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    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Audiobook7 hours

    Northanger Abbey

    Written by Jane Austen

    Narrated by Flo Gibson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 26, 2008
    ISBN9781440798382
    Author

    Jane Austen

    Jane Austen was born in 1775 in rural Hampshire, the daughter of an affluent village rector who encouraged her in her artistic pursuits. In novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma she developed her subtle analysis of contemporary life through depictions of the middle-classes in small towns. Her sharp wit and incisive portraits of ordinary people have given her novels enduring popularity. She died in 1817.

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    Reviews for Northanger Abbey

    4/5

    5,197 ratings387 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A powerfully well written book, that brings the harshness of the characters together with the harshness of the landscape. The narrative is absorbing and emotive, as a reader one cannot help but feel involved in a story that is being told as if for our own benefit.
    • 2/5
      I hate this book. Heathcliff is a jerk, and it has an unhappy ending.
    • 4/5
      Still a favourite after many years. Yeah, the characters are all irredeemably foul and you can't really bring yourself to like any of them, but the story is so brutally, horribly romantic *anyway*. Gothic lit at its absolute finest.
    • 5/5
      Wuthering Heights is a haunting tale with characters whose personalities are rich, dark and more often than not, selfish. The storyline itself is befitting of a Gothic Romance with a silvery hint of the supernatural interweaved throughout this melancholy piece. I was not obligated to read Wuthering Heights during my high school career (which is a shame as I think it's quite the read) but instead picked it up on my own and thus discovered one of my favourite tales. I noticed that in a few user reviews some readers found the genealogy to be a bit confusing but I didn't have that problem, though it was fun to have the chart displayed in the back of the book. I also quite enjoyed the narrative style of the book and how Bronte had the main narrator describe incidents of childhood, adulthood and then back to childhood again. Bronte's overall descriptive style was pleasing as well, there was just enough detail to provide a good mental picture but not so much that one was bogged down with details which overshadowed the plot. As for the characters I cannot say that I liked them, especially Cathy, but found them to be well written and entirely possible.
    • 5/5
      If I were a contributor to a dictionary and was asked for a definition of the word passion, I would simply write...."See Wuthering Heights". All the basic human emotions- love, hate, jealously, pride, are on display in this novel but at their penultimate height. Cathy just doesn't love Heathcliff- he is part of her very being. Heathcliff just doesn't hate his son Linton- he must fully destroy him. In real life, no one would want to meet, let alone spend any time with any of these people (except perhaps for Ellen Deane, a housekeeper who recounts the story to her new employer-good eye for detail as she spins her tale). But to live with them through the pages of a novel-pure heaven. No other book I have read from this time period even comes close to the modernity of this novel. Heathcliff and Cathy are not destined to be together, because Cathy is unable to forgo the warm pleasures that money can bring. She marries Edgar Linton, a good man devoted to Cathy and for a time Cathy settles in to this life. But as soon as Heathcliff re-enters her life, she is determined to possess him as she did before and Edgar must just understand. Why should he be jealous? Cathy asks. There is not hint of a sexual relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff but something deeper, deeper than even love. Edgar, like most human beings, feels unable to share his spouse in this kind of relationship and being thwarted in her desires, Cathy pines and eventually dies. But this happens in the first half of the book-what are the remaining 150 pages about? Since Heathcliff can never be happy since Cathy is gone, then he decides that no one will be happy and he takes his revenge. And what revenge! Just from general knowledge, I knew what to expect in the first half of the book but the second half was a revelation. Emily Bronte has created a character in Heathcliff that breaks almost every moral code of the time and yet the reader sympathizes with him, no matter how monstrous his actions. I can't think of another writer alive or dead who could have pulled off this feat so well. The writing is beautiful and the dialogues between Cathy and Heathcliff are richly poetic.If you haven't read Wuthering Heights, do yourself a favor and run to find a copy. Reading experiences such as this are rare- a perfectly written novel with characters you will remember forever. The world lost a great novelist with the death of Emily Bronte after only one novel. It makes the reader wonder what else she could have produced.
