Chapter 2

Walpole's admiration for Gothic art and his interest in the middle ages; the mediaeval revival at the close of the eighteenth century; _The Castle of Otranto_; Walpole's bequest to later romance-writers; Smollett's incidental anticipation of the methods of Gothic Romance; Clara Reeve's _Old English Baron_ and her effort to bring her story "within the utmost verge of probability"; Mrs. Barbauld's Gothic fragment; Blake's _Fair Elenor_; the critical theories and Gothic experiments of Dr. Nathan Drake. Pp. 16-37.