Gothic literature

 Gothic literature is a genre which started in Europe in the eighteenth century due to the success of pseudomedieval novels set in castles with an evil character who seduces or kidnaps a lady (damsel in distress) and the setting is usually a gloomy castle, dark forest or cemeteries, in an atmosphere of mystery and terror. More elements of Gothic genre are omens (presagios), curses, nightmares, supernatural and paranormal activities (ghosts, spirits, witches, wizards, etc.), passionate romance or a couple of lovers in distress, anti hero or flawed (imperfecto) protagonist and a villain usually autocratic male or a monster, vampire or another weird character. The first Gothic novel is named "The Castle of Otranto" (1764) by Horace Walpole, later many authors achieved great success such as Mary Shelley in "Frankenstein", Sir Walter Scott in "The Bride of Lammermor", 1819,  Edgar Allan Poe in his series of horror tales such as "The Premature Burial", "Hop Frog", "The Gold Bug", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat" and "The Fall of the House of Usher". 

In England during the Victorian era the Brontë sisters wrote pseudo-romantic novels with elements of gothic literature in "Wuthering Heights",  "Villete" and "Jane Eyre". And a defining book of the Gothic horror genre is "Dr. Jekyll, Mr Hyde", 1886, a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson in which a doctor changes completely into a murderous criminal after he did some experiments in his laboratory (it resembles the experiments of Doctor Frankenstein with electricity in a dead body). At the end of the nineteenth century "Dracula" was published by the Scottish author Bram Stoker which is one of the most noteworthy (notable) gothic novels and more novels about vampires followed during the twentieth century such as "The Vampire Chronicles" by Anne Rice which were worldly renown especially "Interview with the Vampire" and "Lestat the vampire". Besides, the gothic romanticism of "Jamaica´s Inn" ,"Rebecca" (1938) and "My Cousin Rachel" (1951) by Daphne Du Maurier  have added interest in dark romance and traditional Gothic themes till nowadays. At present we have got authors such as Joyce Carol Oates new gothic with her American Gothic Saga ("Bellefleur", "Black Water", "Blaelsmoor", etc.) which resembles William Faulkner, Gabriel García Márquez, Virginia Woolf, Stephen King and Isabel Allende.