Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
- Source
- Northanger Abbey
- Date
- 1818
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Henry Tilney
Meaning of “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who…”
The playful exaggeration defends pleasure in fiction and pushes back against the idea that reading novels is an intellectually inferior pastime.
Where does it come from?
Northanger Abbey, in Henry Tilney’s conversation about reading novels.
Why the local voice matters
Henry Tilney says this to Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey during their conversation about novels.
