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.

My Non-Fiction TBR

I've really gotten into non-fiction this year, and though I've read more non-fiction this year than I ever thought I'd read there's still so much I'd like to read - the more I read, the more I discover! So, here are some of the non-fiction books I'd like to cross off my TBR soon.

The Creation of Anne Boleyn: In Search of the Tudors' Most Notorious Queen

by Susan Bordo

Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne's life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination.

Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really even look like?! And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne's death more than her life. How could Henry order the execution of a once beloved wife? Drawing on scholarship and popular culture Bordo probes the complexities of one of history's most infamous relationships.

In her inimitable, straight-talking style Bordo dares to confront the established histories, stepping off the well-trodden paths of Tudoriana to expertly tease out the human being behind the myths.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales

ed. by Kate Bernheimer

Fairy tales are one of the most enduring forms of literature, their plots retold and characters reimagined for centuries. In this elegant and thought-provoking collection of original essays, Kate Bernheimer brings together twenty-eight leading women writers to discuss how these stories helped shape their imaginations, their craft, and our culture. In poetic narratives, personal histories, and penetrating commentary, the assembled authors bare their soul and challenge received wisdom. Eclectic and wide-ranging, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is essential reading for anyone who has ever been bewitched by the strange and fanciful realm of fairy tales.

Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction

by Tracy Borman

September 1613.

In Belvoir Castle, the heir of one of England’s great noble families falls suddenly and dangerously ill. His body is ‘tormented’ with violent convulsions. Within a few short weeks he will suffer an excruciating death. Soon the whole family will be stricken with the same terrifying symptoms. The second son, the last male of the line, will not survive.

It is said witches are to blame. And so the Earl of Rutland’s sons will not be the last to die.

Witches traces the dramatic events which unfolded at one of England’s oldest and most spectacular castles four hundred years ago. The case is among those which constitute the European witch craze of the 15th-18th centuries, when suspected witches were burned, hanged, or tortured by the thousand. Like those other cases, it is a tale of superstition, the darkest limits of the human imagination and, ultimately, injustice – a reminder of how paranoia and hysteria can create an environment in which nonconformism spells death. But as Tracy Borman reveals here, it is not quite typical. The most powerful and Machiavellian figure of the Jacobean court had a vested interest in events at Belvoir.He would mastermind a conspiracy that has remained hidden for centuries.

The Bookshop Book

by Jen Campbell

Every bookshop has a story.

We’re not talking about rooms that are just full of books. We’re talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I’ve-ever-been-to-bookshops.

Meet Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains; meet the bookshop in Canada that’s invented the world’s first antiquarian book vending machine. 

And that’s just the beginning. 

From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, The Bookshop Book examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favourite places, and looks at over three hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we’ve yet to build a bookshop down in the South Pole).

The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.

Losing Israel

by Jasmine Donahaye

During a phone call to her mother Jasmine Donahaye stumbled upon the collusion of her kibbutz family in the displacement of Palestinians in 1948 - and earlier, in the 1930s. She set out to learn the facts behind this revelation, and her discoveries challenged everything she thought she knew about the country and her family, transforming her understanding of Israel, and of herself.

In a moving and honest account that spans travel writing, nature writing and memoir, Losing Israel explores the powerful attachments people have to place and to contested national stories. Moving between Wales and Israel, and attempting to reconcile her conflicted feelings rooted in difficult family history and a love of Israel's birds, the author asks challenging questions about homeland and belonging, and the power of stories to shape a landscape.

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation

by Judith Mackrell

Glamorized, mythologized and demonized - the women of the 1920s prefigured the 1960s in their determination to reinvent the way they lived. Flappers is in part a biography of that restless generation: starting with its first fashionable acts of rebellion just before the Great War, and continuing through to the end of the decade when the Wall Street crash signal led another cataclysmic world change. It focuses on six women who between them exemplified the range and daring of that generation’s spirit.

Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka were far from typical flappers. Although they danced the Charleston, wore fashionable clothes and partied with the rest of their peers, they made themselves prominent among the artists, icons, and heroines of their age. Talented, reckless and willful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they re-wrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and tragic ways. And between them they blazed the trail of the New Woman around the world.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

by Azar Nafisi

Every Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in the worlds of Lolita, The Great Gatsby andPride and Prejudice, gradually they come to share their own stories, dreams and hopes with each other, and, for a few hours, taste freedom. Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir is a moving, passionate testament to the transforming power of books, the magic of words and the search for beauty in life's darkest moments.

Are there any non-fiction books you'd like to read soon?

