Northanger Abbey is a coming-of-age novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by the English author Jane Austen. Although the title page is dated 1818 and was published posthumously in 1817 with Persuasion, Northanger Abbey was completed in 1803, making it the first of Austen's novels to be completed in full. From a fondness of Gothic novels and an active imagination distorting her worldview, the story follows Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, as she develops to better understand herself and the world around her.
Title page of the original 1818 edition
Catherine Morland in an illustration from an 1833 edition of the novel
Isabella and Catherine walking arm and arm in an illustration by H. M. Brock from a 1904 edition of the novel
Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.
The ruins of Wolf's Crag castle in Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819)
Strawberry Hill, an English villa in the "Gothic Revival" style, built by Gothic writer Horace Walpole
The Gothic Temple folly in the gardens at Stowe, Buckinghamshire, UK, built as a ruin in 1741, designed by James Gibbs
Catherine Morland, the naive protagonist of Northanger Abbey (1818), Jane Austen's Gothic parody
