Northanger Abbey - Paperback

by Jane Austen (Author)

Although published posthumously, this was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication. Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. She is immersed in the world of attentive men and elaborate balls. But when one her suitors takes her to his family estate, Northanger Abbey, she becomes lost in the gothic mystery which surrounds it. Northanger Abbey is fundamentally a parody of Gothic fiction. Austen turns the conventions of 18th century novels on their head, by making her heroine a plain and undistinguished girl from a middle-class family, allowing the heroine to fall in love with the hero before he has a serious thought of her, and exposing the heroine's romantic fears and curiosities as groundless. This unabridged edition is a must-read for Austen fans.

Author Biography

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most beloved and most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary as well as her acclaimed plots have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818.