The Women's Classic Literature Event

After I saw Mallory @ The Local Muse talking about this event, I knew I had to join in - thanks for bringing it to my attention, Mallory!

Basically, The Classics Club are hosting an event that's going to run through to the 31st December 2016 where readers everywhere are being invited and encouraged to read classics written by women. You can check out the announcement here!

I love classics, and I especially love classics written by women, so this is right up my street!

Introduce yourself. Tell us what you're most looking forward to in this event.

I'm Jess, and I'm a writer and English graduate from the UK. This past year I've been working at an independent publishing house in south Wales, but I'm currently working at moving back to the city where I went to university so I can be closer to friends. One day I'd love to return to university and pursue a PhD.

I think I'm most looking forward to discovering some writers I've never heard of before, and I'm looking forward to reading alongside other people who are really enthusiastic about classics that have been written by women.

Have you read many classics by women? Why or why not?

I've read quite a few, but there are always going to be women writers who've been forgotten, and there are some staples of classic literature written by women that I still haven't read; I still haven't read any Sylvia Plath or any Ann Radcliffe. Because I did English at university I encountered a lot of women writers, especially as I primarily focused on 19th century literature, so I'm looking forward to reading more.

Pick a classic female writer you can't wait to read for the event, and list her date of birth, her place of birth, and the title of one of her most famous works.

Aphra Behn was born in Canterbury on the 10th July 1640. She was a prolific writer of poetry, prose and plays in a time when it was not at all usual for women to write; she's particularly remembered as a playwright, and even dedicated one of her plays to her close friend Nell Gwynn, the famous 17th century actress and mistress of Charles II. She was also employed by Charles II as a spy in Antwerp, just in case she couldn't get any cooler. She's probably most famous for Oroonoko.

Think of a female character who was represented in classic literature by a male writer. Does she seem to be a whole or complete woman? Why or why not? Tell us about her.

I've always thought Shakespeare wrote women pretty well for the time he was living in. I'm not a huge lover of Romeo and Juliet - mainly because I had to study it so much in school - but while Romeo is a bit of a limp noodle, Juliet has these amazing, violent monologues that are so much fun to read or see performed. 

Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both: 
Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

Then there are women like Lady Macbeth and Viola who are also very vibrant characters, and are probably the most memorable characters from their respective plays.

Favourite classic heroine?

Oh no, that's such a hard question! I'm sure this is a completely unoriginal answer, but I really love Jane Eyre. She's intelligent and strong-willed and sensible. Maybe I'm boring, but I love sensible classic heroines; the ones who are written like actual women, and not written as swooning male fantasies. I love Mary Lennox, too. I've always had a soft spot for Mary Lennox.

We'd love to help clubbers find great titles by classic female authors. Can you recommend any sources for building a list?

Like Mallory said, Persephone Books are a great publisher to take a look at, as are Virago. There's also the very underrepresented Honno Press, who are a small independent publishing house in Wales who specialise in publishing work by Welsh women which includes a bunch of Welsh classics written by women.

I also recommend checking out booktubers like Ron Lit, WordsofaReader and Beyond the Pages, all of whom frequently read classics. Ron Lit in particular is a fabulous resource, as she's a PhD student who specialises in 18th century classics written by women.

Recommend three books by classic female writers to get people started in this event.

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Will you be joining us for this event immediately, or will you wait until the new year starts?

Well I've already read nine classics this year, and seven of them were written by women, so I'm going to jump straight on board!

Do you plan to read as inspiration pulls, or will you make a preset list?

Like Mallory, I'll be doing a bit of both. I'd like to make a list just so I can keep an eye on how many classics by women I own, or would like to own, that I still haven't read, but I'm not going to force myself to read any - classics are never fun if they're forced.

Are you pulling to any particular genres?

I'm much more likely to read novels than anything else.

Are you pulling to a particular era or location in literature by women?

No, not really. My first love will always be 19th century literature, but I'd like to read some 18th century work and 17th century work, and I want to read some more 20th century literature, too!

Do you hope to host an event or read-a-long for the group?

Considering I only just discovered this event, I have no idea yet!

Is there an author or title you'd love to read with a group or a buddy for this event?

Maybe The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë? That could be a good buddy read book.

Finally, ask the question you wish this survey had asked, and then answer it.

Which books would you like to read for this event?

• Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
• The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
• Don't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
• The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
• Tales of Angria by Charlotte Brontë
• Villette by Charlotte Brontë
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Lois the Witch by Elizabeth Gaskell
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
• The Road Through the Wall by Shirley Jackson
• The Sundial by Shirley Jackson
• The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson
• Oroonoko by Aphra Behn
• The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish
• The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
• Evelina by Frances Burney
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Will you be taking part?

