It is a truth universally acknowledged that we don’t need ‘trigger warnings’ on Jane Austen

Sign up for the Independent Women email for the latest news, opinion and features Get the Independent Women email for free Get the Independent Women email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. That’s right, the University of Greenwich has seemingly taken it upon itself to add content warnings to Northanger Abbey, due to its portrayal of “sexism” and “gender stereotypes”. Warning potential readers about the novel’s “sexism” in light of its themes is so naive to Austen’s subtleties as to appear eyewateringly obtuse – Catherine is herself achingly aware of the patriarchy; she is rejected for marriage and kicked out of the abbey by an overbearing man. It’s not the first time that classic texts have been slapped with warnings: the epic poem Beowulf received one relatively recently due to its depiction of “violence, blood and monsters”; and Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel Kidnapped was flagged by the University of Aberdeen for containing “murder, death, family betrayal” and “kidnapping”. Students at the same university were reportedly warned about Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for its “sexist attitudes” and a plot which “centred on a murder”.