As I reread Love and Freindship, I kept seeing all kinds of parallels to Northanger Abbey, and so plan to make a few posts on the similarities. NA was Austen's first complete novel, written in 1798-99 when she was around 24. L&F was written in 1790 when she was 15. I've always felt that NA, stylistically, was a bridge between the Juvenilia and her more mature works, and there are several echoes of L&F in NA.

In JA's descriptions of Laura of L&F and Catherine of NA respective upbringings and educations, she really contrasts the two, for Laura as a heroine is everything that Catherine is not, and is exactly the type of heroine JA lampoons so effectively in NA. (All quotes from L&F, Letter 3, and NA, Ch. 1)

Laura: I was once beautiful.

Catherine: …had a thin awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark lank hair, and strong features

L: But lovely as I was, the Graces of my Person were the least of my Perfections.

C: …and not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind.

L: Of every accomplishment accustomary to my sex, I was Mistress.

C: …greatly preferred cricket … to dolls … The day which dismissed the music–master was one of the happiest of Catherine’s life. Her taste for drawing was not superior … Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother: her proficiency in either was not remarkable

L: When in the Convent, my progress had always exceeded my instructions, my Acquirements had been wonderfull for my age, and I had shortly surpassed my Masters.

C: She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, and she shirked her lessons … whenever she could. What a strange, unaccountable character!

L: In my Mind, every Virtue that could adorn it was centered; it was the Rendez-vous of every good Quality and of every noble sentiment.

C: …she was moreover noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.