In the former all was imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes has been, copied with success.' There was some debate at the time about the function of literature that is, whether works of fiction should be representative of life or more purely imaginative (i.e., natural vs. In the second and subsequent editions, Walpole acknowledged authorship of the work, writing: 'The favourable manner in which this little piece has been received by the public, calls upon the author to explain the grounds on which he composed it' as 'an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. This Italian manuscript, along with alleged author 'Onuphrio Muralto', were Walpole's fictional creations, and 'William Marshal' his pseudonym. The Italian manuscript's story, it was claimed, derived from a story still older, dating back perhaps as far as the Crusades. He employed an archaic style of writing to reinforce this conceit. This first edition purported to be a translation based on a manuscript written at Naples in 1529 and recently rediscovered in the library of 'an ancient Catholic family in the north of England'. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. The initial edition was titled in full: The Castle of Otranto, A Story. Walpole was fascinated with medieval history, in 1749 building a fake gothic castle, Strawberry Hill House. The Castle of Otranto was written in 1764 during Horace Walpole's tenure as MP for King's Lynn. The novel was inspired by a nightmare Walpole had at Strawberry Hill House (18th-century engraving of the gothic villa pictured). The novel initiated a literary genre that would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and George du Maurier. Claiming he saw a ghost in the nightmare-which featured a 'gigantic hand in armour'-Walpole incorporated imagery from this into the novel, and also drew on his knowledge of medieval history.

Walpole was inspired to write the story after a nightmare he had at his Gothic Revival home, Strawberry Hill House, in Twickenham, southwest London. The aesthetic of the book has shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music, and the goth subculture.

Set in a haunted castle, the novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – A Gothic Story. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole.

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole