Northanger Abbey [Paperback]

Austen's witty exploration of the perils of mistaking fiction for reality

During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine's love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and and optimistic of Jane Austen's works.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

“Jane Austen is the Rosetta stone of literature.” —Anna QuindlenJANE AUSTEN (1775-1817) was extremely modest about her own genius but has become one of English literature's most famous women writers. She is the author ofSense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Persuasion,andMansfield Park.
 
MARILYN BUTLER is rector of Exeter College, Oxford. She has also edited Maria Edgeworth'sCastle RackrentandEnnuifor Penguin Classics.Chapter 1

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy wouldhave supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, thecharacter of her father and mother; her own person and disposition,were all equally against her. Her father was a clel