"What have you been judging from? … Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?" During an eventful season in Bath, the young, naive Catherine Morland encounters the world of fashionable society for the first time. She delights in her new acquaintances: the flirtatious Isabella, who introduces Catherine to the fascinating world of Gothic romances, and the refined Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's home, Northanger Abbey. There, influenced by books of horror and intrigue, Catherine begins to imagine horrific crimes committed by General Tilney, risking losing Henry's affection. She must learn to distinguish between fiction and reality, and to distinguish false friends from true ones. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, Northanger Abbey is Jane Austen's most youthful and optimistic work. This edition, based on the 1818 first edition, includes a new chronology and additional reading suggestions.