Austen Jane : Northanger Abbey (Sc) (Signet classics) - Softcover

Northanger Abbey follows seventeen-year-old Gothic novel aficionado Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath, England. Catherine is in Bath for the first time. There she meets her friends such as Isabella Thorpe, and goes to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella's brother, the rather rough-mannered, slovenly John Thorpe, and by her real love interest, Henry Tilney. She also becomes friends with Eleanor Tilney, Henry's younger sister. Henry captivates her with his view on novels and his knowledge of history and the world. General Tilney (Henry and Eleanor's father) invites Catherine to visit their estate, Northanger Abbey, which, from her reading of Ann Radcliffe's gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho, she expects to be dark, ancient and full of Gothic horrors and fantastical mystery. (wikipedia.org)

Jane Austen, England's first major female novelist, wrote and set her novels during the Regency period, when George III was too mad, and his son the Prince, who admired Austen's novels, too young to rule the country. Her six novels are best loved for their irony and perfection of form.Jane Austen perfected the English novel of the previous century in much the same way that Henry James perfected the Victorian novel. She never married and died in 1817 at age 41.