AT the first meeting of the new autumn season, members of the Bromsgrove U3A were treated to a both amusing and erudite talk by Bridget Pugh on the relationship between Jane Austen and Gothic horror.

Taking as her focus Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey, Bridget led her audience in an exploration of the many ways in which the 19th century writer had deliberately set out to offer a pastiche of the Gothic novel so prevalent in the decades preceding her own success. Among her main points of comparison were the settings in which the heroines found themselves and the disastrous events that inevitably overtook them. However, her principal concern was the character of the heroine herself. Contrasting Austen’s ‘almost pretty’ and sensible Catherine Morland with the emotional and stunning beauties who played key roles in novels by such writers as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, Bridget illustrated the keen awareness of the author not only concerning the literature of her time, but also the social conventions that gave rise to it.

Members of the large audience clearly appreciated the depth of knowledge that the speaker had on her subject as well as the entertaining manner in which she imparted it. Well done Bridget.