CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTORY.



The antiquity of the tale of terror; the element of fear in
myths, heroic legends, ballads and folk-tales; terror in the
romances of the middle ages, in Elizabethan times and in the
seventeenth century; the credulity of the age of reason; the
renascence of terror and wonder in poetry; the "attempt to blend
the marvellous of old story with the natural of modern novels."
Pp. 1-15.



CHAPTER II - THE BEGINNINGS OF GOTHIC ROMANCE.


Walpole's admiration for Gothic art and his interest in the
middle ages; the mediaeval revival at the close of the eighteenth
century; _The Castle of Otranto_; Walpole's bequest to later
romance-writers; Smollett's incidental anticipation of the
methods of Gothic Romance; Clara Reeve's _Old English Baron_ and
her effort to bring her story "within the utmost verge of
probability"; Mrs. Barbauld's Gothic fragment; Blake's _Fair
Elenor_; the critical theories and Gothic experiments of Dr.
Nathan Drake. Pp. 16-37.