Recommendations
Books Like The Castle of Otranto
Best books to read after The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Readers who love The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole are drawn to its combination of the founding text of the Gothic novel (all the conventions originated here), the extravagant melodrama of the supernatural appearances, and the historical curiosity of the genre's origin. They want works that deal with the Gothic tradition Walpole founded, the supernatural and psychological terror of the castle and the curse, and the development from Walpole through Radcliffe and Lewis to Shelley, Stoker, and beyond.
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The Mysteries of Udolpho
by Ann Radcliffe
Radcliffe's companion — Emily St. Aubert in the castle of Udolpho. The companion as the full-length Gothic romance that realizes Walpole's conventions: where The Castle of Otranto is short and melodramatic, The Mysteries of Udolpho is four volumes long and uses the Gothic conventions to investigate female vulnerability and survival
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The Monk
by Matthew Lewis
Lewis's companion — the monk Ambrosio's fall. The companion as the transgressive and sexually explicit version of the same investigation: where Radcliffe uses the Gothic to investigate female vulnerability with the supernatural explained away, Lewis uses it to investigate male transgression with the supernatural taken literally
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Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
Shelley's companion — the creature and his creator. The companion as the Gothic novel's transformation into philosophical fiction: Mary Shelley uses the Gothic conventions Walpole established to investigate the nature of humanity, the ethics of creation, and the relationship between creator and created
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Dracula
by Bram Stoker
Stoker's companion — Count Dracula in Transylvania and London. The companion as the late Victorian realization of the same Gothic conventions: Dracula uses all the conventions Walpole established (the ancient castle, the supernatural threat, the endangered maiden, the hidden transgression) but organized through the Victorian investigation of sexuality and modernity
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Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
Austen's companion — the satirical response to the Gothic tradition. The companion as the satirical response: Austen uses Catherine Morland's Gothic-novel-inflamed imagination to investigate the relationship between the Gothic's conventions and actual human life — an affectionate and precise critique of exactly the tradition Walpole founded
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The Italian
by Ann Radcliffe
Radcliffe's companion finest novel — Ellena, Vivaldi, and the monk Schedoni. The companion as Radcliffe's most concentrated Gothic: where The Mysteries of Udolpho is enormous and psychological, The Italian is more dramatically intense and organized around the extraordinary figure of Schedoni
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The Turn of the Screw
by Henry James
James's companion — the governess and the ghosts at Bly. The companion as the late Gothic's transformation into psychological ambiguity: where Walpole's ghosts are unambiguously present, James's ghosts may or may not be real — and this ambiguity, which Walpole never imagined, is the foundation of the modern psychological Gothic
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Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Brontë's companion — the gothic atmosphere of the Yorkshire moors. The companion as the most powerful Gothic novel that Walpole's tradition eventually produced: where The Castle of Otranto establishes the conventions through melodrama and extravagance, Wuthering Heights realizes them through psychological depth and the power of the landscape
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