Contemporary Reception, 1818–1840s

In the first year of their publication, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were reviewed in The British Critic, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and The Gentleman’s Magazine. The last of these dwelled principally on Henry Austen’s biographical note, but the first two offered discussions of Austen’s style within the larger context of prose fiction, with frequent references to the vexed novel-romance relationship and the moral value of these literary forms. The most sustained analysis was Archbishop Richard Whately’s lengthy article that appeared in The Quarterly Review three years later. Austen’s passing prompted all reviewers to retrospectively assess her artistic contribution with the result that less attention was paid to the novels. Whately’s analysis of Persuasion, which he preferred to Northanger Abbey, was an exception; it would be the second half of the nineteenth century before comparable assessments of the novels would be made.