Catherine Morland reads popular tales of Gothic romance, yet leads a quiet country life in Wiltshire. When she travels to Bath with Mr and Mrs Allen she meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney. She is invited by his sister and father to stay with them at Northanger Abbey, where she encounters all the trappings of Gothic horror that she has read about. Fortunately she has her own fundamental good sense and the irresistible but unsentimental hero, Henry Tilney.

Northanger Abbey, published posthumously in 1818, was originally drafted between 1798 and 1799.