A source of modern fantasy was the Gothic novel, invented in Germany and introduced to England by Horace Walpol's The Castle of Otranto (1764). This novel of medieval murder and spookery has all the elements that became standard props of the Gothic horror story: a wicked tyrant, an imperiled virgin, an impoverished young hero of noble blood, a monk, a castle with trapdoors and secret passages, a ruined monastery, and two ghosts. Who could ask for more?
L. Sprague de Camp, 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1972
L. Sprague de Camp, 3000 Years of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1972
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