Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey

"Mrs. Morland was a very good woman, and wished to see her children everything they ought to be; but her time was so much occupied in lying-in and teaching the little ones, that her elder daughters were inevitably left to shift for themselves; and it was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books—or at least books of information—for, provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all." Quick, light and full of teasing humor, "Northanger Abbey" is an oddity in Jane Austen's string of brilliant novels. Austen delves into a very young girl's imagination, bringing to life the drama many of us have inflicted upon ourselves when young.