The Castle of Otranto

On the wedding day of Conrad, the sickly son of Prince Manfred of Otranto, a gigantic helmet falls from the sky into the courtyard and crushes him. Determined to keep his principality, which an old prophecy says he will lose, Manfred decides to divorce his wife and marry his dead son's bride, Isabella, who flees through the underground passages of the castle, while portraits step out of their frames and a giant figure in armour appears.

Published in 1764 as the translation of an old Italian manuscript, The Castle of Otranto was in fact written by Horace Walpole (1717–1797), son of the British prime minister and builder of a famous mock-Gothic house at Strawberry Hill. It is considered the first Gothic novel, the ancestor of Dracula and Frankenstein. Walpole also invented the word serendipity.