Northanger Abbey and The Watsons: The Restriction Act

Abstract

Northanger Abbey begins with an “ADVERTISEMENT, BY THE AUTHORESS” (NA 10). In this preface, Jane Austen is very particular about the exact time-frame of the novel’s setting: “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.” The change in books refers to the 1790s’ craze for gothic novels that had, by 1816, somewhat abated. Catherine Morland overindulges in the romanticism of The Mysteries of Udolpho, published in 1794, and John Thorpe mentions The Monk published in 1796: “I read that t’other day” (NA 48). In a letter to Cassandra dated 24 October 1798, Jane Austen wrote that their father was reading the circulating library’s copy of Midnight Bell published earlier that year. Midnight Bell also finds its way onto Isabella Thorpe’s reading list, as do two other gothic novels published in 1798, Clermont and Orphan of the Rhine (NA 40). All of this is important because it places Northanger Abbey in a specific time-frame and demonstrates that the author considered the timing to be significant information for her contemporary reader “to bear in mind,” a reader who would have known that the novel was written at the time of the 1797 Restriction Act, a law which economically impacted everyone living in Britain at the time as it called into question the value of paper money, the reliability of the Bank of England, and the honesty of the British government.