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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Northanger Abbey
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(1818) Novel by Jane *Austen, not published until the year after her death though it was begun in 1798 and had been completed by 1803. It satirizes the fashion for the Gothic novel (see *Gothic Revival) and was probably inspired by the success of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Mrs Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823). Catherine Morland is invited to stay in the romantic Northanger Abbey, ancestral home of Henry Tilney, with whom she has fallen in love; but the atmosphere of the house, combined with her taste for romantic fiction, causes her to imagine that General Tilney, Henry's father, is involved in a macabre and criminal plot. The embarrassment is compounded by the general's mistaken belief first that Catherine is very rich and then that she is extremely poor. All ends happily, with marriage and paternal approval.
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