16th December 2025 is Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary. I’ll be celebrating the anniversary by reading her six novels, in the order that she wrote them, in the six weeks leading up to the anniversary. You can find the Binge Read schedule HERE. I’m hoping that some of you will join me in reading one or more of Austen’s books.

The Binge Read starts on 3rd November with ‘Northanger Abbey‘. This post is by way of a teaser to encourage you to read or re-read the book.

I’ve had the audiobook of ‘Northanger Abbey’, narrated by Juliet Stevenson, on my shelves since 2017, but this will be the first time that it’s made it to the top of my TBR pile. I’m looking forward to it.

I’m starting with ‘Northanger Abbey‘ because it was the first book that Jane Austen sold. It was sold for publication in 1803 but it wasn’t actually published until after Jane Austen’s death. It was released in 1818 in a single volume along with ‘Persusion’. Here’s what Jane Austen said about the delay:

Advertisement by the Authoress, 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 worth-while to purchase what he did not think it worth-while 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 which 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.”

The BBC adapted ‘Northanger Abbey‘ for television in 1987 and 2007.

The 1987 verssion starred Katharine Schlesinger, Peter Firth and Robert Hardy The reviews say that it deviated from the book, adding sequences occuring in Catherine Morland’s imagination that aren’t in Austen’s text. To watch the first ten minutes, click on the Youtube link below.

The 2007 version, starring Geraldine James, Michael Judd, Julia Dearden seems to have stayed closer to the plot and the text. Click on the Youtube link below to see the tailer.

I’m hoping that ‘Northanger Abbey’ will be a light, fun introduction to Jane Austen’s work, displaying her wit and her keen eye for the absurd.