Topic summary
Gothic Novel
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Gothic fiction.
Eighteenth-century Gothic novels
The first work to be labeled as "Gothic" was Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). The widely popular first edition presented the story as a translation of a sixteenth-century Italian book. In the second edition, Walpole revealed himself as the author, adding the subtitle A Gothic Story. The revelation prompted a backlash from readers, who considered it inappropriate for a modern author to write a supernatural story in a rational age. By initiating a literary genre, Walpole's Gothic tale inspired many contemporary imitators, including Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (1778). Reeve writes in the preface: "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto". Like Reeve, other writers attempted his combination of supernatural plots with emotionally realistic characters in the 1780s. Examples include Sophia Lee's The Recess (1783–5) and William Beckford's Vathek (1786).