Northanger Abbey
The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen 8 Volume Paperback Set Series

One of the first of Jane Austen's novels to be written, and one of the last to be published, Northanger Abbey is both an amusing story of how a naive girl enters society and wins the affection of a witty young clergyman, and a high-spirited parody of the lurid Gothic novels that were popular during Austen's youth. In the process it features a vivid account of social life in late eighteenth-century Bath, and Austen's famous defence of the novel as a literary form. This edition, based on the text of the novel as published posthumously in 1818, is accompanied by explanatory notes and an appendix summarising the plots and situations of the Gothic fictions that form the basis of much of Austen's comedy. In addition there is an extensive critical introduction covering the context, publication and critical history of the novel, a chronology of Austen's life and an authoritative textual apparatus.

General Editor's preface; Acknowledgments; Chronology; Introduction; Note on the text; Northanger Abbey; Appendix: summaries and extracts from Ann Radcliffe's novels; Corrections and emendations to 1818 text; List of abbreviations; Explanatory notes.

Barbara M. Benedict is Charles A. Dana Professor of English Literature at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Deirdre Le Faye is the editor of Jane Austen's letters and of A Family Record. She is the author of A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family (Cambridge, 2006).