who feel like outcasts, and who feel like outcasts in the very place they should feel at home. Both protagonists grow and find their own feet, but they don't sacrifice their naturally kind natures to do it.

For fans of Northanger Abbey:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: Here we have two Caths, both of whom are far more interested in fictional characters than what's going on in the world around them. This is the ideal contemporary read for a Northanger Abbey fan!

For fans of Persuasion:

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund: This is a sci-fi retelling of Persuasion. Basically, it's Jane Austen in spaaaaaace!

The King's General by Daphne du Maurier: This is one of du Maurier's lesser known novels. Set during the English Civil War, it tells the story of Honor Harris who is wooed by the proud and reckless Richard Grenville. The two of them part ways after an accident leaves eighteen year old Honor crippled, but reunite years later after Richard has risen up in Charles I's army. This is an ideal read for people who like stories about lovers getting second chances, like Persuasion.

Which books made your list?

Book vs. Adaptation | Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Today I'm back with another Book vs. Adaptation post! If you missed my previous post in this ongoing series, where I talked about the BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters' Fingersmith, you can check it out here!

I read Northanger Abbey in July - you can check out my review here if you like! - and watched the adaptation fairly soon after. Though I'm not the biggest fan of Austen's books, I do quite like watching adaptations of her novels; they're pretty and so easy to watch. This adaptation is from 2007 and is 86 minutes long. It was originally broadcast on ITV as part of their Jane Austen season in which three of her 'lesser known' novels were adapted: Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park (starring Billie Piper and Blake Ritson) and Persuasion (starring Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones).

Not sure why it says BBC, it's an ITV production I swear!

When it comes to adaptations, the most important thing for me is the casting. I love a good plot, don't get me wrong, but I love engaging characters more, and if I feel as though a character I love (or even a character I hate!) isn't going to be portrayed well it makes me very nervous for the adaptation. For example I didn't think I was going to like the 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre; I couldn't picture Michael Fassbender as the brooding Mr. Rochester and I hadn't been all that impressed with Mia Wasikowska's performance in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, but it's now one of my favourite adaptations!

I was curious to see what I'd make of the casting for Northanger Abbey, and after watching it I ended up with a rather mixed bag of feelings, which is similar to how I felt after I read the book.

Those of you who have read the book may have imagined her differently, but personally I thought Felicity Jones was the perfect Catherine. She looked how I pictured her - pretty, but not stunningly beautiful, and still a little dorky and gullible - and I thought she acted the part very well. I think it'd be easy for an actress to take a character like Catherine and portray her as nothing more than a silly little girl, but Felicity Jones didn't do that and I was glad she didn't do that, because while Austen teases Catherine a little in the book she never belittles her.

Cutie patootie

I thought Felicity acted the added scenes of Catherine's saucy dreams particularly well - she really captured the melodrama of the Gothic novel!

Our romantic lead, Henry Tilney, is by far my favourite of Austen's love interests. He's funny, and I value humour far more than I value a leading man's ability to brood, and I think JJ Feild played him wonderfully; he was perfectly sassy and never unkind. I'm surprised I haven't seen JJ Feild in anything else, though I can't help thinking he looks a little bit like Tom Hiddleston.

I was interested to see what Carey Mulligan would be like in the role of Catherine's shallow friend Isabella, especially after seeing her play the heroine, Bathsheba, so fantastically in the recent adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd, but she played the part well, and I imagine it was fun for her to play the kind of character she doesn't usually play. Plus I think this adaptation did a good job of making Isabella more of a sympathetic character, rather than dismissing her like Austen does.

The only people I felt were miscast were Henry's family. I expected his sister to be younger - closer to Catherine's age rather than older than her - and I didn't find General Tilney that intimidating. Perhaps that's because I'm so used to Liam Cunningham playing such a sweetheart in Game of Thrones, but I feel as though the adaptation could have tried a lot harder to make him a sinister figure; in the book I could understand Catherine's speculations, even though they were a little wild, whereas in this film they seemed to come out of nowhere.

