A very happy (or should that be grim?) birthday to the Gothic novel...

Three Hundred years ago today, on the 24th of September 1717, Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto, was born.

     One would like to imagine that his birth occurred on as dark and stormy a night as any envisioned by Edward Bulwer-Lytton but, alas, I have no knowledge of what the meteorological conditions were on that auspicious day. What I can say for certain is that young Horace, son of Britain's first Prime Minister, Whig MP and designer of Britain's frothiest Gothic revival house Strawberry Hill was also the man who put pen to paper and concocted the very first Gothic novel.
     So, one might say that today also marks the 300 birthday of the Gothic novel. After all, from that first slim volume and the sensation it caused sprang an unstoppable genre littered with classics; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Monk to name but a few. Without The Castle of Otranto we wouldn't have Gothic fiction; and, without Gothic fiction, we wouldn't have Jane Austen's satire Northanger Abbey or the dreadfully delicious TV series Penny Dreadful. Without Gothic fiction we wouldn't have Hammer Horror films and the pleasant thrilling chill of Bela Lugosi donning fangs and cape to call out to the children of the night. In short, without Gothic fiction we would be missing some wonderful cultural and pop cultural highlights. For bestowing upon us the first work of a new genre we should definitely raise a glass to Mr Walpole.
      Of course, The Castle of Otranto should not be known by it's legacy alone. Without giving away too many spoilers, I'm going to say that this is definitely a book everyone should read at least once (especially if you love all things Gothic). The first and, in many ways, possibly the weirdest, The Castle of Otranto is a wild, windswept romp through Shakespearean prose and uncontrollable passion. Giant helmets plummet from the sky, divorces are sought (in ways reminiscent of Henry VIII legendary divorce from Catherine of Aragon), children are reunited with parents they didn't even know they had, fair maidens and gallant young knights fall in love, spectral hands appear and there's even a "knight of the gigantic sabre". A thousand plot twists and complications mount and mount and finally come to a surprisingly neat conclusion. However, this is one book where it's not the destination but the journey which is most thrilling.
      So, pick up a copy of The Castle of Otranto, pour yourself a glass of something suitably decadent and settle down, autumn is already upon us and there could be many a dark and stormy night to wile away in good literary company.