The Old English Baron: A Gothic Tale by Clara Reeve. Also The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story by Horace Walpole.

REEVE, Clara and Horace Walpole.

Item Number: 126148

London: J. C. Nimmo and Bain, 1883.

Limited illustrated edition of this collection of two major Gothic tales. Octavo, bound in full contemporary mottled calf with elaborate gilt tooling to the spine and panels, morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, watered silk endleaves. With two portraits and four drawings by A. H. Courrier etched by Damman. One of 150 numbered copies on laid paper with proof etchings on Japanese vellum, this is number 142. In near fine condition. A very unique binding.

First published in 1764, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto 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. Set in a haunted castle, 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 experienced at his Gothic Revival home, Strawberry Hill House in southwest London. The novel initiated a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and George du Maurier. First published in 1778, Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron also had a major influence in the development of Gothic fiction. Reeve declared in her preface her opinion that such tales should be kept within the bounds of reality, contrasting it unfavorably with Otranto. Walpole remarked in response that the Old Baron was "[S]o probable, that any trial for murder at the Old Bailey would make a more interesting story", ridiculing the concept of a probable ghost-story. Although the succession of Gothic writers did not exactly heed Reeve's focus on emotional realism, she was able to posit a framework that keeps Gothic fiction within the realm of the probable. This aspect remains a challenge for authors in this genre after the publication of The Old English Baron. Outside of its providential context, the supernatural would often suffer the risk of veering towards the absurd.