Horace Walpole (1717-1797) invented the Gothic novel in an attempt to blend the madness and imagination of the old romanticism, in his own words "an attempt to blend the two types of romanticism, the ancient and the modern'' in a single passage, the Castle of Otranto A novel he claimed to have written immediately after being inspired by a dream: "I woke up one morning... from a dream, of which everything I could. The recovery was that I thought I was in an ancient castle... I saw a giant hand in the armor. In the evening I sat down and began to write" (Letter, 9 March 1765). On the other hand, many would more easily agree that the writing of this novel was a mere "specialized development of his taste as a virtuoso and collector" (Holt et al. 230).However, no one would disagree that this novel is indeed a turning point, and this is also evident in his preface to the first novel. This three-page preliminary statement plays two minor but significant roles for Walpole within and without the context of the novel. The first is to predict to his readers the flow of his novel and what they should expect by hinting at the plot and sharing some elements of mystery and gothic elements of the preface novel was however more to his disadvantage, even. if I guess he never wanted this to happen. The preface served as a framework in which Walpole disguises himself as an objective, third-party translator, or is also known as William Marshal This The same framework that brought him benefits also turned out to be a great indicator that the novel could not have been written two hundred years ago. It had all the key aspects of many 18th and 19th century novels, authenticity, authority, antiquity and art... middle of the paper... quite an interesting prediction of the story, whilst not giving too much away. The second preface was written later and included in this edition, but from my point of view it has as much meaning as the first. It is nothing more than a literary preface in which he no longer disguises himself, but rather openly admits that he is the author of the novel. To conclude there is a quip from a reviewer of The Critical Review, "the novel published anonymously is the work of a modern author, not a medieval one." Works Cited; Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto. London: Collier Books, 1969. Hawthorn, Jeremy. Studying the novel: an introduction. London: New York, 1992. A review of "Castle of Otranto: A story", in The Critical Review, Vol.XIX, January 1765, pp 50-51. Beers, Henry A. a History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, 1899.