Bring on the fainting couch and smelling salts!

Back when I first started graduate school in 2009 (my Master’s degree, to be precise), I thought I was going to specialize in British eighteenth and nineteenth century literature. I thought I was going to look at Gothic novels as part of that specialty. I acquired several Gothic novels over the course of the next two years. And lo and behold, I changed my mind in the first year of my PhD. Oops. I have a small handful of British novels yet to read, and The Castle of Otranto is one of them. [Sidenote: you should most definitely read Matthew Lewis’s The Monk if you never read another Gothic novel in your life. HILARIOUS. There are nipples and cross-dressing and sex and a monk so deliciously, evilly bad, that even Satan is all, “Bye, Felicia.” READ IT AND LAUGH.] Read my full review of The Castle of Otranto on my personal blog for the delicious details.