"True Indian Muslin" and the Politics of Consumption in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5790278 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lauren Miskin (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 5-26 |
| Publication date | 2015-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1531-0485 • E-ISSN: 1553-3786 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/jem.2015.0011 |
| OpenAlex | W2100538349 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
In Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1817), Henry Tilney exhibits an unusual interest in women's dress, claiming to "understand muslins" and announcing his predilection for muslins of the "true Indian" variety. This essay examines how Henry's consumerist tastes are informed by his patriarchal privilege as well as Britain's imperial practices. A self-proclaimed "excellent judge" of the market, Henry distinguishes genuine Indian textiles from their cheaper counterfeits and deploys this expertise to discriminate between honest women and pretentious coquettes. Henry's regulatory tactics replicate the imperial strategies of British merchants who established policies of regulation and surveillance in order to exploit and eventually appropriate India's manufacture of "true" muslin. By highlighting both Henry's patriarchal privilege and muslin's imperial history, this essay argues for a new understanding of the gender and imperial politics at work in Austen's Northanger Abbey
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |