Gothic Romance

The House of the Seven Gables is a Gothic novel, which is a type of novel that was popularized in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Gothic romances trace back to Horace Walpole's 1765 novel, The Castle of Otranto and were often mysteries that involved the supernatural. Characteristically, novels of this type take place in haunted castles or other remote and isolated locations. Often, gothic romances involve a heroine in peril and are peppered with horror and violence. The House of the Seven Gables clearly takes after this genre. Though not a castle, the House of the Seven Gables is a desolate home that has a seemingly ongoing history of violence within its walls. The house is haunted by the curse that Matthew Maule (the elder) placed on Colonel Pyncheon in 1692 just before the former's execution for witchcraft. The mysterious deaths of Colonel Pyncheon, Jaffrey...