The Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole · first published 1764
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2021–2024first – last mentioned
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This book is the earliest and most influential of the Gothic novels. First published pseudonymously in 1764, The Castle of Otranto purported to be a translation of an Italian story of the time of the crusades. In it Walpole attempted, as he declared in the Preface to the second edition, "to blend the two kinds of romance: the ancient and the modern." He gives us a series of catastrophes, ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, and exciting contests. Crammed with invention, entertainment, terror, and pathos, the novel was an immediate success and Walpole's own favorite among his numerou
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Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" is a ridiculously fun book. Very short, and stuffed with melodrama. My copy has an excellent introduction to Gothic architecture, literature, and politics by Nick Groom, which goes much deeper than this…
on “How Gothic architecture became spooky” ↗…"The Fall of the House of Usher" in 1839, "The Masque of the Red Death" in 1842, and "Ligeia" in 1838. By then, the Gothic genre was well under way, with Horace Walpole having published the classic The Castle of Otranto in 1764. Ann Radclife (the mother of the Gothic) had published The Mysteries of Udolpho in 1794 and it was already parodied by Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey in 1817, long before Poe even started writing…
on “Is Poe the most influential American writer? A new book offers evidence” ↗It's unclear if Walpole's Castle of Otranto is the first horror, but in any case it predates Frankenstein by 53 years.
on “The Last Man” ↗The article didn't really say anything you wouldnt guess yourself: repeated association in cinema. It does hint at a book that maybe just maybe started the association (Castle of Otranto) from someone who slept in a Gothic revived house, but really doesn't tie the book or cinema together and they could have been independent events. I think the conclusion is: try sleeping in one, they're…
on “How Gothic architecture became spooky” ↗>Other important literature that was published during this time was work by Watpole himself. His novel, Castle of Otranto, was reportedly inspired by a dream he had while living at Strawberry Hill. Set in a castle in the Middle Ages, the epic details a lord and his family living in a haunted mansion. “In the late 18th and…
on “How Gothic architecture became spooky” ↗