The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – "A Gothic Story". The novel merged medievalism and terror that has endured ever since. The aesthetics of the book shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture.