The object of “The Castle of Otranto” was to unite the characteristic elements of the ancient romance with those of the modern novel.  It was attempted to introduce into a narrative constructed with modern order and sequence, such supernatural events as controlled the incidents of romantic fiction.  To accomplish this result, it was necessary that the mise en scene should be impressive and awe-inspiring, that the reader’s mind should be insensibly prepared by strange surroundings for extraordinary incidents.  In his selection of age and scene, Walpole was highly judicious.  He chose the feudal period, when superstition accorded the most ready belief to supernatural agencies.  He introduced his reader to a huge, gloomy castle, furnished with towers, donjons, subterranean passages, and trapdoors.  He took for his hero, Manfred, a fierce and cruel knight, who had obtained his lands by duplicity and blood; whose chief aim in life was to continue his posterity in possession of wrongfully acquired power.  He added subordinate characters of a kind to aid the effect of supernatural phenomena:  a monk in a neighboring convent, who threatened Manfred with divine visitation for his crimes; superstitious servants, whose easy fears exaggerated every unusual sound or foot-fall.  He gave an interest to his narrative by the love passages of Manfred’s daughters which were perpetually at the mercy of the fate which hung over the castle.  He introduced his supernatural effects in the form of a gigantic gauntlet seen on the stair-rail; a gigantic helmet which crushed the son and heir of the house as he was about to be married and to carry out his father’s hopes; a skeleton monk who urged the rightful owner of the castle to take his own from the usurper’s hands.

In attempting to make a regularly constructed narrative depend on supernatural agencies, Walpole undoubtedly succeeded as far as success was possible.  But it may be said without hesitation that real success was unattainable.  The very merits of “The Castle of Otranto” sustain this decision.  The experiment had a fair trial.  The narrative of Manfred’s crimes and the punishments visited upon them, the characters and actions of subordinate personages are all managed with skill; while the supernatural agencies are introduced at the proper times and have the expected effects.  But the real test of success in such an attempt must lie in the impression made on the reader’s mind.  And this impression may be of two kinds.  Let us imagine a group of young people sitting about the dying embers of a fire on a winter’s evening, listening to a ghost story.  The black darkness, the sound of the wind howling without, accord with the low tones, the dim light, and the tale of horror within.  The minds of the listeners insensibly cast off their ordinary trains of thought, and give themselves up to the unreal impressions of the moment.  The incredible circumstances of the apparition are accepted without question or criticism; the impression of the supernatural occurrences is alone thought of and enjoyed.  But now, let the same tale be read aloud after breakfast, from a newspaper, with the affidavits of the witnesses of the apparition duly attached, and only laughter can be the result.