Horace Walpole’s estate, Strawberry Hill, was ground zero for the Gothic Revival craze in architecture in England. Until recently, it was falling apart, but seven years worth of (expensive) restoration work have gotten it into shape. Now, it’s worth visiting again.

Now, I’m not actually that interested in the history of Goth Revival in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But I am interested in the gothic literature of the period.

Walpole gets credit for writing the first gothic novel, a gem called The Castle of Otranto. I first came across it in a volume that had three gothic novels published together, the other two being Vathek and Frankenstein. It was in a now departed used bookstore in downtown Clearwater. I bought it at the same time as I bought Pascal’s Pensées and Thoreau’s Walden. It was good  bookstore and I’m sad it’s gone. In it’s place (at least the last time I was there) is a sort of hippie coffeehouse.