Book Description:
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is the groundbreaking work that launched the Gothic novel tradition. Set in a medieval castle filled with dark secrets and supernatural occurrences, the story begins with a mysterious death on the day of a noble wedding — a giant helmet crushing the heir to the throne. What follows is a tale of twisted fate, forbidden love, ghostly apparitions, and ancestral curses.
With crumbling architecture, ominous prophecies, and a tyrannical lord desperate to preserve his power, Walpole’s tale set the stage for centuries of Gothic fiction. Dramatic, eerie, and wildly imaginative, The Castle of Otranto remains a seminal work of literary horror.