As for the story itself, I thought it was very close to the book; there were the odd differences here and there, but they were so minute they didn't take anything away from the original story. It did do something which irritates me slightly in that the beginning and the end were narrated by 'Jane Austen'; I'm not a big fan of films with narrators, particularly when the narration is taken directly from a book because I think adaptations should embrace that they're a completely different medium to a book, and when they add narrators like that it's almost as though they're beckoning criticism from book purists.

Despite that I enjoyed the adaptation, and I think any Austen fan would too!

Review | Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

My Rating:

During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine's love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and and optimistic of Jane Austen's works.

I have to be honest: I'm not the biggest fan of Jane Austen. I know, I know, it's practically blasphemy! For heaven's sake I'm British and I even studied English Literature at uni, but Austen's never been for me ever since I was introduced to her via Persuasion during my A Levels. In the past year or so, however, I've wanted to give Austen a second chance, because I felt as though I was missing out on something. Was I just not reading her right? How was it that everyone in the world seemed to love her except me?

So earlier this year, when I got my kindle, I downloaded a free copy of Northanger Abbey as, out of all her novels, it sounded like the one I'd enjoy the most. And I wasn't wrong, I did - oddly and unexpectedly - find myself enjoying it, but ultimately I still came away disappointed.

For me Northanger Abbey started out strongly. I think I needed a little more time to grow before I could fully appreciate Austen's writing style, and when I began reading Northanger Abbey I did actually find sections of it funny - I've never found Austen funny before! 

I loved Austen's deconstruction of heroines and how, through Catherine, she poked fun at the previous heroines so often seen in Gothic literature and fairy tales. It was also fun to read about another avid reader, one who reads so avidly the novels she loves most taint her view of the world. I think all of us, in our younger years, have been guilty of hoping to stumble across a murder or a mystery or some tragic story whenever we've visited a house or hotel that looks even remotely old and haunted. At times her imagination did go a bit wild and she was a little irritating, but I'm pretty sure I was a huge pain in the arse when I was eighteen, too.

Plus as much as Austen pokes fun at Catherine, she's not really criticising readers. Catherine might be wrong in accusing General Tilney of murdering his wife, but she's not wrong about him - he's a bit of a twat.

I did quite like Henry Tilney, too; I thought he was funny, and I'd much rather have a funny male lead than a dark and brooding one. Hence why I've never really found Mr. Darcy that appealing.

However, the longer the book went on (and it isn't exactly a long book) the more it seemed to lose its way. One thing I've noticed about Austen's work is that she tells more than she shows. I know some people love this because they love seeing Austen's personality and snark bleeding through the pages, but after a while I just found it tiresome. I want Austen to be an author, not a commentator. The most frustrating thing is she tends to explain and tell the juiciest parts of her stories! I want to read conversations between the characters in the final scenes of the novel, not read paragraphs and paragraphs of Austen telling me what happened. It almost felt like I was reading a novel, and then suddenly all that was left were Austen's notes for the rest of the book that she hadn't written out yet.

So, 3 stars for Northanger Abbey. I didn't dislike it and I did enjoy the first half, but unfortunately I don't think Austen's writing style is ever going to be for me, and at least now I know that for certain. I am looking forward to watching the 2007 adaptation, though!

This Week in Books | 22/07/15

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

Now

This week I finally decided to give Jane Austen a second chance. I was first introduced to Austen when I was eighteen and I had to study Persuasion, and I loathed it. After that I was convinced I just didn't like Austen, and though I've been wanting to try her again for a year or so it's difficult to let go of feelings of such contempt, however ill-founded they might be. But as her books are all free on the kindle, I've been reading Northanger Abbey on my way to and from work because it was the one book of hers that sounded most up my alley. I'm enjoying it so far, as much as it pains eighteen year old me to say! I do still struggle with her writing in places - she uses so many commas that sometimes by the time I've gotten to the end of a sentence I've forgotten how it began - but this time around I have found her pretty funny.

I'm also slowly making my way through Uprooted by Naomi Novik and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I'm enjoying them both, it's just taking me a while to read them because I always use my kindle on my way to and from work, and when I get home from work I try to write rather than read.

