< Catherine is shown as normal, and that appeals to me. >

I was reading the reviews of NA in the Norton Critical Edition written in 1818, and this very idea of Catherine being normal seems to disturb the reviewer. He seems to devalue JA's lack of 'imagination' and stated, "She seems to be describing such people as meet together every night, in every respectable house in London; and to relate such incidents as have probably happened, one time or another, to half the families in the United Kingdom."

In a review who seems to be more in favor of JA written by Richard Whatley in 1821, he quotes a from a review of Emma which is nice. It says, "a new style of novel has arisen,...different from the former in the point upon which the interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing our imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of romantic affectation and sensibility... The substitute for these excitements,...was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking representation of that which is daily taking place around him."

I, like you , would rather read a novel which was more realistic. What in the world were they filling their heads with back then?