Northanger Abbey

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? Northanger Abbey is the coming-of-age story of Catherine Morland, a seventeen-year-old girl who's entering society for the first time. Despite her naivete, she quickly gains two potential suitors. We follow Catherine as she tries to navigate the difficulties of romance, friendship, and responsibility—problems amplified by the fact that Catherine views her world through the lens of the dramatic Gothic novels she loves to read. Austen deftly satirizes both the Gothic novels popular at the time (especially Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho ), as well as contemporary society and women's role in it. Completed in 1803, Northanger Abbey was the first of Austen's novels to be completed, but it was only published posthumously in 1817. Jane Austen (died 1817) was a celebrated writer of the Romantic era. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. As a work of classic literary fiction, Northanger Abbey exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.