It’s just so much easier to write a Gothic novel, when you’re writing it from inside a castle, right? Well, several of the earliest writers of Gothic fiction thought so. I’ve touched before on the inextricable ties that link the Gothic genre of literature to the style of architecture with which it shares a name. The term “Gothic” first began to be applied to a specific medieval style of architecture after it had fallen out of favor in the 1500s. As the Renaissance spread through Europe, many new designers found the ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and towering spires of the earlier style to be excessive and barbaric, thus naming them after the Gothic “barbarians” who had destroyed Rome. But after another couple of centuries, public opinion came around again and prominent members of European society began to show renewed interest in the medieval era, and especially medieval architecture. One of the most influential of those figures was Horace Walpole. Continue reading Gothic Residences