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. While holidaying in Bath, young Catherine Moreland meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor who invite her to their family estate, Northanger Abbey. An avid reader of Gothic romance novels, naive Catherine soon lets her imagination run wild, fuelled by her friendship with the vivacious Isabella Thorpe. It is only when the realities of life set in around her that Catherine's fantastical world is shattered. Considered her most entertaining and satirical work, Austen expertly parodies the Gothic romance stories of her time and reveals much about her unsentimental view of love and marriage in the eighteenth century.