The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first Gothic romance, initiating a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th century and 19th century. Walpole, publishing under a pseudonym, claimed the novel was a translation of an Italian romance dating back to the time of the Crusades.This iconic novel set many of the Gothic genre's cliches, including the eponymous gloomy castle, brimming with secret rooms, concealed passages, hidden peepholes and doors; ghosts; wicked lords pursuing virtuous and pure ladies; heroic knights; dark glens and brooding forests. This is one of the books that Jane Austen's gothic-romance-obsessed character Catherine Morland (in Northanger Abbey) would have read to frighten herself out of her wits. It's worth reading for that reason alone—to understand what types of books Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Caroline Lamb, the Romantics and the Victorians were reading when they wrote their books.