In other words, Reeve set out to take Walpole's plot and adapt it to the demands of the time by balancing fantastic elements with 18th-century realism. "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design to unite the most attractive and interesting circumstances of the ancient Romance and modern Novel, at the same time it assumes a character and manner of its own, that differs from both it is distinguished by the appellation of a Gothic Story, being a picture of Gothic times and manners." Apart from typographical errors, the revision was trifling. It was first published under this title in 1778, although it had anonymously appeared in 1777 under its original name of The Champion of Virtue, before Samuel Richardson's daughter, Mrs Bridgen, had edited it for her. The Old English Baron is an early Gothic novel by the English author Clara Reeve. Frontispiece illustration to the 1778 edition
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