Eighteenth-Century Gothic Novel

The eighteenth-century Gothic novel is a genre of Gothic fiction published between 1764 and roughly 1820, reaching its greatest popularity in the 1790s. These works originated the term Gothic for stories that evoked the sentimental and supernatural qualities of medieval romance within the new form of the novel. After 1820 the eighteenth-century Gothic novel receded in popularity, largely overtaken by the historical fiction pioneered by Walter Scott, and was later followed by newer genres of Gothic fiction such as the Victorian penny dreadful.