Discover a new way to read classics with Quick Read.

This Quick Read edition includes both the full text and a summary for each chapter.

- Reading time of the complete text: about 3 hours

- Reading time of the summarized text: 5 minutes

The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole, published in 1764, and is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. The novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. Walpole was inspired to write the story after a nightmare he had at his Gothic Revival home, Strawberry Hill House. The novel initiated a literary genre that would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century. The Castle of Otranto is widely regarded as the first Gothic novel, and is a singularly influential work of Gothic fiction. It blends elements of realist fiction with the supernatural and fantastical, establishing many of the plot devices and character types that would become typical of the Gothic novel. The novel tells the story of Manfred, lord of the castle, and his family. The violent question of bloodlines and succession serves as a key element in many of Shakespeare's plays, from Hamlet to Richard II and Macbeth, and it is clearly one of the major concerns of Otranto. Otranto is generally credited with creating the entire Gothic novel genre.