Catherine Morland is a sweet, unworldly young woman with an overheated imagination, fed by a steady diet of thrilling Gothic novels. When kindly neighbors whisk her off to the fashionable spa town of Bath for the season, she's plunged into a dizzying world of balls, gossip, and new acquaintances, among them the scheming Isabella Thorpe and the clever, teasing young clergyman Henry Tilney, who quite captures her heart. But it's an invitation to the Tilneys' ancient family abbey that truly stirs her fancy. Austen's playful, knowing novel sends a starry-eyed heroine off to discover the difference between the romances she loves and real life.