Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. It was revised by Austen for the press in 1803 and sold in the same year for 10 pounds to a London bookseller, Crosby & Co., who decided against publishing. In the spring of 1816, the bookseller was content to sell it back to the novelist's brother, Henry Austen, for the exact sum - 10 pounds - that he had paid for it at the beginning, not knowing the writer was by then the author of four popular novels.

The novel was further revised by Austen in 1816/17, with the intention of having it published. Among other changes, the lead character's name was changed from Susan to Catherine, and Austen retitled the book Catherine as a result. Austen died in July 1817.

Northanger Abbey (as the novel was now called) was brought out posthumously in late December 1817 (1818 given on the title page), as the first two volumes of a four-volume set that also featured another previously unpublished Austen novel, Persuasion. Neither novel was published under the title Jane Austen had given it; the title Northanger Abbey is presumed to have been the invention of Henry Austen, who had arranged for the book's publication.