HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. ‘Northanger Abbey! These were thrilling words, and wound up Catherine's feelings to the highest point of ecstasy.’Considered the most light-hearted and satiri cal of Austen’s novels, Northanger Abbey tells the story of an unlikely young he roine Catherine Morland. While staying in Bath, Catherine meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor who invite her to their family estate, Northanger Abbey. A f an of Gothic Romance novels, naive Catherine is soon letting her imagination run wild in the atmospheric abbey, fuelled by her friendship with the vivacious Isa bella Thorpe.It is only when the realities of life set in around her that Cath erine’s fantastical world is shattered. A coming-of-age novel, Austen expertly p arodies the Gothic romance novels of her time and reveals much about her unsenti mental view of love and marriage in the eighteenth century.