Today is Jane Austen’s birthday and it’s also the first day of my new blog series, “Youth and Experience: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.” Many thanks to Deborah Barnum of Jane Austen in Vermont for writing about the publishing history of Northanger Abbey. I’m thrilled to introduce her guest post on “Pump Rooms and Gothic Terrors” today.

The series will run from now until the end of June, with approximately three months of guest posts on Northanger Abbey, followed by approximately three months of posts on Persuasion. Most of the time, the posts will be scheduled for Fridays, although in the last week we spend on each novel, there will be a few extra posts. Deb will be back to talk about the publishing history of Persuasion in the spring.

Here’s the full list of contributors: Carol Adams, Maggie Arnold, Elaine Bander, Deborah Barnum, Gisèle Baxter, John Baxter, Lyn Bennett, Diana Birchall, Serena Burdick, L. Bao Bui, Christy Ann Conlin, Natasha Duquette, Lynn Festa, Marcia McClintock Folsom, Susannah Fullerton, William Hutchings, Hazel Jones, Theresa Kenney, Sheila Johnson Kindred, Deborah Knuth Klenck, Maggie Lane, Elisabeth Lenckos, Dan Macey, Rohan Maitzen, Sara Malton, Ellen Moody, Leslie Nyman, Lisa Pliscou, Mary Lu Redden, Jessica Richard, Peter Sabor, Paul Savidge, Kate Scarth, Edward Scheinman, Judith Sears, Kerry Sinanan, Laaleen Sukhera, Margaret C. Sullivan, Judith Thompson, Deborah Yaffe, Kim Wilson, and Daniel Woolf.

Both William Hutchings and Ellen Moody wrote about Persuasion and autumn, and I’ve shared their guest posts here already: “A Sense of an Ending: Persuasion and Keats’s ‘Ode to Autumn,’” by William Hutchings, and “‘For there is nothing lost, that may be found’: Charlotte Smith in Jane Austen’s Persuasion,” by Ellen Moody. Thank you again to Adam Q for suggesting the title of the series, and thank you to Sue Wilson Knopp for designing the image below, adding the title to my photograph of Black Rock Beach in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I’m looking forward to celebrating the 200th anniversary of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion with all of you over the coming months! Later this month, I’ll have a guest post from Peter Sabor, on Henry Austen’s “Biographical Notice” of his sister, and then in January we’ll begin our discussion of Northanger Abbey itself. Happy Jane Austen Day and Happy Holidays!

Here’s the first paragraph of Deborah Barnum’s guest post on the publishing history of Northanger Abbey:

Today is Jane Austen’s birthday, and what better way to celebrate than to begin Sarah Emsley’s blog series on “Youth and Experience: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion“ – a collection of essays by various scholars and Austen bloggers to be posted over the next several months – today starting here with a post on the very bumpy convoluted journey of Northanger Abbey into print. Austen would be 242; her Northanger Abbey and Persuasion joint publication will be 200 on December 20th. Lots of reasons to celebrate!

Read the rest of Deb’s long, fascinating, and beautifully illustrated post here, on her blog Jane Austen in Vermont.

First in a series of blog posts celebrating 200 years of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. To read more about all the posts in the series, visit “Youth and Experience.” Coming soon: guest posts by Peter Sabor, Serena Burdick, Kate Scarth, and Lynn Festa.

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