Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey is at once a perfectly aimed literary parody, a withering satire on the commercial aspects of marriage at the turn of the nineteenth century, and, most of all, a story of the initiation into life of its naive but sweetly appealing heroine, Catherine Morland. Written in 1797, but not published until after Austen’s death in 1817, Northanger Abbey is characteristically clear-headed and strong, and infinitely subtle in its comedy.