Catherine, a Gothic romance lover, goes to Bath with a family friend. During this trip, she meets Henry and his sister Eleanor Tilney who invite her to Northanger Abbey, their family estate.

Having read so many Gothic novels, the idea of spending the night in an Abbey makes Catherine’s imagination run wild : a simple chest is made out to be the most mysterious object ever, until it is discovered that in this piece of furniture lie only bed-clothes and a linen list.

General Tilney, Henry’s father, is after the money. He has been led to believe that Catherine’s family is in possession of a large fortune. When he is told this that is not the case, he then expels Catherine from his house, to prevent her from becoming his daughter-in-law. However, all ends well : the General relents, enabling Catherine and Henry to unite in the final chapter.

Jane Austen uses Catherine’s imagination to gently mock Gothic Romances. We see a change in Catherine’s character between the beginning and the end of the novel : she matures throughout the book, learning to deal with the difficulties of the real world whilst getting less and less worked up by the novels she has read in the past. A well-written, light-hearted novel, that addresses serious subjects such as hypocrisy and marriage, set one hundred and ninety years ago.