Best Northanger Abbey annotated editions?

[Christina]

As Northanger Abbey is very near to being my favorite Austen novel I'm looking for a really good annotated edition of it. Have any of you read some that you can recommend? I'm interested in all editions but in my mind, I imagine a hardback with lots of illustrations and maps besides the comments - in good quality paper ;-)

[Abigail]

Harvard University Press issued an annotated edition this past spring. I haven’t had a chance to examine it, but as it’s recent and it’s HUP I would imagine the annotations are extensive and reliable; and the blurb says it has 105 color illustrations and a map!

[Kirk]

I just finished the David M Shapard annotation of NA. As I'm a big fan of his(traveled from Boston to Burlington VT for his talk @ JASNA VT), you can take my recommendation w/ a pinch(pound?) of salt. When asked to compare his P&P w/ HUP, he said his focuses on the characters whereas HUP has more literary notes. I agree w that(surprise!), having struggled with HUP's P&P. As my bookclub(Austen in Boston) is discussing NA this month(if we get enough people to attend, ugh), I have requested HUP's NA from the library network. While I really don't care for the hero of NA, one of Shapard's note case him in a slightly better light regarding his "feelings" for Catherine.

[Christina]

Thank you so much for your recomendations! I'll probably buy one of the two after borrowing them from the library. Unfortunately none of them is owned by a library in Denmark, so I'll have to wait untill they arive from abroad.

[Christina]

As for the hero of NA, I find him fun, witty and ironic teasing Catherine into a better understanding of the world. I don't think him patronizing, but more like a school boy teasing the girl he fancies.

[Kirk]

Many agree with you! However, you wouldn't like my comment about "school boy"...but to me he is a school boy in an upper crust boarding school. Smug, patronizing(filling Catherine's head with the horrors of the Abbey and then ripping her when she draws a logical conclusion based on her readings and the limited clues), smartest in the class and he wants you to know it...etc. Plus, when Catherine asks him a direct question(s) about the character of his brother....it's all evasion and lack of openness. Etc, etc, etc......I hope the annotations arrive soon. I know that the Shapard P&P annotation was just put on some kind of electronic media. Perhaps he'll do that for the rest of them...perhaps after he finishes Mansfield Park next year.

[Christina]

;-) I have just ordered Shapards from the library and will probably have to wait a week or two before it arrives from Sweden, so thats not so bad. I can wait. (But I'm very surprised that it's not available in Denmark - strange.)

As for the opinions of Mr. Tilney, I think it's entirely up to the reader, how you perceive him. The first time I read NA, I was very surprised of his behavior. The next time, I could se all the humour and irony in his words.
One may compare to two adaptions from 1986 and 2007 to illustrate. In the first adaption he is really obnoxious and just as you describe him! (Catherine is just as bad - IMHO) - and I don't care for them one bit.
In the 2007 adaption the actor portrays him with all one could hope for. The same words but said in a much different way - there he is amiable and humorous. Just not knowing that he has such a deep impact on Catherines imagination.
So, I of course love the 2007 adaption and dislike the 1986. :-)

[Louise Sparrow]

I agree with you :)

[Kirk]

For me, the only good thing about 1986 is Robert Hardy as General Tilney. I love love love Felicity Jones as Catherine in 2007. I received HUP NA from my public library today. The introduction is 50 pgs. Yikes! Happy reading!

[Christina]

I so agree with you on that one! ;-) Hope to hear what you think about HUP NA. Happy reading to you!

[Kirk]

I haven't finished the HUP NA but read or skimmed most of it. It is very good indeed. I think that HUP and Shapard are about equal. In preparing my attack on Tilney for Austen in Boston's discussion....I mean my review of his character....HUP pointed out that Catherine thought(early in their acquaintance) to herself that Tilney was a bit too critical of others. Well done Catherine!

"Catherine feared as she listened to their discourse, that he indulged himself a little too much with the foibles of others" -NA (Vol 1, Ch 3)

*****"This is a remarkable intuition on Catherine's part" -Annotation to the above line by Susan J Wolfson in "Northanger Abbey: An Annotated Edition"

"She would never again use outright parody to make her points, but the enduring themes she explores here would reappear, and in Catherine she creates the first of her principal characters about whom readers, even centuries later, care deeply" -David M Shapard from "The Annotated Northanger Abbey"

[AlegnaB †]

I've read three JA annotated editions by David M. Shapard. I own the DS The Annotated Northanger Abbey, but I haven't read it yet. I read the Belknap Press/HUP annotated edition of Pride and Prejudice last year, and I read the David Shapard edition several months later. I preferred the David Shapard edition. The HUP edition was more like having a literature teacher. There was a lot of material about literature that influenced JA and literature that JA influenced. DS's edition had a lot of historical info, and I much preferred that, since I love history and never liked literature class. I decided to purchase all of the JA/DS books. I gave both P&P editions 5 stars here at GR. I don't think anyone can go wrong with purchasing either. I may eventually get the HUP editions, also. I'm thinking about asking for a couple for Christmas.

I wish the DS editions were hardcovers. The HUP editions are large hardcovers and remind me of coffee table books. The print for the annotations is light, though, and I had to have good light to read them. The notes and text are on each page of the books, so I guess the publisher used a different color for the notes in order to make it easy to tell the notes from the text, but I wish they had used a bold color. I often had to flip pages back and forth to go from reading text to reading notes and back to reading text, since notes often spilled over to the following page. The annotations in the DS editions are the same color as the text. They sometimes run to the next page. All of JA's text is on the left-hand pages, and all of the notes are on the right-hand pages. So, I prefer the binding of the HUP editions, but I prefer the layout of the DS editions.

[Christina]

Thank you so much for your very good descriptions of both books! I much prefer the historical notes too but also want a hardcover edition! -- What about the pictures in HUP? Are they in color?

[AlegnaB †]

You're welcome. I think there were color pictures in the HUP edition, but it has been more than a year since I read that P&P edition, and I don't remember for certain. Since I don't own the book, I can't check it right now. Sorry about that. Maybe someone else can answer that question.

The annotations for the HUP editions of Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice were written by different people, so the types of notes may be very different. However, both of the authors of the notes are English professors, so they may be very similar. :-)

David Shapard has a Ph.D. in European history, and P.M. Spacks is an English professor. No wonder the notes by DS concentrated more on history and the notes for the HUP P&P concentrated more on English lit.

I just added the HUP editions to my Amazon wishlist. I'm going to have to listen to NA soon and then read my DS edition.

[Christina]

Good idea - I'm putting both om my wishlist! ;-)