Ebook {Epub PDF} The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto is generally given credit as the first Gothic novel, which makes it interesting from a historical perspective, especially if you're into Gothic stuff, which I totally am because whee, virgins fleeing evil men in drafty castles in their nightgowns! Which this book totally has, and also enormous helmets falling from the sky and crushing dudes, which I can't decide if that's a /5(K).  · Horace Walpole produced The Castle of Otranto in , at the mature age of forty-eight. It was suggested by a dream from which he said he waked one morning, and of which “all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head like mine, filled with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour.  · The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole, published under a pseudonym in It is considered the first Gothic novel in the English language, and it is often said to have founded the horror story as a legitimate literary form. Learn more about The Castle of Otranto in this article.

The Castle of Otranto was the Blair Witch Project of Both were game-changers which popularized a new genre. Blair Witch launched the "found footage" horror trope and Otranto inaugurated the "Gothic." Interestingly enough, Otranto also employs a "found footage" gimmick with its first edition, pretending that the original manuscript was hundreds of years old, unearthed from the. Horace Walpole () was an English writer, connoisseur, and collector best known for The Castle of Otranto, which was the first Gothic novel in English and among the earliest horror stories. He built the Gothic Revival mansion known as Strawberry Hill, and he was a committed writer of letters. Much of what characterizes Gothic literature has to do with setting. As what might be described as the "grandfather" of Gothic literature, Walpole's The Castle of Otranto displays many of the features that would become stereotypically Gothic. For example, the story takes place in a foreign country, in a medieval castle with towers and secret passageways.

The Castle of Otranto Summary. Next. The First Edition Preface. Manfred, the ruler of Otranto, is impatiently waiting for the marriage between his son Conrad and the princess Isabella, the daughter of Frederic the Marquis of Vincenza. Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto is the original gothic novel and for its day was a tale of pure horror. A king with an only heir is set to marry off his son and ensure his dynasty as well as the political underpinnings of castle's rule over his realm. Unfortunately, his son is killed in a freak accident with overtones of evil sorcery. Frontispiece of the edition of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. Chapter I Manfred, Prince of Otranto, had one son and one daughter: the latter, a most beautiful virgin, aged eighteen, was called Matilda.