Publisher's Synopsis
The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle - 'A Gothic Story'. The novel merged medievalism and terror that has endured ever since. The aesthetics of the book shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture.