A review by gwyneira
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

3.0

This is the original Gothic novel, and it's darned entertaining, much more so than I found Mrs. Radcliffe's [b:The Mysteries of Udolpho|93134|The Mysteries of Udolpho|Ann Radcliffe|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171252660s/93134.jpg|3253891]. Okay, maybe Walpole didn't exactly mean (most of the time) to make the reader laugh, but who could help it, faced with enormous people-crushing black helmets ("an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers"), family curses, bleeding statues, telltale birthmarks, ghostly sighs, and all the rest? The characters are fairly one-dimensional (except perhaps for Manfred, the villain of the piece), but the fast pace and amazing events make Otranto what the late lamented Common Reader would have called "a Thumping Good Read".