Saturday Rave: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Jane Austen is my favourite writer. She's funny, and clever, and brilliant at knowing how people's minds work.

I admire very much, too, the deep respect she has for all well-intentioned people, not just the young or pretty or clever ones.

In Northanger Abbey, Catherine leaves her village for a holiday in Bath.

Bath! That means parties and dancing and fashion: and not only that, but (as Catherine well knows, having read a great deal of horror fiction) the Bath 'A' listers are quite likely to be embroiled in murder and dark revenge.

At first things go surprisingly smoothly:

'Neither robbers nor tempests befriended them, nor one lucky overturn [of their coach] to introduce them to the hero. Nothing more alarming occurred than a fear, on Mrs Allen's side, of having once left her clogs behind her at an inn, and that fortunately proved to be groundless.'

Catherine soon enough falls in love, but she little suspects that there's a plot afoot to destroy all her hopes.

In fact, there are several...

Word To Use Today: tempest. This magnificent word is from the Old French tempeste, from the Latin tempestās, storm; and before that, oddly, from tempus, which means time.