    • 4/5
      Catherine and Heathcliff fall in love when they are children, but because of thier differnet status in society thier love is forbidden. Thier love goes beyond the grave.
    • 4/5
      one act of kindess, taking in an orphaned child, sets the Earnshaw family on a path to destroy not only their happiness, but everyone else's around them as well. Emily Bronte covers all the vices, pity, arrogance, spite, revenge, hatred, death, cruelty, bribery, jealousy, financial ruin, humilation, greed and of course a ghost for good measure. Painful, but a great read- just like a soap opera where the drama never ends, it only escalates.
    • 5/5
      A first-read for me this year. Now I know why this is a classic. This is a love story gone wrong between Cathy and Heathcliff and everything Heathcliff does as an act of revenge. It is a novel that spans two generations of love and loss and examines how life can come full circle.
    • 5/5
      Read this for the first time aged 15 years old and at a time when I was learning about the meaning of love and lust. The ghost of Heathcliff has haunted me ever since. Fantastic but has so many layers and themes it can be read again and again.
    • 4/5
      Great scene description character development and story.
    • 5/5
      Perhaps one of the best books ever written, how does one begin to review Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights? Suffice it to say the volume is flawless. Bronte writes with straightforward cause, telling her story through the narrative vine of Nelly, beloved servant at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Having been close to the Earnshaws and Lintons for her entire lifetime, Nelly is uniquely qualified to tell the tale of undying love and bleak revenge. Wuthering Heights has become an undying classic for a reason: ripping good storytelling with fantastic characters and effective mood. If you're looking for the definitive gothic Victorian novel, this is it. Jump in and soak up the vibe.
    • 5/5
      Read this in one night, on the sofa, with a small yellow lamp. It was disturbing, awful, depressing and wonderful.Definitely not what I've pictured a classic romance to be. I couldn't identify with most of the characters, whose faults were exposed in such a bright light, and Heathcliff I've actually detested - he really IS diabolical!But I have enjoyed the book immensely and it is beautifully written.Makes mew dream about the moors...
    • 1/5
      I know there are many people that absolutely love this book. I am definitely not one of them. I thought it was ghastly. I hated it! With the possible exception of the younger Cathering and perhaps Hareton, eventually, there was not one person I could like in this story. I don't understand how a book this miserable could be considered by some as beautiful but I guess to each his own. Because I hated it so much, it took me forever to get through it thus prolonging the agony. But, now I can say that I have indeed read it.
    • 4/5
      This book took a bit longer than I had hoped to get into due to the old fashioned writing of its time. However, once I started truly getting into the plot of the story, I found it hard to put down. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, is a tale of a love that never dies. Catherine Earnshaw makes a fatal decision to marry not out of love, but out of want for money and leaves her soul mate and childmate Heathcliff in the dust. Upon trying to renew their love while being married, Catherine finally dies of a broken heart, realizing she made the wrong choice so long ago and had no way of fixing that. I defintley recommend this book to those who so strongly believe in love still being alive long after the person whom they have loved has died.
    • 4/5
      One of the most revered classic novels. A true dark romance full of love, daring and sensuality. We would all like to be loved and to love another with this intensity.
    • 5/5
      A favorite canon book. Very dark, very juicy.
    • 2/5
      If ever there was a 19th century Bella Swan (or worse), it would be Catherine. Gripey, whiney, and up-to-the-ears in angst, I often times felt like reaching deep into the pages and slapping the heck out of Cathy, Catherine, Heathcliff, Isabella, Linton, Hareton, and all those morons. One thing I will say about Catherine that tops anything stupid Bella ever did: the chick was PISSY. i mean i actually felt like heathcliff got the raw end of the deal in the relationship. after finishing this debby-downer "classic" I had to dose myself up on some good ol Jane Austen or I felt like I'd drown myself in tears. Nothing like a good happy story (Pride and Prejudice) after experiencing something like THAT.
    • 4/5
