When
one makes an outlandish claim such as the chicken came before the egg
or that it was Elvis who put the bop in shop-bop-a-loo-bop, one
should expect to be met with a torrent of verbal venom and rotten
produce. Saying that The Castle of Otranto is the very first
horror novel in literature history seems like a claim that would
receive a similarly warm reaction. Generally regarded as the first
Gothic novel, I believe that by extension this book must have had a
good amount of influence on the genre as a whole and helped shape the
foundation of horror. While most definitely not perfect, Otranto
serves as a nice little history lesson in terror. Like they say, it
all had to start somewhere...(read more...)
