Clara Reeve (23 January 1729 – 3 December 1807) was an English novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1778). She also wrote an innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785). Her first work was a translation from Latin, at the time a language unusual for a woman to learn. She was a near-contemporary of the bluestockings ladies of Elizabeth Montague's circle.
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Clara Reeve in the context of Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance-era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative term meaning medieval and barbaric, which itself originated from Gothic architecture and in turn the Goths.
The first work to be labelled as Gothic was Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled A Gothic Story. Subsequent 18th-century contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, and Matthew Lewis. The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century, with Romantic works by poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron. Novelists such as Mary Shelley, Charles Maturin, Walter Scott, and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon Gothic motifs in their works as well.
Clara Reeve in the context of The Old English Baron
The Old English Baron is an early Gothic novel by the English author Clara Reeve. It was first published under this title in 1778, although it had anonymously appeared in May 1777 under its original name of The Champion of Virtue, before Samuel Richardson's daughter, Mrs Bridgen, had edited it for her. The revised edition was mostly the same as the original and corrected typographical errors.