Felicity Jones spoke about Jane Austen --- "People think Austen is a lot more romantic and straightforward than she actually is. She is quite practical about love and relationships --- she's very measured about who people should marry. What's quite interesting with Henry Tilney is that he doesn't necessarily fall madly in love with Catherine straight away. It's a very gradual development, and it's her enthusiasm for him that prompts him to return her affections. It's very subtle how she draws her characters, which is what I like."
The green coat and buff breeches JJ Feild wears as Henry Tilney is the same costume Colin Firth wears as Mr. Darcy in Orgueil et préjugés (1995).
The floppy mesh bonnet Catherine Walker (Eleanor Tilney) wears in the garden with Catherine is the same one worn by Rosamund Pike (Jane Bennet) in Meryton when she learns Mr. Bingley has returned to Netherfield in Orgueil et préjugés (2005), by an extra at church in Jane (2007), and by Emily Blunt (Victoria) in Victoria : Les Jeunes Années d'une reine (2009).
During an interview with Marion McMullen from the Coventry Evening Telegraph, Andrew Davies explained that the Gothic elements to the novel gave him inspiration to add dream sequences and fantasies to the script. He told McMullen, "I've been very faithful to the book, but one of the differences has been writing the scenes showing Catherine's fantasies. Catherine is a great reader of horror fiction --- the gothic novel was fairly popular in those days, like a young girl today who would read a lot of rather steamy romances. In this production, we see some of Catherine's fantasies, some of which are quite steamy for a young girl."
Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by the English author Jane Austen. Although the title page is dated 1818 and it was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion, Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, making it the first of Austen's novels to be completed in full.