Catherine Morland, a seventeen-year-old from a country parsonage, spends a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a keen reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old manor fill her with doubt and anxiety... What lies behind the death of Henry's mother? Is there a dreadful family secret? Can she really rely on Henry? Or has our lovely heroine just read to many gothic stories?

This early novel is often called Jane Austen's Gothic parody.