Gothic fiction facts for kids

Gothic fiction is a genre of literature which combines parts of both horror and romance. The genre is said to have started in England in 1764 with Horace Walpole's book The Castle of Otranto. Its second edition was subtitled A Gothic Story. The idea quickly spread to other European languages.

A famous early example of gothic fiction is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, in the early 19th Century. The works of Edgar Allen Poe and Bram Stoker's Dracula followed later.

Images for kids

The ruins of Wolf's Crag castle in Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819)
Strawberry Hill, an English villa in the "Gothic Revival" style, built by Gothic writer Horace Walpole
Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), a bestselling Gothic novel. Frontispiece to 4th edition shown.
Catherine Morland, the naive protagonist of Northanger Abbey (1818), Jane Austen's Gothic parody
Cover of a Varney the Vampire publication, 1845
Jane Eyre's trial through the moors in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847)
Miss Havisham from Dickens’ Great Expectations
Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) was a classic Gothic work of the 1880s, seeing many stage adaptations.
Le Horla (1887) by Guy de Maupassant
Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 film adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

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Gothic fiction Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.