The gothic novel
THE GOTHIC NOVEL: Horace Walpole invented the gothic novel, the first gothic novel is "El castillo de Otranto" it was written in the 1765. The basic elements of horror are: blood, deaths, doors suddenly slamming shut, defective lights, sound of footsteps approavhing, clanking chains, crazed laughter, rain, especially howling, clanking chains. Dracula : vampires, perversity and Victorian anxieties. The very concept of vampirism horrifies and fascinates in seemingly equal measure, and much of this perverse duality stems from the most famous vampire novel of them all - Bram Stoker's Dracula, first published in 1897. Dracula’s forays into London, for example, and his ability to move unnoticed through the crowded streets while carrying the potential to afflict all in his path with the stain of vampirism, play upon late-Victorian fears of untrammelled immigration. The act of vampirism itself, with its notion of tainted blood, suggests the fear of sexually tran...