What's the first noteworthy Gothic book?

[tamtam]

No offense to anyone here but I thought this was rather common knowledge. Walpole's 1st edition of Otranto claimed that it was a printing of a much older manuscript but in his introduction to later editions he revealed he wrote it himself and discusses the dream which he had which inspired the story. The Wikipedia article is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Otranto

The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article upon Walpole is here:

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Horatio_Walpole

And The Cambridge History of English and American Literature article is here:

http://www.bartleby.com/220/0311.html

Edith Birkhead's Tale of Terror discusses it and can be found here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14154/14154.txt

I suppose any modern edition of Castle of Otranto would discuss the publication details in the introduction. I know my copy certainly does. I have the 1968 edition of Penguin's "Three Gothic Novels" and it includes Castle of Otranto (with the 1st and 2nd introductions by Walpole), Beckford's Vathek and Shelley's Frankenstein.

Considering that Walpole revealed he was the author in his own lifetime the truth has been known for over 200 years. If you know a number of literature professors saying otherwise I'd demand a refund of my tuition if I were you.

Very true. I have a copy of "7 Gothic masterpieces" and the introduction to "Otranto" does state that he tried to claim it was an old manuscript found in some castle - that was part of the humor. He was trying to give the impression that the story of Otranto was true by stating in the beginning of his story that he found the manuscript and was just copying it for others to read.