Amazon.com description: Product Description: Shovel loads of gothicness with a daft plot and formulaic characters; this is regarded as the first gothic novel. Walpole tries to create a new genre quite consciously by combining the new romance style of eighteenth century novels and the older tradition of fantastical tales. Walpole also introduces a number of gothic tropes for the first time; strange and eerie goings on, things that go bump in the night, rapacious and predatory men, beautiful and endangered heroines and a spot of ghostliness. He uses the Shakespearean idea of making the ghost the teller of truth. So it’s really a case of nice ideas, shame about the plot. The plot revolves around Manfred, Lord of the Castle of Otranto, his long suffering wife Hippolita, his son and heir Conrad (killed in the first chapter by an oversized helmet; the reason for the whole dreary tale), Conrad’s intended Isabella who becomes the object of Manfred’s lascivious intentions once he realises he is heirless, Matilda the daughter of Manfred; Theodore, a mysterious peasant who keeps popping up at opportune moments and who isn’t all he seems (Oh really!!), Father Jerome, a cleric who is also not all he seems, Bianca the comic relief servant (I think Walpole had read too much Shakespeare!) and finally Frederic, a mysterious knight who turns up to reveal a secret. As you may have sensed it didn’t really engage me, apart from the fact that it is an interesting period piece. The plot works its way through and some loose ends are tied up; with the odd untimely death and the realisation that as always the rich can get away with murder! It is groundbreaking, but later attempts at gothic are much better (Mary Shelley for one).