Its 19th-century success peaked with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and work by E. The common 'pleasures' were the sublime, which indescribably 'takes us beyond ourselves.' Such extreme Romanticism was popular throughout Europe, especially among English and German-language authors. It tends to stress emotion and a pleasurable terror that expands the Romantic literature of the time. Early contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. It is said to derive from the English author Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled 'A Gothic Story'. Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a genre of literature and film that covers horror, death and at times romance.