      I have very mixed feelings about this book. While it's a beautiful book, and I will probably read it again, I could not stand the story! All of the characters are horrible people, in my opinion, and the only thing that kept me from throwing the book across the room was the last two chapters. If I had not had to read this for class, I would not have finished it at all - though I am certainly glad I did finish it.If you're looking to read the Classics, definitely do read this. Same goes for if you're looking to read a classic romance, or one of the Gothic classics. However, if you're looking for a "good" book, one that will leave you happy or going "aww," you're at the wrong book.
    • 5/5
      One would call these men "dysfunctional", but all in all, it is a brilliant love-story and when I read this, I was longing for a Heathcliff myself!
    • 4/5
      I feel good after reading this book. It's as good as the movie (yay! usually the movie version is worse), I'm talking about the one with Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche.Anyway, now I know why I dislike Jane Austen's novels. Wuthering Heights offers a more interesting theme, it does not focus in Victorian culture and ways of society *cough* which is boring*cough* and it has more intriguing characters.The romance is just awesome. Who could forget Heathcliff's dedication and undying love for Catherine? I think after Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is my most favorite romantic couple.Heathcliff is an orphan, a vagabond, taken to live with the Earnshaws in Wuthering Heights. He grew up with Catherine, who was the only person in the world that could understand him. Vice versa. Both developed a unique, unbreakable relationship, ranging from best friends, brother and sister, and finally ... love.Unfortunately, things did not work out well with them. Catherine married someone else, she had a daughter, named after her. However, Cathy Linton was different from her mother, although her charm (and heritage) made Heathcliff forced her to be his daughter-in law.Heathcliff never forget Catherine. Not ever. I shall not spoil it here, but there is one certain scene when Heathcliff pronounced his love to Catherine, which made me shudder and gave me goosebumps. Every woman in the world probably would kill to have a love just like what Heathcliff had for Catherine. That fiery, passionate, insatiable love...hmmm...
    • 2/5
      Not sure whether or not I liked this one.None of the main characters were very likeable - the only one I felt really sorry for was Hareton.The narration jumped around a bit and confused me at times.Liked the use of Yorkshire dialect for some of the characters - even if it was difficult at times.Will reread for literature course next year.
    • 5/5
      When I reread this book at eighteen for a class, I thought for sure it would destroy some of my memories of reading it for pleasure as a dreamy fifteen or sixteen-year-old, but instead it reinforced that Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite books of all time. Almost reading like a novella and its sequel (both of which I thought were superb, contrary to what other reviewers have said), both Cathy and young Catherine's stories are engaging and Bronte's language and style will also draw you in. She weaves relationships between her characters that make the reader completely involved in the plot and the novel's conclusion is possibly one of the best I've ever read: it's happy, tragic, and satisfying. Without question one of those novels I will continue to pick up every few years for my entire life.
    • 5/5
      Ferocious, otherworldly, and quite poisonous, WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a story of bitter, even caustic love unfulfilled and tragically revenged many times over. Full of intensity and brooding venom, the novel begins with a familiar love story in the ‘star-crossed’ vein: Catherine Earnshaw and ‘Heathcliff,’ a foundling raised as a foster child by Catherine's father, develop an obsessive, if unexplored, love over a complicated and eventually painful childhood. But the familiar love story diverges there, and carries itself into realms that are at best uncomfortable, and at worst incredibly disturbing. When Catherine marries another, Heathcliff flees Yorkshire and goes on, for a number of years, to live a life that always remains shrouded in mystery to the people around him. Whatever his journey, he returns to Yorkshire fabulously rich and ready to reclaim what he feels is his: but motivations and actions are dark and stormy on the moors, and whether—after death, madness, and cruelties that still ring overwhelming to modern ears—he succeeds is open to interpretation. There are few people to like here, but Heathcliff rises above them as a thing—an idea—so complex and unerringly human in his pain, if undoubtedly inhuman in his aims and actions, that to not feel a sickly sympathy for the overwhelming darkness of his existence is impossible. This, perhaps, is the greatest accomplishment of Emily Bronte’s opus.A freak in its own time, WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a passionate and tempestuous novel, and stands head and shoulders above its contemporaries for sheer power and emotion: at once Gothic and austere, bitter and sweet, endearing and repulsing, it defies categorization and has become a classic of English literature.
    • 2/5
