The Old English Baron (Owc) * 2009

*The only paperback edition of this classic Gothic novel.
*Written in response to Walpole's Castle of Otranto, The Old English Baron was a major influence on the development of Gothic fiction.
*Popularity of the Gothic genre in universities and among general readers.
*The contextualizing introduction looks at Reeve in the context of late-eighteenth-century women's writing, and the history of the Gothic.
*Appendices reprint the 1777 'Address to the Reader' and the 1780 'Dedication'.

'Though I have been dead these fifteen years, I still command here, and none can enter these gates without my permission.'

When Sir Philip Harclay returns to England after a long absence, he finds that his childhood friend, Arthur, Lord Lovel, is no longer alive, and that the castle and estates of the Lovel family have twice changed hands. But a mysteriously abandoned set of
rooms in the castle of Lovel promises to disclose the secrets of the past. After a series of frantic episodes and surprising revelations, culminating in a trial by combat, the crimes of the usurper and the legitimacy of the true heir are finally
discovered.

'The literary offspring of the castle of Otranto', as Reeve described it, The Old English Baron provides an ambitious rewriting of Horace Walpole's groundbreaking work, transporting the trappings of the Gothic to medieval England. Innovative and original
in its day, Reeve's historical romance is increasingly recognized as a major influence on the development of Gothic fiction.