TBR | Classics

I love a good classic - who doesn't? - and while there are quite a few I've already read there are so many more that I still haven't read yet, so I thought I'd share them with you!

I don't know if I'm going to read these classics in 2014, it'd be nice if I did but I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to read things I'm not in the mood to read. I think that's why I had so many slumps in 2013 - all I could think about was the challenge to read 50 books that I'd set myself. I'm very proud I completed that challenge but I won't be setting myself another one this year just because reading became a chore rather than something I enjoyed.

So, here's the list of classics that I own which I still haven't read. I'd like to try and read them this year!

The Count of Monte Cristo

by Alexandre Dumas

Imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, Edmond Dantès spends 14 bitter years in a dungeon. When his daring escape plan works he uses all he has learned during his incarceration to mastermind an elaborate plan of revenge that will bring punishment to those he holds responsible for his fate. No longer the naïve sailor who disappeared into the dark fortress all those years ago, he reinvents himself as the charming, mysterious, and powerful Count of Monte Cristo.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the one book on this list that I have actually started, though I think I've only read the first two chapters so far, which is barely any of the book at all.

I certainly should have read this book already, given that I'm fairly sure I've owned my copy for about six years. Oops! I think the main reason I haven't started it until now is just because I've always found its size intimidating. The story sounds amazing - I love a revenge story - and I think there's a very good chance it could become one of my favourite books once I'm done with it, I just need to get through it all first.

More than any other books on this list, I'm determined to read this one this year!

Villette

by Charlotte Brontë

With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette.

There she struggles to retain her self- possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.

As much as I love the Brontës the only novel written by Charlotte that I've read so far is Jane Eyre, it being the most well known of her works. I've heard great things about all of her novels, though, and I bought myself this copy of Villette last year purely because I thought the cover was really pretty.

Villette was Charlotte's final novel and the story sounds pretty interesting, so I'm hoping I'll get around to reading it this year!

Dracula

by Bram Stoker

A young lawyer on an assignment finds himself imprisoned in a Transylvanian castle by his mysterious host. Back at home his fiancée and friends are menaced by a malevolent force which seems intent on imposing suffering and destruction. Can the devil really have arrived on England’s shores? And what is it that he hungers for so desperately?

Considering I had to study this novel for the final two weeks of my Victorian Gothic module I really should have read it by now. Though I feel I should receive some credit for managing to discuss a novel I hadn't read in class...

I've tried to read this book several times, but each time I've tried I just haven't been able to get into it and I'm not entirely sure why. It was written in Whitby, though, a town very close to where I grew up, and I'd love to finally be able to say that I've read it.

I can't see myself reading it any time soon - unless the Dracula show I've recorded puts me in the mood - but I may save it for Halloween 2014 and read it then!

Emma

by Jane Austen

'I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.'

Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.

I'm going to tell you a secret: I don't like Jane Austen's novels.

The stories themselves are entertaining enough to watch adaptations of, but I just can't get away with Austen's writing style. People are always trying to tell me how funny and witty she is, and while sometimes I can see it there are other times where I want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

I think one of the biggest reasons I dislike her novels is that the first Austen novel I read was Persuasion, which I had to read for school when I was seventeen. I absolutely hated it. Mainly because of the heroine; I finished that novel feeling as though she had learned nothing, and I hate it when a book makes me feel like that.

Since then I've had to read Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey all for university and I just didn't enjoy her writing style. 

So why do I want to try and read Emma? Well I can't judge it until I've at least tried it, and it seems a shame that it's sitting unread on my shelf. I should also point out that I bought my copy of Emma before I read Persuasion, so I had no idea I was going to dislike Austen's writing then.

If I'm in the mood perhaps I'll give Emma a try this year!

Middlemarch

by George Eliot

Dorothea Brooke can find no acceptable outlet for her talents or energy and few who share her ideals. As an upper middle-class woman in Victorian England she can't learn Greek or Latin simply for herself; she certainly can't become an architect or have a career; and thus, Dorothea finds herself "Saint Theresa of nothing." Believing she will be happy and fulfilled as "the lampholder" for his great scholarly work, she marries the self-centered intellectual Casaubon, twenty-seven years her senior. Dorothea is not the only character caught by the expectations of British society in this huge, sprawling book. Middlemarch stands above its large and varied fictional community, picking up and examining characters like a jeweler observing stones. There is Lydgate, a struggling young doctor in love with the beautiful but unsuitable Rosamond Vincy; Rosamond's gambling brother Fred and his love, the plain-speaking Mary Garth; Will Ladislaw, Casaubon's attractive cousin, and the ever-curious Mrs. Cadwallader. The characters mingle and interact, bowing and turning in an intricate dance of social expectations and desires. Through them George Eliot creates a full, textured picture of life in provincial nineteenth-century England.

