The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole, published in 1764, and is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. The novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. Walpole was inspired to write the story after a nightmare he had at his Gothic Revival home, Strawberry Hill House. The novel initiated a literary genre that would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century. The Castle of Otranto is widely regarded as t