The Horror of Northanger Abbey

Of Jane Austen’s six completed novels, Northanger Abbey stands out due to its satire of the popular books of her time. Yet, the classic volume known today is not what she originally wrote; that first version has long been considered lost to time—until now. Her earliest draft, recently rediscovered, reveals her to be a writer of period horror, predating the works of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Bram Stoker. More importantly, this novel reveals the existence of the dark mythology thought to have been created by H.P. Lovecraft over a century later. Only after encountering resistance from her publishers did she excise the supernatural elements, rewriting the novel into the gothic romance as it stands today. Author David Welling has adapted her work from a period romance into a tale of dark horror, all under the fictional guise of a newly rediscovered early edition revealing Austen to be a writer of a supernatural novel. This literary-horror mashup blends Austen’s romantic vision of her world with the dark imaginings of twentieth-century chiller writers such as Lovecraft and August Derleth. For some lovers of Jane Austen, this will be a revelation.