Then

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Everything, Everything from NetGalley, and I read it in two sittings. I easily could have read it in one if I hadn't started it in the evening when I was tired. I don't read contemporary all that often, but I usually enjoy it when I do. Just before Everything, Everything I read The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, which I absolutely adored, so I was glad to have a quick contemporary to prevent me from going into a post-amazing book slump. Look out for my review of Everything, Everything next week!

Next

I tend to struggle with 'Next' because I don't really plan what I'm going to read; I'm very much a mood reader. Even so, I've been reading quite a few standalones recently (I love standalones) but I'd like to continue with one of the many series on my shelves. White Trash Zombie Apocalypse is the third book in the ongoing White Trash Zombie series. I read the first two earlier this year and really enjoyed them both - it's such a fun urban fantasy series!

What have you been reading?

Speculative Fiction for Austen Fans!

So you're an Austen lover, but you're in the mood for some speculative fiction and you're not sure what to read. What can you read that will satisfy both of these literary needs? Well, I'll tell you!

Below are a list of recommendations, all of which fall into the speculative fiction category and all of which are set during the Georgian/Regency eras.

If you like Pride and Prejudice, read Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

Pride and Prejudice, like the majority of Austen's work, is classed as a Comedy of Manners. Tooth and Claw, on the other hand, is a Fantasy of Manners; it's very much a parody of the regency style stories, with one particular twist - the entire cast of characters are dragons! After the death of the family's patriarch, five siblings - two brothers and three sisters - fight for their inheritence, fall in love and become involved with the abolition movement. This is a family trying to find their way in the world, even if they have to fight tooth and claw...

If you like Northanger Abbey, read A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

This may seem like a peculiar recommendation as there aren't all that many similarities between these two stories, but they're not entirely dissimiliar either. What links these two are heroines who yearn for adventure, particularly adventure of the supernatural kind! While young Catherine Morland loses herself in the thrills of Gothic fiction, young thief Lila longs to be a pirate captain and see the world.

If you like Sense and Sensibility, read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

These two are perhaps the most similar books on this list. Sense and Sensibility tells the story of sisters Elinor and Marianne, while Shades of Milk and Honey tells the story of sisters Jane and Melody. Both sets of sisters - including an older, serious sister and a younger, more beautiful sister - must compete with the women around them to find suitable matches. The only real difference is Jane and Melody have the benefit of magic.

If you like Persuasion, read Temeraire by Naomi Novik

In contrast, these two are probably the most dissimilar books on this list, but in some ways I see these two as two sides of a similar story. Persuasion tells the story of Anne Elliot, a 27 year old spinster who, nine years before, was persuaded to break off her engagement to Captain Wentworth due to his uncertain circumstances. Wentworth went to fight in the Napoleonic Wars and has returned from war wealthy and very eligible, and Anne must struggle with the feelings she still has for him. Temeraire, on the other hand, tells the story of Will Laurence who must fight in the Napoleonic Wars. With dragons. If you're a fan of Persuasion, perhaps you could read Temeraire and pretend Wentworth is off riding a dragon of his own somewhere.

If you like Emma, read Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis

Emma is one of Austen's most beloved heroines who takes matchmaking into her own hands to become the regency Cupid. Kat, the heroine of Stephanie Burgis's middlegrade series, is equally as hands-on. When she discovers she has inherited her late mother's magical gifts, Kat takes it upon herself to help her older sisters win their true loves and rescue her family from the sinister Sir Neville.

If you like Mansfield Park, read The Winter Witch by Paula Brackston

In contrast to what is possibly the most fun of Austen's novels, Mansfield Park is quiet, subtle and more serious. The heroine of Mansfield Park, Fanny Price, is sent to live with her mother's sisters at their lavish estate after her own large family - Fanny is one of nine children - falls into destitution. Only one of her cousins, Edmund, makes any effort to make her welcome, making her feel, for the most part, like an outsider in her own home. The Winter Witch, on the other hand, is set in early 19th century Wales. Morgana, a gypsy's daughter, hasn't spoken since she witnessed the murder of her father, and as such she is something of an outsider in her small Welsh town. Concerned for her safety amongst her superstitious neighbours, Morgana's mother marries her off to Cai Jenkins, a widower from the far hills. Initially heartbroken at being torn from her mother, Morgana slowly falls in love with the wild land surrounding her new husband's farm.

Happy reading!