SOURCE: Introduction to The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, reprinted in Walpole: The Critical Heritage, edited by Peter Sabor, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.

In the following introduction to the 1811 edition of The Castle of Otranto, Scott cites Walpole's originality in initiating Gothic literature.

The Castle of Otranto is remarkable not only for the wild interest of the story, but as the first modern attempt to found a tale of amusing fiction upon the basis of the ancient romances of chivalry. The neglect and discredit of these venerable legends had commenced so early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when, as we learn from the criticism of the times, Spenser's fairy web was rather approved on account of the mystic and allegorical interpretation, than the plain and obvious meaning of his chivalrous pageant. The drama, which shortly afterwards rose into splendour, and versions from the innumerable novelists of Italy...