Emma Thompson

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Emma Thompson

By: Robin Morgan-Bentley

Narrated by: Emma Thompson

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Summary

In this interview, Emma Thompson shares her considerable insight into Britain's most influential female novelist, the great Jane Austen. Having played the narrator in an all-star-cast adaptation of Northanger Abbey, Emma discusses her favourite passages, characters and themes.

She praises Austen for her unique ability to engage the reader with universal stories of human desires, hopes and foibles, and describes her own long-standing love affair with the author, having first picked up Austen's books at the age of thirteen.

Having won a BAFTA, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her screenplay adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson has already brought Austen to the 21st Century and introduced her to a new generation. She does the same with Northanger Abbey, referring to the heroine as a 'sweet girl', her love interest as a 'witty friend' and the villain of the piece as 'an absolute knob-head'.

In contrast to Sense and Sensibility, Emma describes Northanger Abbey as a straightforward text; the perfect introduction to Austen for those new to her writing.

Listen to Northanger Abbey here.

Robin Morgan-BentleyEmma ThompsonAudible Sessions

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Here Emma Thompson talks about her narration of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. I read Northanger when I was on holiday in Portugal last year. I had already finished my holiday reading and went to the book exchange in the hotel lobby and after shuffling through the usual Mills and Boon, EL James, Wilbur Smith and Tom Clancy paperback I came across a worn but readable edition of Northanger Abbey. I had not read Jane Austen before but was immediately captivated. Whilst this is one of her lesser works which was written early in her career and published posthumously, this is still a great work of literature from the gothic period and I liked it a lot. I enjoyed listening to Emma Thompson talking about her thoughts about the novel and how she had read it as a 13 year old and again recently. And I really liked it when Emma talked about the books she has read recently. There are some brilliant recommendations in here and I re-wound and listened to that bit a couple of times scrobbling down the books she mentioned. I will certainly be listening to the audiobook of Northanger too, it sounds great.