Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen.
Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote (1752).
Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, the first of Austen’s novels completed in full, but was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion.
The story concerns Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, and her journey to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. How Catherine views the world has been distorted by her fondness for Gothic novels and an active imagination.