My GR focus is also the Gothic novel in relation to NA.

With the comments on the reading of the Gothic novel below, I decided to do some further checking on the gothic genre.

Possibly, C21st readers find it difficult to understand why readers of JA's time read such horrid novels. In their time such novels as Udolpho, Clermont, Castle Wofenbach, etc were considered 'modern'. They were escapist reading for enjoyment. Gothic books were often cheap and well stocked by the circulating libraries.
Critics often frowned at numbers of women readers. Yet I suggest Gothics often provided an accesible form of reading for women. We mentioned earlier in the GR, the unreal atttitude of discouraging women from serious reading or at least of displayed much education or their common sense.

As it's title suggested to JA's contemporaries, Nothanger Abbey draws on the Gothic novel and it's conventions.
In England, Abbeys represented a past time of England's history. They also tied in with the Continent and such countries as France and Italy which were viewed as politically tyrannical.

Gothics were often set in the past and involved a young girl, trapped in a castle or abbey, often partly ruined, tormented by an older man, usually her father or guardian and often the political leader of the region- which may explain why JA decided the Tilney father would bear a high military title.

Understanding the complex way NA draws on the Gothics is easiest if one has read one of these novels, so I feel Reeba's posts comparing NA and Udolpho are of particlar interest.