Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is possibly the least-read of her books, with the exception of the works left unfinished at the time of her death. As a first attempt, it's certainly the least-accomplished work we see from her. (Even unfinished drafts of later novels like Sanditon show more polish.)

It's a complicated novel--sometimes juvenile with much of the emotional content being purely in the heroine's imagination and a sinister "bad guy" designed for a gothic atmosphere who translates into the more mundane world only awkwardly. The more traditional Austen romantic complications are sketched in with less care than we find in her later works.

And yet, I've always thought the novel had merit. As an occasional fan of "gothick" novels of the era, I've always been charmed by Austen's gentle mockery of a genre she actually enjoyed reading. As always, the moral lesson ("beware of the gap between fiction and reality") is well-illustrated. The romantic complications are woven into--or grow out of--the moral lesson in the same way we expect from Austen although the balance is not quite what she achieves in her later works.

For these and other reasons not wholly unconnected with last week's disastrous Persuasion adaptation, I approached Masterpiece Theater's Sunday night presentation of Northanger Abbey with caution.

I need not have worried. All that last week's offering failed to give us--good casting with actors able to deliver period dialogue as dialogue, convincing sets, and a smooth for-screen interpretation of Austen's romantic prose--was present.

In fact, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to turn this atmospheric novel into a screen presentation so successfully, paying tribute to the gothic atmosphere of Catherine's youthful imaginings while keeping the movie itself grounded in the real world. (The balance wasn't perfect but, as I've already mentioned, neither was the novel.)

Felicity Jones was a charming Catherine Moreland, bringing a convincing energy naiveté to the role of a girl poised between improbable romanticism and adult romance. She gave me everything I'd hoped for but failed to find in Persuasion's Anne Elliott. JJ Field was serviceable as Henry Tilney, but that's about all the role requires--this romance more than any other lives purely in the heroine's heart. I applaud Andrew Davies for the screenplay (no one else should ever be allowed to adapt Austen) and Jon Jones for the directing.

If you taped this one and have been waiting to watch it? Move ahead with confidence.

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As always, I did a quick search to see what other adaptations are out there that might be worth considering. I was thinking of putting this Giles Foster version on my "to be rented" list until I read the reviews.

I like the scene where they are in the Hot Baths, but did the men and women really bathe together like that? You could see all the men perched around the outside leering at the women.

Whether or not mixed baths were common in Austen's time isn't really the point. From my perspective, it's inconsistent with the youthful innocence of Austen's story to include gratuitous nudity.

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(Also? I'm just a bit concerned about Billie Piper's casting as Fanny Price in next week's Mansfield Park. Much as I liked her in Doctor Who, I have trouble seeing that willful, intelligent face in the role of shy, retiring, modest, dishmop Fanny Price.)