Northanger Abbey

The earliest of her six major novels <b>Northanger Abbey</b> remained unpublished until after Jane Austen's death. A deliciously witty satire of popular Gothic romances it is perhaps Austen's lightest most delightful excursion into a young woman's world. Catherine Morland an unlikely heroine--unlikely because she is so ordinary--forsakes her English village for the pleasures and perils of Bath. There among a circle of Austen's wonderfully vain dissembling and fashionable characters she meets a potential suitor Henry Tilney. But with her imagination fueled by melodramatic novels Catherine turns a visit to his home Northanger Abbey into a hunt for dark family secrets. The result is a series of hilarious social gaffes and harsh awakenings that for all of Austen's youthful exuberance nevertheless conveys her mature vision of literature and life--and the consequences of mistaking one for the other.