Henry Tilney is the leading man in
Jane Austen's 1817 novel ''
Northanger Abbey
''Northanger Abbey'' () is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's '' The Female Quixote'' (1752). ''Northanger Abbey'' was completed in 1803, the first of ...
''. The younger son of a local landowner, Tilney is comfortably placed as a beneficed clergyman on his father's estate.
Character
Tilney, with his teasing yet kind-hearted mentorship of
Catherine
Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria.
In the early Christ ...
, has been considered the nicest of Austen's heroes. At the same time, with his knowledge of
muslin
Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured.
Muslin of uncommonly delicate hands ...
and of
Gothic novels, he is the least masculine of heroes. Overshadowed by his military father and elder brother, he is a strangely passive figure, falling for Catherine only after she falls for him, and with his father as the driving force behind her coming to the Abbey. Nevertheless, he does not lack moral courage, as he shows with his marriage at the book's close.
Origins
Frank Swinnerton
Frank Arthur Swinnerton (12 August 1884 – 6 November 1982) was an English novelist, critic, biographer and essayist.
He was the author of more than 50 books, and as a publisher's editor helped other writers including Aldous Huxley and Lytton S ...
considered that, as a teasing mentor, knowledgeable on female matters, Tilney might represent a disguised version of the author herself. Later critics, more cautiously, have seen him as representing in part the author's "voice".
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric.
Early life and education
Born in Woodford, Essex, England, Smith was the son of merchant Robert Smith (1739–1827) and Maria Olier (1750–1801) ...
, who is known to have overlapped with Austen in Bath at the close of the eighteenth century, and whose witty conversation resembles Tilney's, has also been seen as a possible model for the character. So too has Austen's witty brother Henry: “affectionate & kind as well as entertaining....he cannot help being amusing”.
[Deidre Le Faye ed., ''Jane Austen's Letters'' (Oxford 1996) p. 101-2 and Introduction p. x]
See also
References
{{authority control
Northanger Abbey characters
Literary characters introduced in 1817
Fictional gentry