
The Horrid Novels of Northanger Abbey
Seven Gothic Tales of Haunted Castles, Persecuted Heroines, Convents, and Romantic TerrorBy Jane Austen, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Eliza Parsons, Ludwig Flammenberg, Matthew Lewis, Eleanor SleathLength91h 10m
About this audiobook
The Horrid Novels of Northanger Abbey recovers the charged imaginative world invoked by the Gothic reading list of Austen's novel: a domain of ruined castles, persecuted heroines, concealed lineages, spectral warnings, and tyrannical domestic spaces. Moving among terror, sensibility, romance, and melodramatic adventure, the collection reveals the formal variety of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Gothic fiction. Its standout scenes of imprisonment, inheritance, and supernatural uncertainty illuminate both the genre's emotional intensity and its subtle interrogation of authority, gender, and credulity. The volume places Jane Austen's famously ironic engagement with Gothic reading beside the wider traditions associated with Ann Ward Radcliffe, Eliza Parsons, Ludwig Flammenberg, Matthew Lewis, and Eleanor Sleath. These writers represent intersecting currents in Romantic-era popular literature: the Radcliffean romance of suspense, the Lewis-inflected taste for transgression, and the domestic Gothic's concern with vulnerable women navigating familial and social power. Their varied cultural positions and narrative strategies demonstrate that the Gothic was not a monolithic mode, but a lively field of experimentation shaped by readers' desires and anxieties. Recommended for students of Romanticism, Gothic studies, and the history of the novel, this collection offers an exceptional opportunity to encounter multiple styles within a single literary conversation. It rewards both attentive scholarly comparison and immersive reading, showing why these "horrid" books became essential reference points for debates about taste, imagination, and fiction's powers.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.4 (201)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing, StoryGraph
GenreHorror, General Fiction
Length91 hrs 10 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 31, 2024
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Children of the Abbey: A Tale (Annotated)
26CHAPTER XVII
2The Mysteries of Udolpho
27The Castle of Wolfenbach
3VOLUME 1
28Volume One (pt. 1)
4CHAPTER III
29Volume One (pt. 2)
5CHAPTER VI
30Volume Two (pt. 1)
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6CHAPTER VIII
31Volume Two (pt. 2)
7CHAPTER XI
32The Necromancer
8CHAPTER XIII
33INTRODUCTION
9CHAPTER II
34PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR
10CHAPTER IV
35THE NECROMANCER:
11CHAPTER VI
36PART II
12CHAPTER VII
37CHAPTER I
13CHAPTER VIII
38CHAPTER II
14CHAPTER X
39CHAPTER III (pt. 1)
15VOLUME 3
40CHAPTER III (pt. 2)
16CHAPTER IV
41CHAPTER III (pt. 3)
17CHAPTER VII
42The Monk
18CHAPTER VIII
43Preface
19CHAPTER X
44Volume I
20CHAPTER XII
45Chapter II
21VOLUME 4
46Chapter III
22CHAPTER V
47Volume II
23CHAPTER VIII
48Chapter II
24CHAPTER XII
49Chapter III
25CHAPTER XIV
50Chapter IV