The earliest of her six major novels, Northanger Abbey remained unpublished until after Jane Austen’s death. A deliciously witty satire of popular Gothic romances, it is perhaps Austen’s lightest, most delightful excursion into a young woman’s world. Catherine Morland, an unlikely heroine----unlikely because she is so ordinary----forsakes her English village for the pleasures and perils of Bath. There, among a circle of Austen’s wonderfully vain, dissembling, and fashionable characters, she meets a potential suitor, Henry Tilney. But with her imagination fueled by melodramatic novels, Catherine turns a visit to his home, Northanger Abbey, into a hunt for dark family secrets. The result is a series of hilarious social gaffes and harsh awakenings that for all of Austen’s youthful exuberance nevertheless conveys her mature vision of literature and life----and the consequences of mistaking one for the other.

簡.奧斯丁一七七五年生於英格蘭漢普郡斯蒂汶頓教區長傢，是傢中六個兄弟、兩個姐妹中的小妹，排行第七。這是一個生氣勃勃的和睦傢庭，父親是牛津大學的畢業生。奧斯丁從小就在父親鼓勵下大量閱讀各類書籍，並學習寫作，傢中文學氣氛濃厚。簡？奧斯丁六部長篇小說如下：《理智與情感》（1811年），《傲慢與偏見》（1813年），《曼斯菲爾德莊園》（1814年），《愛瑪》（1816年），《勸導》（1818年），《諾桑覺寺》（1818年）。