Catherine Morland, seventeen, is spending the summer in Bath. It is a new world for Catherine, who has never left her home village before. There are dances, visits to the theatre, her new friends Isabella Thorpe and Eleanor Tilney ... and Eleanor's brother Henry, who is tall and funny, and who she likes at once.

For Catherine, who reads novels, life is about love and adventure. So when she is invited to Northanger Abbey, the Tilney's home, it seems full of mystery to her. But soon Catherine begins to learn a few lessons about real life - about who her friends are, and why, for some people, money and a place in society are more important than love...