When was Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto published?
Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto was published on the 24th of September 1764. This work stands as the singular moment when the literary world first accepted the label of Gothic.
Common questions about Gothic fiction
Short answers, pulled from the story.
Who wrote The Old English Baron and when was it published?
Clara Reeve wrote The Old English Baron and published it in 1778. She explicitly called her work the literary offspring of Walpole's creation, signaling the birth of a new tradition.
What is the Female Gothic subgenre and who are its key authors?
The Female Gothic is a subgenre that allows women to explore societal and sexual desires through the lens of terror. Key authors include Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, and Charlotte Brontë, who transformed the genre into a vehicle for critiquing patriarchal authority.
When and where did the ghost-story competition that produced Frankenstein take place?
The ghost-story competition took place at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. The gathering included Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and John William Polidori, producing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre.
When was Varney the Vampire published and what trope did it introduce?
Varney the Vampire was published in 1847 and introduced the trope of vampires having sharpened teeth. This detail would later become standard in cinema and the genre.
Which authors developed the Southern Gothic tradition in the twentieth century?
Authors like William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Anne Rice developed the Southern Gothic tradition. They combined Gothic sensibilities with the setting and style of the Southern United States to critique social and cultural issues.