Clara Reeve

The Castle of Otranto and the Old English Baron: Two Classic Gothic Romances in One Volume Clara Reeve Reader's edition

Widely acknowledged as the first Gothic novel, "The Castle of Otranto" is a tale of greed, lust, terror, and retribution. After her fiance is mysteriously slain just before they are to be married, Isabella must ward off the attentions of Manfred, her fiance's father, who schemes to marry her despite the existence of a living wife. In "The Old English Baron," the peasant-born but distinguished Edmund is welcomed into the family of the local baron, where he discovers a hidden enemy and uncovers a ghostly secret. These stories have been carefully edited to follow current American practice with respect to punctuation and paragraphing.