Horror Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto. v1, 10 Mar 2018

[AlexBell]

The Castle of Otranto was first published in 1764, and started the 'Gothic' genre which was very popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Like other books in the genre it has a complicated plot, a medieval castle with secret tunnels and trapdoors, a ghost, a talking skeleton, an ancestral curse, and fainting heroines.

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[Prestidigitweeze]

Thanks for that, Alex.

The book also contains pre-Freudian imagery that would have been considered psychologically symbolic / surrealist in a later period; e.g., a giant falling helmet with black feathers. It's fascinating to see how those images are explained in Walpole's 18th century gothic narrative.