Northanger Abbey

Catherine Morland is not, the narrator warns us, the usual heroine: she is cheerful, rather plain as a child, fond of cricket and not especially accomplished. At seventeen she travels to Bath with family friends, Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and there everything happens at once. She meets the clever, teasing Henry Tilney and his gentle sister Eleanor, and she becomes close to Isabella Thorpe, a dazzling new friend who shares her passion for novels like The Mysteries of Udolpho.

Isabella's brother John, a loud and boastful young man, decides Catherine would make a good match and keeps pushing himself into her plans, while Isabella flirts with Catherine's own brother. Through all of it Catherine learns, slowly, to tell sincere people from flattering ones. When General Tilney, Henry's stern father, invites her to Northanger Abbey, she is thrilled. Fed by her reading, she imagines a locked chest, hidden papers and a terrible family secret, and her suspicions lead to an embarrassing moment and a valuable lesson.

Short, witty and very approachable for a classic. About 320 pages in Penguin Classics, with an introduction and notes by Marilyn Butler.