George Eliot was another author I was introduced to in school, and, unlike Jane Austen, my introduction to her was much sweeter.

So far all I've read of Eliot's is the novella Silas Marner, a classic which I love. Unlike Persuasion, the characters in Silas Marner all get their just deserts and I love to see that happen in a story because it rarely happens in real life!

During the second year of my A Levels I studied the theme of 'love through the ages'. We looked at extracts of prose, plays and poetry from Renaissance to Contemporary literature, and this included a few extracts from Middlemarch. The extract I remember reading most vividly involved poor Dorothea thinking of how disappointing her marriage had turned out to be.

Since then it's been on my to-read list, and I might just get around to it in 2014.

A Tale of Two Cities

by Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... These well-known and loved lines begin Dickens's most exciting novel, set during the bloodiest moments of the French Revolution. When former aristocrat Charles Darnay learns that an old family servant needs his help, he abandons his safe haven in England and returns to Paris. But once there, the Revolutionary authorities arrest him not for anything he has done, but for his rich family's crimes. Also in danger: his wife, Lucie, their young daughter, and her aged father, who have followed him across the Channel. 

I have to admit I haven't actually read much Dickens at all. I read Oliver Twist when I was a child after my parents bought me a beautiful, illustrated version. Since then I haven't gone back to it, however, because Nancy's death terrified me when I was little.

I've also read A Christmas Carol - the Christmas story - and I love it! I think it's also one of Dickens' more enjoyable stories purely because it's more of a novella than a novel, and therefore isn't as intimidating.

Other than that, though, I've only watched adaptations. I'd never been particularly interested in reading A Tale of Two Cities before last year - I always found the 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' quote rather irritating - but recently I've been developing more of an interest in French literature and French history. I had no real idea what A Tale of Two Cities was about, so when I discovered it was set during the time of the French Revolution I bought a copy!

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

by Victor Hugo

In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmerelda, a beautiful gypsy dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmerelda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her that only Quasimodo can prevent. 

Speaking of the French, here's another French classic!

Like a lot of people out there I'm a huge fan of Disney's version of Hugo's classic tale, but I'm aware that the original source material is much darker. Even though I'm fairly sure the novel doesn't include talking gargoyles or sing-alongs I'd still love to read it, especially considering I've yet to read anything written by Victor Hugo.

I'd love to work my way through Les Misérables at some point, but The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a lot shorter, so I think I'll start with that one first!

North and South

by Elizabeth Gaskell

When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. 

Gaskell is yet another author whose works I've barely read. So far the only story of hers I have read is The Old Nurse's Story, a short ghost story which I liked a lot, but I'd love to sink my teeth into one of her novels.

I already know the story behind North and South as I watched the BBC adaptation a couple of years ago, and it only made me want to read the book more. Richard Armitage will forever be my John Thornton; he looked brilliant in a top hat!

Not only that, but I think Margaret Hale will be a literary heroine I can relate to. I know from personal experience what it's like to have to move from one end of the country to another because of my dad's work - in fact I've done it several times.

So with any luck, North and South will be another classic I get through this year!

The Woman in White

by Wilkie Collins

"There in the middle of the broad, bright high-road-there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven-stood the figure of a solitary woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments."

Thus young Walter Hartright first meets the mysterious woman in white in what soon became one of the most popular novels of the nineteenth century. Secrets, mistaken identities, surprise revelations, amnesia, locked rooms and locked asylums, and an unorthodox villain made this mystery thriller an instant success when it first appeared in 1860, and it has continued to enthrall readers ever since. From the hero's foreboding before his arrival at Limmeridge House to the nefarious plot concerning the beautiful Laura, the breathtaking tension of Collin's narrative created a new literary genre of suspense fiction, which profoundly shaped the course of English popular writing. 

I read The Moonstone for a module in Victorian Popular Fiction back in 2012 and it quickly became not only one of my favourite classics, but one of my favourite books of all time. Ever since then I've been dying to read something else by Wilkie Collins, and I believe The Woman in White is his most famous work.

Like The Count of Monte Cristo, however, I've always found its size kind of intimidating - it's a pretty big book! Even so I'd like to try and read The Woman in White this year if I can!

If you read all of that I applaud you! This turned out to be a longer post than I'd expected...

Are there any classics you'd like to cross off your list in 2014?