Through his fantasy castle, Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole popularized the gothic in architecture and literature. It was the first stately home opened for public tours (he allowed four visitors a day) and Walpole even published a guidebook.

Walpole also sought to popularize the gothic through literature, penning the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, published in the 1760s. Set at Strawberry Hill, this novel teemed with dark and mysterious imagery. Walpole’s fiction influenced many 19th-century authors, including Americans Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Probably the greatest American gothic novelist was Edgar Allan Poe, whose macabre novels continue to fascinate us today.

For more on Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill, see: http://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/

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