About this item
Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland leads a quiet life in the country where she has become very fond of novels of Gothic romance. In her first excursion into the wider world, when she travels to Bath with Mr. and Mrs. Allen, she becomes the center of attention of two young men, John Thorpe and Henry Tilney, and is befriended by Isabella Thorpe, a worldly young woman on the lookout for a wealthy husband. Catherine is soon invited by the Tilney family to stay with them at their home, Northanger Abbey. She is very eager to visit a real abbey and imagines it will be darkly sinister, much like those she read about in the Gothic novels. Her expectations lead her to form some unflattering ideas about the family. Fortunately she has her own fundamental good sense and the irresistible but unsentimental Henry Tilney to help her discover the difference between fiction and reality.
About the Author
Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on July 18, 1817. As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances. Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811) , Pride and Prejudice (1813) , Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma(1816) . Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives.
