Gothic Novel or Gothic Romance is a story of terror and suspense, usu. set in a gloomy old castle or monastery. Following the appearance of Horace Walpole¡¯s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the gothic novel flourished in Britain from the 1790s to the 1820s, dominated by Ann Radcliffe, whose Mystery of Udolpho (1794) had many imitators. In an extended sense, many novels that do not have a medievalized setting, but which share a comparably sinister, grotesque, or claustrophobic atmosphere have been classed as gothic: Mary Shelley¡¯s Frankenstein (1818) is a fine example. Poe, Faulkner and many others wrote gothic stories and novels.