      I disliked this as much as I loved Jane Eyre. It was overdone and over the top. I only keep it because it is part of the set.
    • 4/5
      Wow. I actually really liked this book. It wasn't flawless, but was certainly enjoyable for a classic. The Things I Didn't Like: 1. The narration. It was just a mess. It would be a narration inside a narration inside a narration. I had no idea who the "I" was whenever it was mentioned. And I just find it a tad bit unbelievable that Nelly Dean was a witness to it all. I kept cracking up because I would imagine Nelly hiding under tables or behind doors, listening in on all these intense conversations. I would have preferred it in third person. 2. The names. I can't count how many time I was confused because I lost track of which Catherine, Linton, or Heathcliff, Bronte was talking about. I think I ended up guessing more than once. 3. Joseph's accent. Oh, Lord. His dialogue was practically in another language. I ended up kind of skimming his parts because it wasn't worth the five minutes it took to decipher one paragraph. The Things I Did Like: 1. All the characters. They were just so crazy, flawed, unlikable, dramatic, and awesome. I loved them and I hated them. 2. When it was written. It just blows my mind that this was written 150 years ago. Besides the language, it just seems so modern to me. Not the setting, but the plot seems like something people would enjoy today. 3. Romantic but not romantic. I loved how every action and conversation was so filled with passion. It wasn't a romance in the traditional sense, and that made it seemed more realistic. Heathcliff was both the antagonist and protagoninst. He definitely wasn't swoon worthy like the other heroes of his time, but he was darker, more coplex. I'm really surprised by how much I liked this novel. I wish Emily lived to write another one.
    • 3/5
      GAH! Pretty much disliked this one, manic depression and child abuse rolled into a package that seriously had my teeth on edge.I prefer Daphne du Maurier for the same kind of atmosphere and would much rather lose myself in a Jane Austen for a period piece.
    • 5/5
      This is my all time favourite book! It contains every genre - romance, mystery, supernatural, discrimination and differentiation of class, status quo, psychology...I even included a quote from this on my wedding candle: "Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same".
    • 5/5
      This novel is as wild as the weather on the Yorkshire moors; with so much drama and brooding, no wonder it's a favorite among hormonal teens. We have dysfunctional, forbidden love that destroys others in its path with its fierce passion -- it's easy to see why many personify Catherine and Heathcliff as romantic heroes. Yet, they are far from such. For one, Catherine is also in love with Edgar and the wealthy life he represents. In Heathcliff, she not only finds a pagan, raw sort of love, but part of herself: "I am Heathcliff!," she cries. But she is also Edgar, and is eternally divided between the two, never relinquishing her hold on either man. Heathcliff, on the other hand, is mad with hate, bitterness, and cruelty when denied Catherine all to himself, and he sets out to destroy the Lintons and Earnshaws. He nearly succeeds, but never finds comfort in his revenge. Truly, he never seeks comfort, either, as he begs the ghost of Catherine to haunt him. Redeeming love is represented in the second generation, between Hareton and Young Catherine. Heathcliff's poisnous, "foreign" blood is finally eradicated from the Linton-Earnshaw line, and healing can begin for those ravaged by Heathcliff's revenge. Their early flirtation is a balm after Heathcliff's savagery, and a beacon of hope after the unfolding of a dark plot.This novel is noteworthy for its heavy presence of the supernatural, which is intertwined with romanticism. When Heathcliff and Catherine are together, it is otherworldy, their passion for each other creating a place all their own. Catherine's relationship with Edgar brings her back to reality, to the duties of a woman in her class and position. She seems caught between heaven and hell, and unsatisfied with only one or the other. Perhaps that's why after death she's described as a spirit who wanders the Earth, later joined by Heathcliff's spirit, together as in more innocent times.
    • 3/5
      This book is full of children who aren't raised correctly, so they have to figure things out for themselves, and when they do, things don't always go right. Many of the characters in this book love to get revenge on each other and try to make others as miserable as possible, only to regret it. I don't like this book because of how nasty the attitude is and how lonely the mood is, but it is good for showing the true character of people.
    • 5/5
      I still consider this one of my favorite books, possibly of all time, and that just further solidifies with each reread. One of the easier 'classic' novels to read, at least in my opinion. Cathy Heathcliff are my model couple for crazy love, and then Cathy 2.0 Hareton are a prime example of opposites attracting. Ahhhh I seriously just love this dark, twisted little book, plain and simple.