Robert Donald Spector

829 Seven Masterpieces of Gothic Horror: The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole; The Old English Baron, by Clara Reeve; Mistrust or Blanche and Osbright, by Matthew Gregory Lewis; The Heir of Mondolfo, by Mary Shelley; The White Old Maid, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe; Carmilla, by Sheridan LeFanu, edited by Robert Donald Spector (read __ Nov 1965) I found this volume an ideal introduction to an old interest of mine: the Gothic novel. Appropriately, it starts with the story I have long sought to begin said introduction with: Walpole's Castle of Otranto. It is a surprisingly fast-paced story, but really "primitive" in the way it tells a story. Next a story by Clara Reeve. which is interest-sustaining, but palls beside Lewis' intensely Germanic blood and guts terror story: Mistrust. A work by Mary Shelley is next--well-done, if slight: The Heir of Mondolfo. A short story by Hawthorne and Poe's Fall of the House of Usher require no comment. But the seventh: LeFanu's Camilla, a vampire story, really caught me up. Really much more intriguing than Dracula, because not over-done. I found it absorbing till I was done. I am afraid I will have to read more on the Gothic.… (mais)