Northanger Abbey! - These were thrilling words, and wound up Catherine's feelings to the highest point of extasy. Her grateful and gratified heart could hardly restrain its expressions within the language of tolerable calmness. To receive so flattering an invitation! To have her company so warmly solicited! Every thing honourable and soothing, every present enjoyment, and every future hope was contained in it; and her acceptance, with only the saving clause of papa and mamma's approbation was eagerly given. Taken to Bath for her coming out season, Catherine Morland meets Henry Tilney. Both are passionate readers of Gothic novels. Invited to Northanger Abbey, Tilney's family estate, how could she refuse? An abbey! Ruins, locked doors, and forbidden corridors... In this early novel published with Persuasion after Austen's death, reality and fiction blend-to the reader's delight.Love and Freindship: A brilliant parody of the sentimental novel, written when she was seventeen years old, Love and Freindship is an early confirmation of Austen's gift for irony. Published here with the author's original spelling.
