The Old English Baron
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The Old English Baron is an early Gothic novel by the English author Clara Reeve. It was first published under this title in 1778, although it had anonymously appeared in May 1777 under its original n
First edition title page
Frontispiece illustration to the 1778 edition
The Castle of Otranto
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The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first Gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel i
The Old English Baron
…Reeve noted in the 1778 preface that "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design to unite the most attractive and interesting circumstances of the ancient Romance and modern Novel, at the…
Title page from the second edition
The novel was inspired by a nightmare Walpole had at Strawberry Hill House (18th-century engraving of the Gothic villa pictured).
Illustration from a 1794 German edition
Portrait of Horace Walpole by Joshua Reynolds, 1756