Northanger Abbey

A novel by Jane Austen, published in 1817, that gently mocks the tales of terror so widely read at the time. Catherine Morland, a seventeen-year-old clergyman’s daughter who devours such books, travels with neighbours to Bath, a spa town of balls and promenades. There she befriends Isabella Thorpe and Henry Tilney, a young clergyman with a teasing wit. Invited by Henry’s father, General Tilney, to Northanger Abbey, a former abbey, she believes she is living a novel: a stormy night, papers hidden in an old cabinet, the mysterious death of Mrs Tilney. A clear-sighted comedy about reading and imagination.