The Castle of Otranto

When a giant helmet mysteriously crushes his son to death on his wedding day, the tyrannical Prince Manfred schemes to secure his crumbling dynasty amid supernatural omens, ancient prophecies, and a haunted castle. Walpole’s short, feverish tale of doom and the supernatural was the very first Gothic novel, inventing the genre of brooding castles, ghostly apparitions, and imperiled heroines that would flourish for centuries after. Wild, melodramatic, and hugely influential, it opened the door to Radcliffe, Shelley, Poe, and all of Gothic fiction. A foundational work of horror and Romanticism, The Castle of Otranto is where the haunted-castle tradition began.