The Awful Memorials of an Injured and Ill-Fated Nun: The Source of Catherine Morland's Gothic Fantasy (Miscellany) (Critical Essay‪)‬

CATHERINE MORLAND, in anticipating the pleasures of a visit to Northanger Abbey, admits to herself that "she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun" (143-44). Given that Catherine's exposure to Gothic literature and its tropes was based on actual contemporary novels, it seems possible that Catherine's prospect arose out of something that she, and Jane Austen, had read. The field of enquiry for anyone trying to trace her source is fairly wide as the mysteries, rituals, and trappings of the Catholic Church were key elements in many Gothic novels. For instance, for the period between 1798-1799, when Northanger Abbey was first written, and 1803 when it was probably last revised (Benedict and Le Faye xxxi), Mary Muriel Tart lists, in Catholicism in Gothic Fiction, eighty-nine works that "make use of things Catholic" (123).