Section 0 of Northanger Abbey. This is a Lippervox recording. All Lippervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit lippervox.org. Read by Val Routh Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen Advertisement by the Authorist to Northanger Abbey This little work was finished in the year 1803 and intended for immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller. It was even advertised and, why the business proceeded no farther, the author has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it worthwhile to purchase what he did not think it worthwhile to publish seems extraordinary. But with this, neither the author nor the public have any other concern than as some observation is necessary upon those parts of the work that thirteen years have made comparatively obsolete. The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, books and opinions have undergone considerable changes. End of Section 0 Chapter 1 of Northanger Abbey This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Val Routh Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen Chapter 1 No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her situation and life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected or poor, and a very respectable man though his name was Richard, and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings, and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born, and instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she lived on, lived to have six more children, to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. A family of ten children will be always called a fine family, where there are heads and arms and legs enough for the number, but the Morlands had little other right to the word, for they were in general very plain, and Catherine for many years of her life as plain as any. She had a thin, awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark-clank hair and strong features, so much for her person, and not less unprepidious, for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boys' plays, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a door mouse, feeding a canary bird, or watering a rose bush. Indeed, she had